“Quiet sad. She says she’s fine and then stares out the window for a long time.” A pause. “I think it’s about her hat.”
“The one the chicken ruined?”
“Yeah. went out to Dad’s workshop and stayed a long time. When she came back inside, she looked like she’d been crying.”
He kept his gaze on the road and considered his response. Kids noticed everything. They might not understand all of it, but they cataloged it with a ruthless accuracy that most adults had trained themselves out of.
“Sometimes people are sad about things they can’t fix,” he said. “Doesn’t mean they’re not okay. It just means they’re carrying something heavy and they need time with it.”
Makayla considered this. “What do you do when you’re sad?”
The unexpected question crashed into him like a rock thrown through a window. He didn’t have a smooth answer ready, which was how he knew it was a good question.
“Pretend I’m not sad. Your mom’s approach is probably healthier.”
“You should come have dinner with us. Mom made chicken and dumplings last weekend and it was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. She used Granny Fern’s recipe. She’s been cooking more. Real food, not just pasta. I think the farm is changing her.”
“I think the farm is changing both of you.”
He said it before he could think better of it, but Makayla beamed at him with such happiness he couldn’t regret it.
He dropped her at the farm and spied Tessa through the kitchen window. She was on the phone, pacing, gesturing with one hand the way she did when she was arguing a point, but she stopped long enough to wave at him. He waved back and headed for Carver’s Western Wear Store on Main Street in Cobbler Cove.
Dillon had been there exactly twice—once for a new belt and once for a pair of work gloves—and both times he’d gotten in and out in under five minutes, which was exactly how long he could usually stand shopping.
Today he stood in front of the hat display for eleven minutes. He knew because he checked his watch twice and was disgusted with himself both times.
The hats were arranged on a wooden rack by style and color. Cattleman’s crowns, pinch fronts, ranch hats, and a few dressier options for church and the county fair. Most were tan, brown, or black.
He found what he was looking for tucked in the back on the top shelf. Wide-brimmed, Western-cut, with a cattleman’s crown instead of a fedora’s teardrop—but the felt was dove gray, with a satin lining and a simple leather band.
It was close enough to the hat she’d described that she would know he’d been paying attention, and different enough that it wasn’t pretending to be an exact replica. A new hat for a new life.
He put the bag on the passenger seat of his truck and sat there for a moment, keys in the ignition, engine off.
He could take it back. Tell Gail he’d changed his mind. Leave the hat on the shelf and not think about the way Tessa had typed, My husband bought it for me but really meant I lost something precious I can’t get back.
He started the truck and drove to the farm.
The plan was simple. Leave the hat on the porch. Drive away. No conversation. No moment. Just a hat in a bag with maybe a note that said something like Figured you needed one. Clean, quick, uninvolved.
It was a good plan.
At least it was until he pulled up to the farmhouse and Tessa was on the porch. She was sitting in the old wicker chair she’d been hauling around the house like a portable office—phone in one hand, a mug in the other, Hamlet at her feet. She’d changed out of her nice work clothes that Loretta hadn’t eaten. She wore jeans and what he assumed was one of Mick’s old flannels with the sleeves rolled up. Her hair was down, which was unusual, and the sunlight painted her brunette locks in random streaks of red and gold.
She looked up when his truck pulled in and her expression cycled through surprise, pleasure which she covered quickly, and then the composed, faintly amused face she wore like armor.
“Did you forget something?” she called to him as he got out of the truck
He grabbed the bag and walked up the porch steps and tried to remember a single one of the casual, offhand things he’d rehearsed saying during the drive from town. None of them surfaced. His brain, usually reliable in emergencies, chose this moment to present him with absolutely nothing.
He held out the bag. “I got you something.”
Smooth, Dillon. Devastatingly smooth.
She set down her mug and took the bag with cautious curiosity. She opened it, reached inside, and went very still.
She pulled out the hat and turned it slowly, her fingers running along the brim, the leather band, the satin lining. She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and he watched her throat move as she swallowed.