Page 44 of Shattered Promise

But I don’t.

After a while, the barn air starts to grow thick with heat and dust, and we both drift to the open bay doors. She stands at the threshold, her back to the frame as she looks at me.

“How long are you planning to stay in Avalon Falls?”

She blinks, all the good humor melting off her face. Regret slams into me with the force of a truck.

Her shoulders hitch high and her hand ghosts over the arch of her cheekbone, right over her bruise. “Oh, uh, probablyanother week. Maybe two," she adds, but her voice is quiet, like she's not sure if she means it or if she's just searching for something to fill the silence. She looks away, out to the tree line, the green-and-gold horizon shimmering in the heat. The light catches her hair and turns it the color of late summer wheat.

"That's good," I hear myself say, even though it doesn't feel like enough. I want to ask why only two weeks. I want to ask if that's really all she needs, or if she'd stay longer if someone bothered to ask her to. But I don't. I just stand there, holding my half-empty glass, and watch the way she plays with the condensation on hers.

A bee bumbles by, slow and doped on clover, and Abby tracks it with her eyes until it dissolves into the white sunlight. When she looks back at me, her expression is unreadable.

"Why'd you move out here, Mason? For real," she says. "You could've gone anywhere, found a house closer to downtown or the suburbs of Avalon Falls. Even moved to be closer to your mom and brother."

Her question doesn't sound like an accusation, but it lands like one anyway. I take a slow pull of lemonade. The honey cuts the sharpness, leaves it round and sweet on my tongue. I glance down at my boots, then out at the field, at the shimmer of heat on the horizon that looks less like a mirage and more like a promise.

Because the truth is ugly in its simplicity, and it’s not the kind of thing you say out loud, not even to yourself. I could have found a house in town. I could have moved one town over in Rosewood, or gone east, or any other place where my name wasn’t synonymous with Carter. But I didn’t. I bought an old ranch on too much land and built a life on it because I needed something to tether me. Something that wouldn’t walk away.

“I like it here.”

She drums her fingers along her glass and keeps her gaze on the horizon. “I like it here too.”

She pushes off the doorframe and heads inside, leaving me to think about her admission for the rest of the day.

18

ABBY

It’s a slow Saturday morning,the kind of start that’s so lazy and gentle, it feels like a deliberate rebellion against my normal day. I’m barefoot on the porch, wrapped in a sweatshirt-soft tee that falls to mid-thigh and a pair of cotton sleep shorts that have seen better days. My thick socks are pulled up to my calves, which feels silly considering we're rapidly approaching summer, but the floors in this place are no joke before noon, and I learned that lesson on day one.

The last of my canned espresso sits sweating in my hand, half-empty and already going warm, but I sip it anyway. I’m not ready to go inside. Not yet.

My phone is facedown on the coffee table inside. I’m pretending not to care about my unread work emails, or how long it’s going to take me to catch up at work, or the unanswered texts from Beth asking if I want to play at The Blue Door, or the pool of anxiety that somehow keeps growing the longer I try to ignore everything.

The breeze is gentle, curling through the trees and setting off the wind chime I found shoved in the back of the linen closet afew days ago. I hung it on a hook by the porch beam, and now it sings with every gust like it’s the cabin's soundtrack.

When I inherited the cabin, I kept the same property management company Nana Jo always used. At the time it felt easy, like one more thing I didn’t have to figure out. But now, sitting here with the early sun on my legs and birdsong spilling through the branches, I realize how lucky I got.

The place could’ve been falling apart. The plumbing could’ve been shot, the fridge moldy, the roof caved in. I flew across the country on a barely-formed impulse and landed in a place I hadn’t seen since I was a child.

It should’ve been a disaster. But instead—somehow—it feels like a sanctuary.

Being out here makes me feel like I’ve been let in on a secret. Like the world forgot this place existed, and I get to borrow it for a little while before anyone realizes it’s missing. It feels like waking up in the middle of a dream and realizing it’s one you don’t want to end.

I close my eyes and let the warmth sink into my skin. I’m already dreading the moment I have to go into town again. The groceries I picked up on the way in—during that pit stop turned landmine of an encounter with Jake—are hanging in there, but just barely. I’ve got maybe three more meals in me before I’m down to half a bag of pasta and two protein shakes.

At least my bruise is barely visible under a thick layer of makeup. I think the trick will be getting an Uber to come here to get me and then take me thirty minutes away to get some more groceries.

I hear it before I see anything. The unmistakable sound of a car approaching.

A minute later, Mason’s truck idles in front of my cabin. The driver’s side window is down, and Mason’s elbow hangs casually from the edge. His sunglasses hide his eyes but not the grin thattakes over his face, wide and wolfish and so at home in this morning sun it makes my chest hurt a little. In the back seat, Theo’s car seat is visible—so are his little feet kicking in the air.

“Hop in, Trouble,” Mason calls, voice warm and too awake for the hour. “Field trip.”

He waits, engine humming, like this is the most natural thing in the world—showing up without warning and expecting you to follow. I can’t help it, I laugh.

“Does this sort of thing normally work for you?” I call out, draining the last of my now-lukewarm coffee.

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