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“No. We had a disagreement. But that doesn’t mean we’re in a fight.”

“My brother doesn’t love me.” She looked at him and wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry. This is just kind of a whole list of all the things about me that are sad. My brother, Chip—”

“Chip and Bix?”

“You’d think they charged by the syllable for baby names, I know.” Bix rolled her eyes. “He is honestly the biggest asshole. And I think he always resented me. And was angry that my dad took me in. We havedifferent moms. And he’s thirteen years older than me. One time we went into the woods to check on one of my dad’s stills, and he left me there. And I mean, he didn’t leave me by the still, he tried to get me good and lost so I couldn’t find my way back.”

“What?”

“Yeah. That was the first time I really knew... that I was on my own.” She shook her head. “But the thing is, I never have been. Not really. Because sometimes there are old ladies who give you the extra twenty dollars out of their purse. And then sometimes there are policeman cowboys who find you in the middle of the woods and give you a whole new life.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes dewy. “I’m never going to be able to pay you back.”

And that right there was the reason. It wasn’t underestimating her; it wasn’t not giving her credit. It was that as long as she felt like she owed him, he could never make a move on her. Because he would never, ever treat her like that. He would never be one of those men who acted like a woman’s body was a collection against a debt. Even if it wouldn’t be that for him, if she felt even slightly coerced he...

He could never do that.

“I don’t need you to pay me back.”

“And I come back towhy.”

“Atonement. Is that the answer that you need?”

She looked hurt. She turned and looked at the river, and then her fishing pole jerked. She pulled back on it sharply. “Fish on,” she said. And she spent the next couple of minutes reeling in the fish. Not long after hecaught one of his own, and when they had five on a string, they walked back to the house together.

He had hurt her feelings. And he didn’t have answers to much of anything. So that had been a productive trip.

At least there was fish.

Bix was efficiently cleaning fish at Daughtry’s kitchen sink while he warmed up the pan, and she was trying to process why she was irritated with the conversation they just had.

Why she felt prickly.

It had felt, for a minute, like they were getting closer, and she had valued that. Especially after what happened last night. She had been mean. Which was completely ridiculous and uncalled-for when he was being so nice.

But then...

Atonement.

Why was she even mad about that? She had always known that was why he was doing it. He hadtortured do-gooderwritten all over him.

“Fish,” he said.

“Here you go,” she said, giving him the cleaned trout.

He fried them up in the pan with butter, and they ate them with rice and salad. He had a beer. She had a Coke.

“I’m sorry about what I said last night,” she said. She was trying to decide if she was being nice or provocative. She wasn’t really sure which.

Because sometimes it was hard for her to say exactly what she was doing. She just wasn’t experienced enough with people. With friendship. With men.

And he was all of those things. He was people, in the general sense.

He was a friend, kind of.

And he was definitely a man. A man that she was attracted to.

“Which thing?”

“Well. I feel that it was unladylike of me to bring up that I saw the condoms in your bedside drawer. I also feel like it was a bit churlish of me to say that I thought you were sexless.”