Page 13 of The Back Forty (Whitewood Creek Farm #5)

“Okay, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be,” Catalina says as we slide into a table at Whitewood Creek Brewery and Restaurant.

Her lips curve into a half-smile, the kind that tells me she’s not entirely sold on small town living but at least open to the idea of visiting Isla and I more often.

That’s something. Catalina’s not the type to hop a cross-country flight just for the scenery.

And while she hasn’t said it yet, I know she didn’t come all the way from California, leaving behind her demanding job at the hospital and everything she loves, just to hang out with Isla and me in the middle of our quiet, woodsy town.

She likes her life out there—where the groceries are all organic, the Wi-Fi is fast, and the sunshine doesn’t come with a side of humidity. I used to feel the same way and swore I'd always be a Cali girl. But somewhere over the last year, North Carolina got under my skin in ways I didn’t expect.

There’s something about seasons, real ones, that slows you down and makes you feel like you’re actually part of something.

The passage of time feels non-existent in California without the changes. The first time I experienced a true fall, with the trees on the Blue Ridge Mountains that surround our small town bursting into reds and oranges, it felt like I’d stepped into a postcard.

Winter came with the occasional snow that shut everything down and gave kids the gift of a surprise holiday and my first Christmas spent here I put up a tree with Isla and watched flurries from the window of her living room.

I’d never felt so grounded in a place before. And now? I’m not sure I could picture myself living anywhere else. Which is a crazy thing to think about.

“I told you,” I nudge her with my shoulder, grinning as she rolls her eyes playfully. “It’s almost... charming, wouldn’t you say?”

She glances around, taking in the rustic wood beams, Edison bulbs, and mismatched chairs that somehow work in the restaurant and brewery I've come to think of as my own personal kitchen where me and my new girlfriends have spent countless brunches over the past year catching up whenever I'm not on the road with Lawson.

“I can see how small-town life appeals to Isla,” she says, jutting her chin toward our baby sister, who’s currently making the rounds at the bar like a local celebrity—hugging people, catching up, laughing like she was born here.

That’s Isla. The golden child. The youngest, the favorite of our parents, the bookend, the one who got all the love without the pressure.

Catalina and I were built to achieve. To aim higher, work harder, carry expectations like bricks on our backs.

Isla got to grow up with space to breathe.

Maybe that’s why she chose the most relaxed path of all—working remotely as a software engineer for the city of Raleigh, but choosing to live here in Whitewood Creek, a place that she found on Instagram of all things, where she could sleep until ten and still be the most cheerful person in any room.

“Hi, I’m Alyssa, I’ll be your server today. Can I get y’all something to drink?” a chipper voice interrupts, our server appearing beside the table with a notebook and a ready smile.

“I’ll have a whiskey sour,” I say, glancing up. “And can we get an order of loaded fries and the eggs Benedict?”

She smiles, scribbling it down. “You got it.”

“Eggs Benedict? At eight o’clock at night?” Catalina arches a brow.

“It’s their thing. They use eggs from the Marshall egg farm. You’ll thank me later. They’re to die for. And the whiskey’s from the distillery. All in the family.”

She shrugs. “Alright, I’ll try it.”

We hand off our menus, and as Alyssa walks away, I catch the shift in Catalina’s expression. It’s soft, curious and just shy of suspicious.

“Well,” she says slowly, studying me, “I haven’t seen you in over a year, but this is… new.”

“What is?”

“You look happy.”

I blink. “I’ve always been happy.”

She levels me with a look. “You were always stressed. Last time I saw you, you were laid out in a hospital bed with heart monitors beeping and a nurse hovering to make sure you didn’t crash out.

So, I take it you’ve finally gotten things under control?

No more near-death episodes I’m going to be called in to monitor? ”

I laugh. “No panic attacks. I’ve cut back on coffee—er, sort of. All other caffeine is gone. I’m managing my stress the best I can.”

She narrows her eyes. “The best you can?”

I lift a shoulder. “I’ve been working hard to prove myself to Lawson and the Marshall family. And it’s paid off now that I’ve been promoted. You know how it is.”

And she does. That bone-deep, built-in drive to excel. The voice in your head that tells us nothing is ever enough. It’s in our DNA, probably coded right next to our shared intolerance for mediocrity.

But still, I’m better than I was the last time she saw me. No more heart palpitations or panic attacks, even if I keep my meds in my purse just in case. I take breaks. I breathe. I listen to my body. I have methods of coping with the stress, and I use them liberally.

“I see,” she says, and I can tell she’s not entirely convinced.

But there’s nothing to be suspicious of.

When I first moved here, it was meant to be a pause.

A breath. A soft landing after my body betrayed me and my mind couldn’t keep up.

I was supposed to stay with Isla, recover, help a small-town family business as a marketing assistant in a serious demotion, and then move on.

But then I started to like working for the Marshalls.

The rhythm of it. The way the work felt personal, the way the people remembered your name and the whole company felt like family.

I found new friends and not the superficial ones like I had back in California.

Women who didn’t feel like competition: Lydia, Molly, Regan, Rae, and Georgia.

I got promoted. I found footing. I enjoyed the travel, the need to not compete against anyone but myself.

It feels good. It feels right.

“So… your boss,” she says, swirling her drink like she’s testing the water.

My brows lift. “What about Lawson?”

Before she can answer, I pivot because I can tell where this is headed. “What’s going on with you and Sean?”

She shrugs. “We’re on a break.”

“I see.”

Sean's Catalina's long term boyfriend. A guy who's been working just as hard as her since medical school and taking a position at the same hospital where Catalina works.

He's a plastic surgeon which from what I've gathered at family holidays, might be the worst type of surgeon because they aren't just looking and assessing what might be wrong on the inside of your body, they are doing that on the outside with every person they pass.

I had one of those once, too. A boyfriend who worked in the same career as me. Someone who after hours we could trade stats and tips with and for a while, it was fun having something we bonded over.

But then I started to see the cracks. The way that it felt like I could never shut it off and just relax.

Because when I'd get back to the apartment that we shared, he'd be there, reminding me that I wasn't doing enough.

That to be a real success in the world of tech sales, you had to always be on .

Always be one step away of your competition, constantly cold calling and following up on leads.

And after my stroke, I realized he was part of my stress too. Actually, he was a major driver of it. So, I dropped him along with my job and life behind and thankfully, I haven't missed him once.

She doesn’t elaborate on what's going on between her and Sean, and I don’t push. We’ve always known when to give each other space and sometimes that's failed us as sisters because we haven't been emotionally vulnerable with each other.

After a beat, she looks at me again. “Is Lawson single?”

I wet my lips and nod, mostly because I don’t know what else to do.

My sister has just made a casual, almost throwaway comment about my boss, and for some reason, it lands like a rock in my stomach.

It shouldn’t bother me, she flirts with everyone, and Lawson flirts with no one.

At least, not around me. But still, the way she said it, the gleam in her eye, it settles wrong.

I love Catalina. She’s sharp, beautiful, successful, and just as emotionally unavailable as every man I’ve ever dated. Maybe that’s why she and Lawson would work. He’s a workaholic. She is too. On paper, they probably make perfect sense.

And sure, I’ve seen the type of women Lawson’s entertained over the last year—the ones he meets at the hotel bar and takes back to his hotel or connects with over a pitch.

Women with blowouts, blow-your-mind heels, and the kind of effortless glamour that looks good next to a man like him.

I’ve rescheduled his meetings to accommodate late-night dinners, bumped into more than one of them leaving his hotel room early in the morning with a smile and just fucked hair.

He’s never mentioned any of them to me after the fact.

Never confirmed or denied what they did the night before.

It’s just been this quiet, unspoken understanding between us that he lives his life, I live mine.

We don’t ask and we don’t tell when it comes to our sex life.

We keep things professional when we're on the clock and out of it, we're... friends and coworkers.

And maybe that’s what’s bothering me. Not that Catalina might be interested in him, but that he might respond to her advances. That she could become one more name I don’t ask about and he never thinks about again.

That he could want her instead of…

I drain my drink because I refuse to let my mind go there.

It’s not like I haven’t meant to date since moving to Whitewood Creek.

It’s been on my mental checklist all year.

Right underneath cut out coffee again and get a tattoo.

But between the constant traveling, trying to prove myself in a job I wasn’t sure I’d keep, and managing an anxiety disorder like it’s a second full-time gig—I just haven’t gotten around to it.

Maybe now’s the time. Maybe it’s time I finally carve out space for it.

For fun. For something casual. For dating apps, even.

That way I can stop these spiraling thoughts and focus on anything but my boss because I've been doing so, so damn good and I can't let this visit with my sister change that.

“Yeah,” I say, when she looks at me again. “I mean, I really don’t know what his deal is. He dates, I think. But I don’t think it’s ever anything serious. He has a teenage son and from what I gather, he isn't interested in introducing a new mom to his world.”

Catalina hums, thoughtful, and I want to ask her straight out if she’s really going to go there with him.

She’s only in town for ten more days tops, before she has to fly back to California and back into her world of structure and surgery.

I could totally see Lawson going for her pretty brown eyes, her serious mouth, that slim figure that looks like she’s still living off Ramen noodles and salads while interning.

And it wouldn’t mean anything. Not to him.

Not to her. But it’d mean something to me.

I don’t want it to. God, I don’t want it to.

Why would it matter to me?

The server drops off our drinks before I can spiral too deep, and Isla slides back into her seat across from us, still bubbling about the state fair welcome parade and the booth she's volunteered to work at this coming weekend when the fair takes place.

But I barely register a word. Because all I can hear is the rush of blood in my ears and the brutal question that keeps punching me in the ribs:

Why am I jealous? Why am I upset that Catalina finds Lawson attractive?

I shouldn’t be. I know I shouldn’t be. Any woman with eyes would find the man attractive. Maybe my sister could use a wild night with my boss.

I order another drink and dig into my food like it might fix whatever's fucked up inside of my brain because clearly something is wrong with me. My second whiskey sour goes down too fast, and the buzz in my brain hits harder than I expect.

I know I’m being ridiculous. I know that I have no right to care what Lawson does or who he does it with.

He’s my boss . The man I report to. The man who signs off on my budgets and gives me client referrals and lets me talk shit about our competitors when we’re having a casual dinner of sandwiches in the middle of a freaking airport terminal.

And that's certainly all it should ever be between us. All it can ever be.

So, if he hooks up with Catalina tonight? That would be perfect, actually. Ideal. Exactly the kind of thing I need to help shove him back into the “strictly off-limits” category. The category he never really left, but somehow wandered out of anyway for some reason I can't figure out.

I’m sure it’s the alcohol, maybe the lack of food, maybe the strangeness of having a two week stretch of time off work where I'm not glued to his hip like a good little assistant. Oh wait, I'm living with him for these next two weeks.

Well, shit.

“Excuse me for a second,” I say, pushing up from the table, wobbling just a little. “I need to talk to Regan.”

Neither of them notices my tone. Good. They’re too busy talking about some book that Isla's reading and the job that I know Catalina will never care about understanding.

And that's my cue, to go pull myself together and start acting like the strong woman that I am. The one who’s worked next to Lawson for over a year and is strictly his employee and friend.