Ford leaned against his pickup, looking every inch the cowboy he had in his blood. His plaid flannel shirt was tuckedinto faded jeans, and he capped the look off with boots and an old cowboy hat. The man was unfairly attractive.
His arms were folded, his face shadowed, but when he saw us, he straightened. For a moment, he just stood there, like he was working up the nerve to move. Then he took a single, careful step forward.
Noah squirmed in my arms, legs kicking with excitement. “Ford!” he yelled again, loud enough to scatter a flock of starlings from the utility wires overhead.
Ford smiled. It was a small thing, and tired, but it was real. Relief flickered across his face, and I felt something inside me snap back into place, like a bone that had been out of joint all day.
We crossed the lot, the three of us converging in the middle.
Ford ducked his head, cleared his throat. “Hey, Noah,” he said, voice rough but soft.
Noah grinned. “Hi, Ford! Can I ride in your monster truck?”
Ford gestured at the pickup. “Sure can. Maybe you can help me drive it someday.”
Noah wiggled with glee, and I set him down, letting him scamper around the front tire. Ford watched him, then looked at me.
For a second, neither of us said anything. The sunset painted his face in gold and shadow, and he looked older than I remembered. But he also looked like himself.
“Sorry,” he said, finally. “I should’ve called.”
I shook my head. “You don’t have to explain.”
He nodded, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Still should’ve.”
Noah clambered up onto the running board, peeking through the window at the dashboard.
Ford smiled. “Can I cook you dinner?” he asked. “Or we can just drive for a while. I don’t care. I just . . . I wanted to see you.”
I looked at him, at the lines under his eyes and the way he still shifted from foot to foot when he was nervous.
“I’d like that,” I said.
He stepped forward, close enough that I could smell the hint of cedar and soap and something that was just him.
“I missed you,” he said, so quietly I almost didn’t catch it.
I missed you too, I wanted to say. Instead, I just reached out and took his hand in mine.
Seventeen
Lily
Ford’s truck ate up the miles between Main Street and Chickadee Ranch, the big tires making a low, reassuring hum on the county road. Noah was in the back, still sticky with cookie crumbs and narrating every landmark out the window as though we were on a cross-country road trip instead of ten minutes from town.
“Look! Horses!” he shrieked, nose mashed against the glass. “And cows! And another horse!”
“Kid’s got a future in animal census,” Ford said, glancing in the rearview with a lopsided grin. His voice was lighter than it had been in the parking lot, like just having Noah and me in the cab was enough to burn off a layer of whatever weight he’d been carrying.
I let my head rest against the window, letting the landscape flick past in stripes of gold stubble, sage, and the first hints of purple where the mountains caught the last sun. It was one of those perfect, brittle late-autumn evenings—cloudless and cold, the world caught between exhale and frost. I’d grown up here, but for the first time in forever, the drive didn’t feel like a march toward doom.
“Is that your ranch?” Noah pointed as we topped a low rise and a swath of battered fencing unspooled beside the road. The sign—weathered, hand-painted, slightly canted—read: Chickadee Ranch. I hadn’t seen it in years, but the font was instantly familiar. My dad used to joke that the old man who lettered it was half-blind and all drunk.
Ford turned in and the tires crunched over gravel, slow and careful. He didn’t say anything, but the tension that came off him was almost visible. I wondered if he was nervous about what we’d think, or just about seeing it through someone else’s eyes.
The house came into view—big, two-story, probably built in the fifties or sixties with a wraparound porch and faded blue siding. I remembered it from when I was a kid, driving past it, looking for signs of life, convinced it was haunted. It looked better now. Still battered, but lived-in, with the faintest smell of smoke in the air from somewhere out back.
Ford parked near the porch and came around to open my door, which was completely unnecessary but also kind of nice. Noah tumbled out of the back seat, immediately making a beeline for a patch of muddy grass and almost wiping out.
