I'm Done Being the Family Joke novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: No Flame on the Property

Della's POV

Cal didn't speak to me the whole next day.

He left a bucket of grain at the paddock gate and a note on the tack barn door that said the vet was coming for the black at four.

When the vet came, he stood on the far side of the horse and talked to her, and only her.

I told myself it was regret.

He had kissed the girl who burned his barn, and he had woken up sorry.

I started the old rancher's colt in the round pen that afternoon.

I did it well, because it was the one thing that day I could do right.

By night the temperature had dropped to twelve below.

The loft had a cast iron stove in the corner, and I had never touched it.

I lay under every blanket in the room with my coat on, listening to the nails in the roof crack in the cold.

At ten there was a knock.

Cal stood on the landing with an armload of split wood and a box of kindling.

He didn't look at my face.

"Dad's asleep," he said. "I can't have you freezing up here. The pipes in the tack barn will go before you do."

"You said no flame."

"I know what I said."

He came in, crouched at the stove and opened the door.

He crumpled paper into it and laid the kindling over it.

Then he took a box of matches out of his coat pocket and struck one.

The little flame stood up in his fingers.

He held it there a moment longer than he needed to, looking at it, and then he put it to the paper.

"That's the first fire I've lit on this land in eight years," he said.

I sat up on the bed.

"Cal."

"I haven't forgotten the barn." He fed in a split log. "I don't think I will. But I've been standing in my kitchen for two days trying to hate you, and I can't make it hold."

The stove ticked and caught.

Orange light spread over the floorboards and up the wall.

← Chapter 9 · All chapters · Chapter 11 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend