Page 75 of Finding Gideon
Mine.
Dr. Malcolm Jones is mine.
The sunlight on his fingers—mine. The faint taste of apple juice still on his lips—mine. His voice in the dark, low and thoughtful—mine. His laugh when I said something stupid, theone that cracked through whatever weight he was carrying—mine.
Every piece of him. Every glance, every touch, every quiet thing he let me have—mine.
And the thought of someone like him belonging to me? That was enough to make my chest ache in the best way.
I glanced sideways. Malcolm’s eyes were closed, head tilted slightly like he was listening to the trees. Or maybe to his own thoughts. The corners of his mouth curved up, just a little. That half-smile that made something in my chest ache in the best way.
“I like you like this,” I murmured, not even sure if he could hear me. “Peaceful. Happy.”
His eyes opened a crack. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I turned a little, shoulder bumping his. “And I really like being yours.”
He looked at me fully now, something tender and a little unsure in his expression.
“I mean it,” I said. “Yours.”
A beat passed. Then his hand found mine.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t have to.
Apples rustled in brown paper bags as we pulled into town.
At the orchard, the staff had weighed our haul and packed it into grocery bags, but Malcolm had bigger plans. Back at his place, he pulled out his stash of smaller brown sacks and twine—because of course he had those. With his neat knots and careful folds, the fruit looked less like groceries and more like little parcels waiting for a doorstep.
We piled the gift bags into a laundry basket, Malcolm insisting it was the easiest way to carry everything at once. We started out on foot. “The truck will be too much of a production for what we’re doing. It’s not a parade,” Malcolm’d said, though part of me kind of liked the idea of waving from the back of the truck like some harvest prince.
Maybe it wasn’t glamorous, but it worked—and the sight of him lugging the basket down the sidewalk made me grin like an idiot. Not just any idiot—his idiot.
Now, side by side, we took the narrow sidewalk past yards full of overgrown hydrangeas and porch swings that creaked even when no one sat in them.
“First stop?” I asked, glancing his way.
“Evelyn,” he said with a sigh, already bracing for it. "Might as well get the queen of small-town intel out of the way."
She lived in a sunny corner house where wind chimes sang in the breeze and the yard was a patchwork of weathered lawn ornaments.
Evelyn opened the door before we even made it up the last step, like she’d been keeping watch from the front window.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite vet and his… assistant?” Her eyes flicked between us, sharp and amused, already filing something away for later.
“Afternoon, Evelyn,” Malcolm said, holding up the sack. “Brought you something.”
She zeroed in on it like a hawk spotting a field mouse. “That better not be store-bought.”
“Fresh from an orchard a few towns over,” he said.
Her coral lipstick curled into a satisfied smile. “Mm. Thought so. You’re both a little too dusty for the farmer’s market.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Guess that’s a compliment?”
“From me, it is,” she said, stepping aside to let us in. “Set them on the table before you bruise them. And Gideon—” Sheturned her gaze on me, the same assessing once-over she’d given me at the clinic, like she was cataloguing details for later gossip. “Still standing straight, still polite, still not giving me any reason to warn Malcolm about you. I’m disappointed.”
