Noah
“Morning, Noah.”
“Jenna,” I greet, plunking my handful of groceries onto the conveyor belt at the front of the store. “How’re you?”
“Just fine, thanks. You see the buttercups blooming down the road? Spring is here.”
“Sure is,” I agree, pulling out my wallet as Jenna rings up a package of bacon, followed by a bag of all-purpose flour.
“Get your bike out yet?” she asks.
I give a brisk nod. With the snow having melted in town apart from a few parking lot drifts here and there, today was Daphne’s first trip out. It always feels good, the first ride of the season. Like stretching my legs or, hell, a long-needed orgasm.
Speaking of…
“You still haven’t taken me for a ride,” Jenna says, tone switching from conversational to…decidedly not.
“I’m much too old for you, Jenna.”
It’s a point I’ve argued more than once, although it hasn’t stopped Jenna’s flirting.
She looks me up and down. Slowly. “You’re kidding, right?”
“You’re, what—twenty-five?”
“Twenty-six,” she corrects.
“Which makes me twelve years your senior.”
“Honey, there ain’t nothing senior about you.”
I shake my head, putting my wallet back in my pocket as the machine spits out a receipt. “The answer is no.”
“Fine,” she says breezily, handing my shopping bag over. “Enjoy your day.”
I tip my head in a nod before exiting Plum’s Grocers, bag in hand. It’s not that I find Jenna unattractive, but my days of casually fooling around are long behind me. At thirty-eight, very little appeals to me about a romp in the sheets that results in the space next to me turning cold within minutes. And considering I know Jenna flirts with just about any age-appropriate—or possibly inappropriate—guy around, I highly doubt it’s me she wants. Just a good time.
And I can appreciate that. Find it flattering, even.
Doesn’t mean I’m interested.
Although I sure haven’t put much effort into settling down, have I? I’m not even sure I want that. Not sure what I want, truth be told.
My thoughts come to an abrupt halt as I spot a face I’d recognize anywhere, the man himself strutting my way across the parking lot. Well, not directly my way, but walking toward the front of the grocery store I just left, smiling at the ground in that way he does. Always smiling. Always so damn happy for no conceivable reason.
Except…
Yep . There it is. Colton goddamn Darling lifts his dark head of hair, locks eyes with me, and scowls. Just like that.
I’d laugh if it wasn’t so utterly maddening.
He doesn’t say a word. Neither do I. The golden boy of Darling, Montana glares me down with ice-blue eyes until he’s past, his boots plodding heavily against the asphalt.
I continue on toward Daphne, my motorcycle shining bright red in the midmorning light. With a little more force than necessary, I open up the saddlebags behind the seat and transfer my groceries inside.
Always found the name saddlebags a little ironic, considering my profession. Though I suppose Daphne does have plenty of horsepower of her own.
Zipping up the bags, I grab my helmet, mount my bike, and pull out of the parking lot. The house I share with my uncle isn’t all that far from the center of town, just an eight-minute drive down paved roads. I spot the field of buttercups Jenna mentioned on my way, as well as a few other early season wildflowers starting to poke through the soil and still-brown grasses. The mountains, of course, sit high and wide in the distance, orange dancing off their peaks from the sun.
I slow as I turn onto the road where I live, pulling into my driveway not long after and cutting the engine. We have neighbors on both sides, but the houses aren’t close together, affording privacy I appreciate. I’ll need to do some upkeep on the property soon, now that the temperatures are on the upswing. But, for today, I grab the groceries and head inside to make a rather late breakfast.
I can hear my uncle getting a start on his day as I settle inside the kitchen, turning the burner on and placing a cast-iron skillet overtop. I lay down the strips of bacon I bought before pulling eggs out of the fridge.
“Morning,” comes my uncle’s voice less than a minute later.
“Smell of bacon get you moving?” I joke.
He snorts, using his walker to navigate over to the coffeemaker. The pot finishes spitting the last of the brew, and my uncle pours a cup into his favorite chipped mug. “If anything could get me moving, it’d be bacon, that’s for sure.”
He takes a seat at the kitchen table, maneuvering gingerly in a way that causes my chest to pinch. My uncle isn’t a young man. Seventy-six now, although his scoliosis and arthritis are contributing factors to his lack of mobility. He likes to pretend it doesn’t bother him, when I know it does. Even so, I give him a smile, not letting my own concern show.
“Didn’t expect to see you here this morning,” he goes on, smoothing out the newspaper I brought in on my way inside. “You should be out enjoying your weekend.”
“That so?” I ask, flipping the bacon in the skillet to an accompanying sizzle. “And what sort of wild fun do you think I should be getting up to at eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning?”
He snorts, even as he shakes his head. “A date, how about? You haven’t had one of those in a while.”
I set down my tongs and turn to face my uncle. “Walter. Don’t you tell me you’re gonna start meddling in my love life now. You said you never would.”
“I know, I know,” he says, waving me off. “I’m not meddling . Just an observation.”
“Mhm. Maybe next time, observe in silence.”
He laughs, a hearty, booming thing. My uncle may be weaker than he once was, but his strength of spirit is as strong as ever. As is his sass. “With charm like that, I can’t believe you don’t have dates lined up down the block.”
I shake my head and turn back to the stove, my lips twitching. “I’ll have you know I got asked out just this morning.”
Well…more like I got asked to take Jenna for a ride . But I don’t think my uncle needs to hear those specifics.
“So what are you doing here?” he asks.
“Guess I just prefer your company more.”
He mutters something about charming, indeed , but what I said isn’t a lie. I love my uncle dearly. He’s the closest thing I have to a parent, considering my own passed away when I was seventeen. Walter took me in all those years ago, no questions asked.
I don’t know where I’d be without him. Certainly not here, in Darling, Montana.
“Wanna play some chess after breakfast?” I ask, dumping the bowl of whipped eggs into a pan to cook.
“When have I ever said no to chess?”
“Well, just last week,” I remind him. “When I was on a winning streak, and you kept losing and losing and—”
“All right,” he cuts in, slicing a hand through the air in a dismissive gesture. “No need to dredge up the past.”
I snort, folding the eggs with a spatula before flipping the bacon again. I ready a plate with a paper towel to dry the grease off.
“Noah,” my uncle says seriously, his tone of voice enough to have my focus shifting fully. “You don’t have to be here.”
“Walt…”
“I’m serious. You’ve got your own life to live, kiddo. You don’t gotta stick around with my sorry ass out of some misguided sense of—”
“I’m not leaving,” I tell him firmly. “This, right here, is where I wanna be. End of discussion.”
“Stubborn boy,” my uncle mutters, although he sounds fond.
“Learned from the best,” I shoot back, pulling the bacon off the skillet and laying it on the paper towel, piece by piece.
“Yeah, well, my brother sure knew how to dig his heels in when he wanted something accomplished,” Walter says. “Remember that shed he built for your ma? Thing was crooked as could be, but he finished it all by himself. Picked up the pieces by himself, too, when it fell down not a year later. Your father had many talents, but carpentry was not one of ’em.”
Memories of that bright green garden shed ping around in my chest, both aching and sweetly familiar. I clear my throat before looking back at my uncle.
“I was talking about you, Walt.”
“What?” he asks, jerking enough to unintentionally flip a page in his newspaper. “Kid, you were fully grown by the time you came here. Only thing I taught you was the right way to cook eggs. You’re not burning those, by the way, are you?”
I shake my head, keeping my laughter to myself as I pull the pan of eggs off the heat. For all the ways in which Walter took up the mantle when I needed him most, he still can’t fathom the effect he had on me.
Maybe one day I’ll get it through his head.
“Oh boy,” he says mildly, slapping his newspaper shut.
“What is it?”
“Nothing whatsoever,” my uncle lies, taking a sip from his nearly empty coffee mug.
I set his plate down in front of him, steam wafting up from the eggs. “Mhm. Try again.”
“Nothing you needa see.”
I let out a sigh, retrieving the ketchup from the fridge for my uncle before snagging the paper from underneath his palm.
“I warned ya,” he says.
Flipping the paper open, I find the local advertisements. Fucking knew it.
“New client special. First shoeing is free! You and your horse will appreciate the Darling touch. Call today.”
“Colton goddamn Darling,” I mutter, shoving the newspaper closed. “First shoeing for free . Fuck.”
My uncle winces, not even needing to vocalize his thoughts. That’s going to cost me clients.
“It’s just business,” he says, doing his best to soothe my rattled nerves.
I shake my head, tossing the paper in the recycling bin. “He’s got plenty of business. This is personal. It’s always personal with him.”
My uncle holds his tongue until I’ve sat down beside him, my own plate in front of me. “You could always head back to Lincoln. There are plenty of farms and cattle ranches down there in need of a good farrier.”
“We’ve got farms and cattle ranches here. I’m not leaving.”
He shrugs, and I shovel a bite of eggs into my mouth, my thoughts stuck on the man who’s gone out of his way to make sure I feel unwelcome here in Darling. Well, he should damn well know by now he’s not going to run me off.
Colton Darling may have been born in this town. He may have the perfect Darling name backing his reputation. But I won’t be coerced into leaving the only family I have left by a pompous man-child who wouldn’t know a balanced shoe if it hit him upside the head.
I’ll figure out a way to put Colton in his rightful place one of these days. To reveal the golden boy for the uncaring, selfish ass he is.
This town, it’s my home.
And I’ll fight to keep it.