Page 5

I look at the slow cooker.

"Your chili smells incredible," she says.

"It's not done yet."

"When's it done?"

"About an hour."

"Can I wait?"

No is what I want to say. No, you cannot wait. You can borrow the flannel, walk to your car, drive back to wherever you came from, and return the flannel at your earliest convenience, which will be never, because women who show up on your property wearing flowers and climbing your crates do not give things back.

"Fine," I say.

She smiles. Full mouth, bright eyes, the whole thing lighting up her face. Something shifts low in my gut, sudden enough that I turn away from it and open the fridge.

"You want water?"

"Please."

A glass from the cabinet. Water from the tap. My well water's clean, cold, comes off the ridge. Hands it to her, fingers not touching, because I'm not about to make contact with this woman's skin again. Not after the way she landed against my chest in the pumpkin patch, her palm on my arm, her shoulder warm through the thermal, close enough that I could see the gold in her eyes.

Hazel. Her eyes are hazel. Brown with gold, different from mine but close enough to notice.

I sit across from her.

"So," she says. "I'm Poppy."

"I know."

Her eyebrows go up. "How?"

"Your mom texted you. Screen was facing up when you were on the ground."

"You read my texts?"

"Didn't have to read them. Your mom uses a large font."

That earns another smile. Wider this time. She's got laugh lines she hasn't earned yet, or maybe she has. I don't know anything about her except that she breaks things and doesn't apologize for it enough.

"What's your name?" she asks.

"Deck."

"Deck?"

"Connors."

"Deck Connors." She says it like she's tasting it. Rolling it around. Deciding whether she likes the flavor. "Is Deck short for something?"

"No."

"Your parents just named you Deck."

"My parents named me what they named me."

She waits for more. Doesn't get it. Takes a sip of water, eyes still on me, and leans back in the chair. The flannel falls open at her throat. Just an inch. Brown skin, collarbone, the edge of that ruined floral dress underneath.