guys’ hiking trip to the White Mountains, where they summit three of the Presidentials in the span of four days.
Guess who has to milk the cows while they’re gone? This girl. It’s Chastity and me in the barn at the crack of dawn for four days straight. She’s ridiculously cheerful at seven in the morning. A year ago she was worried about starting college and worried about finding her place in the world.
But now Chastity behaves like she’s found a secret trove of happy pills, and won’t share. She’s living her dream, planning her future with my brother and so in love that she might as well be skipping through a field of daisies at sunset.
Meanwhile, the second-floor hallway is way too quiet for my taste. The weather has finally cooled off, but I haven’t. I lie in bed every night listening to the crickets chirp, and feeling lonely.
Is it crazy to miss somebody that I thought I wanted gone? I spend a lot of time remembering the view of those gray eyes as he kissed me in bed. Like I was a precious gift to hold and explore. Sometimes I catch myself smiling so hard that I roll my face into the pillow and sigh.
The pull I feel toward him is uncomfortable for me. Whenever I feel this way, it usually ends in disaster.
“Come on, Daphne,” Violet had said before she left. “Rickie seems great. And they can’t all be like Reardon.” That didn’t sway me very much, because my data set is still small.
But then she’d said something else that got to me. "If you don’t take a chance, then Reardon wins."
And that’s true. I can’t let Reardon Halsey have a lasting effect on every part of my life. He may ultimately ruin every professional ambition I have, and that’s on me. I will pay for my mistakes.
But I won’t pay for his. And if Reardon is the last man I ever make myself vulnerable for, that would be horrible, right? The man outmaneuvered me for now. He can take my job, but he can’t take my happiness.
I won’t let him.
In theory, anyway. My bold decision has me flopping around in bed, and not even the cool Vermont air blowing in through the window can cool my heated, yearning skin.
Rickie and my brother drive back on Tuesday night. They roll up at sundown in Dylan’s truck, while I’m in the kitchen with Mom, prepping tomorrow’s meals.
My heart leaps as soon as I hear their voices outside. And it takes tremendous effort to keep on peeling carrots when I’d rather run for the door, the way Chastity is doing right now.
"Hey! We’re in the middle of a game, here," Grandpa complains from the dining room.
"You’re winning anyway," she says, laughing. Then she plants a kiss on Dylan the minute he appears in the kitchen doorway.
"Greetings!" he calls out after kissing her hello. "We are filthy dirty and Rickie got himself a sunburn. But we smashed all three peaks."
"Congratulations," my mother says, wiping her hands on her apron. "Did you have dinner?"
"You bet we did. We’d better take turns in the outdoor shower. It’s that bad. But then I’ll come back in and take care of this laundry." He drops a bag in the mudroom. "But you come with me, lady." He takes Chastity’s hand, and they disappear outside.
Rickie doesn’t enter the house at all. I have half a mind to run after him for my own kiss hello. Or—let’s be honest—a glimpse of his naked body in the outdoor shower by the bunkhouse.
But I play it cool, and I wait.
Guess what? Playing it cool is the pits. Rickie doesn’t knock on my door at all on Tuesday night. I don’t even get a glimpse of him until Wednesday morning at breakfast, where I’m hovering in the kitchen making pancakes and watching the stairs like a stalker for his appearance.
When he finally shows his face, the first thing I notice is that his sunburn is already fading to a golden tan. But the second thing I notice is the way he avoids my gaze.
"Morning," he says, his voice subdued. "How’ve you been?" His eyes are elsewhere.
"Fine," I reply, but my heart drops. I pour him a mug of coffee, but then I force him to look at me when I hand it over. And I brace myself to see regret or disinterest on his face. Why else would he be avoiding me if there were no second thoughts about our