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“Meg?”
“We need brushes. For all the fiddly bits.”
Nash grinned. God, she really did love it when he grinned like that.
“Yes,” he said. “We do.”
“I can’t see any of those pole extenders, so you’re going to have to paint all the tall parts…”
“You’re still anxious,” Nash said, cutting her off and sounding worried. Meg shrugged but didn’t deny it.
“Being back is kind of terrifying, and it also feels like I wish I’d never left. I think that’s the worst of it… wondering what would have happened if I’d stayed here.”
It was a hard thing to admit — that you might have made the wrong choice. Despite their rocky start, being on the ranch with Nash had been the most relaxed Meg had been in who knew how long. And the idea of a break… When was the last time she’d had a break from anything? It was mildly alarming that she couldn’t think of a single example.
Nash just nodded, calm as ever, as if he knew that was what she needed. Just to be heard.
“Well, there’s no way to change what’s already happened,” he said, sounding as if he wished he could change some stuff too. “All you can do is keep going, you know? Try and make choices a little better in the future. That’s all.”
Meg should probably say something profound in return, but this conversation was a little too intense to be having in the paint aisle of a hardware store.
“You read self-help books, don’t you?” she said, desperate to break the tension. “You’re one of those people, aren’t you?”
Nash screwed up his nose. “No,” he said. “Have you ever seen me read a book, ever?”
“No, but I never thought I’d see you on the back of a horse, either, but here we are.”
“I don’t read self-help books,” he sniffed, pushing the cart along.
“Ah-huh.”
“I listen to them on an app.”
“I knew it.”
“Whatever. It’s different.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”
The bickering felt comfortable and familiar, like an old blanket that was a little scratchy but was so warm that it didn’t matter. The tension in Meg’s body eased.
They got to the paint mixing station in the middle of the store, one of the tinny speakers directly overhead and a little too loud to be comfortable. The guy standing behind the counter looked familiar, but at this point Meg wasn’t sure if she actually knew him or if all this déjà vu was messing with her head.
“Mike,” Nash said in greeting. That locked into place who the guy was. Mike Salanger. She’d had history and English classes with him, though they’d never had much to do with each other. He was balding early, his hairline making a retreat from his forehead, and the red polo shirt he wore as a uniform was too big for him. Mike was staring at her, not blinking, like he was trying to figure out a puzzle.
“You remember Meg?” Nash said, handing him the paint color they wanted to get.
“Meg Whitmore?” Mike asked, still staring at her like she was some sort of animal that had been thought extinct.
“The one and only,” Meg said, making a sad attempt at humor because, frankly, Mike was making her kind of uncomfortable. She was used to other farmers throwing insults around, being loud, and being stupid in a million different ways. All of that was kind of a rite of passage, their own way of communicating and including her by making her one of the boys. But Mike was juststaring. She thought she was just being paranoid, a little too sensitive maybe, until Nash stepped in front of her. He must have noticed too. Mike finally stopped staring, looking like he’d snapped back to reality. Meg felt safer with Nash standing slightly in front of her, his wide shoulders acting like a wall she could hide behind.
This is stupid. She’d gotten so anxious and wound up about this trip into town that she was spinning out from the tiniest things.
“What’re you doing here?” Mike asked.
“What?” Nash said, and his voice was a little harsher than it had been during their bickering. A little louder. A little deeper.
“Uh, just wondering what you’re doing back here, Meg?”