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"For the record, your cider is as good as your chili."

Then she's gone. Boots on gravel. Car door. Engine. Taillights down the road.

I stand in the barn with my hands on the cider press where her hands were, juice dripping into the basin, the taste of her still on my mouth.

My phone buzzes.

Hilda:

How'd the photography go today? Carol says your lady friend made empanadas at 6am. If a woman makes you food at 6am Deck Connors you better be smart about what that means.

I don't answer. I know what it means. That's the whole problem.

CHAPTER FIVE

POPPY

Tuesday, I came back. We worked the squash rows. He didn't kiss me. Didn't touch me. Barely looked at me. But when I left, the flannel was in my car again, folded on the seat. No apple this time. A jar of cider instead.

Wednesday, I came back. We pressed more apples. He stood behind me at the crank again, and this time when his chin brushed my temple, I turned my head. His mouth landed on my cheekbone. Not a kiss. Not nothing, either. He pulled away, walked out of the barn, and didn't speak to me for an hour. Then he asked me to stay for dinner. I stayed.

Thursday, it rains.

Not the polite drizzle that Portland pretends is weather. Montana rain. Heavy, straight down, cold enough to make your bones ache. The roads outside Grizzly Ridge turn to mud within an hour, and my rental car fishtails twice on the drive up to the farm before I park sideways near the barn.

The kitchen door opens before I knock.

"You drove in this?" He's standing in the doorway, thermal stretched across his chest, coffee in hand, looking at me like I've done something personally offensive by showing up.

"The light's good when it rains."

"The roads aren't."

"I made it."

"Barely. Your car's at a forty-five-degree angle."

"It's fine. I'm fine." Stepping past him into the kitchen, water drips from my jacket onto the hardwood. My boots leave muddy prints. My hair, which I spent twenty minutes trying to tame this morning, is a lost cause.

He takes my jacket without asking. Hangs it on the hook by the door. Gets a towel from the bathroom, hands it to me. Our fingers don't touch. He's being very careful about that.

"Coffee's on the stove," he says.

"Thank you."

The morning passes slowly. Too wet to work outside, so we stay in. He repairs a broken hinge on one of the kitchen cabinets. I sit at the table editing photos on my laptop, curating the best shots from the past week. The farm in morning light. The orchard at golden hour. The goat, who I've learned is named Gerald and belongs to no one. He just showed up two years ago and refused to leave.

"Gerald and I have a lot in common," I say.

"Gerald eats my fence posts."

"I only broke your crates."

That earns the mouth twitch. Progress.

By noon, the rain hasn't stopped. He makes soup. Potato, leek, heavy cream. Doesn't use a recipe, doesn't measure anything. Just chops, simmers, tastes, adjusts. Watching him cook is watching someone speak a language they learned in childhood. Effortless. Intuitive.

We eat on the couch because the table is covered in my editing setup. He sits at one end, I sit at the other. Bowl in my lap, legs tucked under me, his flannel around my shoulders because the house is drafty when it rains and he handed it to me an hour ago without a word.