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That had never been a goal of hers. Another thing that seemed desperately out of reach due to the budget of her own personal economy.

She had aimed for survival, and very little else.

But what if she could have more?

She heard Daughtry’s bedroom door open, and he came walking down the hall. He had traded the black T-shirt for a white one, white hat on his head.

“I didn’t really think cowboys were real,” she said, not meaning to say that out loud. But she had.

“And now you’re here with a whole mess of them.”

“That I am.”

She felt lightheaded as they walked out to the truck.

“What are you thinking?” he asked as they began to drive away from the house, down the dirt road that would take them to the main road.

“Just that I can’t quite believe that now I do live on a ranch with a whole bunch of cowboys, and I’m about to start heading up a beer-brewing operation. One that’s legit.”

“Shocking. I know.”

“I mean, do you?”

“Sometimes when I think about my life. When I think about what I’ve done, where I’ve been, when I think about my father, I can’t quite believe that I put on that uniform most days and go out and enforce the law, rather than my father’s terrible loan terms. So yeah. I get that.”

She didn’t think he did, though, because for her it came with a whole bunch of other feelings that shenever had before. This desire to plant roots. To stay. To get closer to the people around her rather than building a wall around her. After digging a moat around the place where the wall was meant to go.

And then there was him.

This fluttering that she felt when she looked at him, and the fascination with the condoms she knew were in his bedside table.

It was all bad. And yet it was also good.

It was like she had been a paper-doll version of a human being when he had found her. Thin and one-dimensional. Needy for food, shelter. Warmth. Not understanding that there was a fuller, deeper human experience out there.

She’d had tastes of it through reading. But it was hard to say which parts were fantasy, and which were actually obtainable. She certainly had never been able to work it all out. She was wondering about it now.

They made casual conversation about the area, the weather and brewing plans on the way to Mapleton, and when they arrived at the outdoor store which had all the supply, he got a big flat cart and pushed it through the aisles while she managed finding all of the equipment. They were an efficient team.

People stopped and talked to Daughtry, and he chatted with them easily. They knew him because he was a police officer.

She wondered if any of them knew him as his father’s son, or if this new thing that he had done had entirely replaced that image in their heads.

She was just wondering for a friend. Who was her. How long it took to be defined by your own actions, and not the reputation of a sketchy family member.

The tab for all the items left her nearly gagging, because it was more money than she’d ever had in her life. But Daughtry didn’t seem shocked by it at all. He pushed the flat cart out to the truck and lowered the bed. She rushed to bend down and pick up one of the metal bins, and he grabbed it at the same time, his hand going over the top of hers. Her eyes flew to his, the breath exiting her lungs in a sharp gasp.

His face was still. If he felt anything over the contact he didn’t show it. She jerked her hand back, and stepped away.

“How about bank account next?” he asked.

She flexed her fingers, curled them into a fist. “I still don’t know about the bank account.”

“Why not?”

“It is very traditional. Veryin the system. It kind of freaks me out.”

“Bix,” he said. “I hate to break it to you, but you are now gainfully employed. You need a bank account.”