Chapter 8: The Kitchen

I stared at the text in the dark.

Then I turned the phone face down on the nightstand and didn't answer it.

Hayes's arm was heavy over my waist, and his breathing was slow against my neck.

I lay there until the window went grey.

When I slid out of bed, he caught my wrist without opening his eyes.

"Where are you going?"

"Ashcraft," I said. "I need clothes. And Boone texted."

His eyes opened.

He looked at me for a second, and something in his face closed up very politely.

"Course," he said, and let go of my wrist. "Go on. I'll be here."

He rolled over toward the window.

I stood there in his shirt with my boots in my hand, and I felt like I'd done something wrong.

I hadn't, I told myself, and I went.

Kaylee's pink suitcases were gone from the front hall at Ashcraft.

So were the throw pillows she'd bought, and the giant canvas print of herself in a cowboy hat.

The house smelled like coffee and my mother's lemon floor polish again.

Boone was sitting at the kitchen table in yesterday's shirt with his hands around a mug.

He hadn't slept either.

Dot was across from him in her barn jacket, eating toast.

She looked up when I came in, and her eyebrows went all the way up.

"Well, good morning, harlot," she said.

"Dot."

"Whole county saw you walk up that hill, baby. The preacher's going to work it into the sermon."

"Dot," Boone said.

"I'm just saying what everybody's saying." She pushed the toast plate at me. "Eat something. You look ridden hard."

I sat down at the end of the table because my knees didn't want to hold me.

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