MADDY

I walked along the bike trail, looking at the autumn leaves, and zipped my jacket to the top. It was already in the thirties and only mid-October in Wakan.

I couldn't believe I was going to be living in Minnesota for the winter. My best friend Emma had told me we'd be here just for the summer, but now everything was all pumpkin patches and hay bales.

This place felt like the blueprint for Main Street at Disneyland. Caramel apples in the window of the fudge shop and mums in the hanging baskets off the light posts.

It was cute I guess, but kinda boring after a few weeks of staying with Emma's brother, Daniel, and his wife, Alexis, in their big mansion by the river. Daniel said everything sort of shuts down after the summer. Half the restaurants had already closed for the season. There was nothing to do, and I was starting to get cabin fever. I wasn't working right now, which I hated, but I was also afraid to get a job.

Alexis was the town doctor. She had a clinic by the pharmacy and she said she needed a full-time nurse. She could split the position into two and give me and Emma part-time hours if we both wanted to work. But Emma wasn't ready. She was still withdrawn and crying most days so there was no way I was leaving her, not while she was in this state.

My best friend was going through it.

She just found out, after twenty-nine years on this earth, that her shit mom Amber had lied to her—about basically everything—and she had an entire family she knew nothing of.

Emma had spent the better part of her young life in foster care with strangers, so this revelation was not great. We came to Wakan so she could meet the relatives she didn't know existed until three weeks ago. And she broke up with her boyfriend Justin so she could have the mental breakdown she needed without it affecting him or the three young siblings he was guardian of. Needless to say, she was not in a good headspace. She'd started talking to a therapist, but she was too depressed to go anywhere or do anything, and I was too worried about her to go anywhere or do anything either, so we'd just been squatting at the house doing nothing.

Fucking Amber.

I hated that woman. I hoped her next mugshot was a really shitty one that went viral.

I was in a mood today. Emma was in the greenhouse with Daniel, doing greenhouse stuff. She'd finally ventured out of bed. They needed bonding time and I didn't get a lot of opportunities to be alone, so I decided to take a walk on the bike trail along the river. Listen to a murder podcast or whatever, just to do something that wasn't sitting around being crabby, not making money. But when I got to the trail, a better diversion presented itself.

Someone had drawn chalk dicks on the bike path.

Every hundred feet or so—dick. They'd carved them into the bark of the trees too. It was a penis scavenger hunt and I was here for it. It was the most fun I'd had in weeks.

I was taking pictures of them to send to Emma. I'd just found one drawn in Sharpie on the back of a tractor crossing sign. This one had droplets spewing from the tip. Truly exciting. Then I heard a loud rustle in the bushes.

A deer? Maybe a possum or something? But a pig came out instead—wearing a reflective vest.

"What in the world?"

"Oh, hey. Sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out," a male voice said from the tree line. Then a large man stepped into the bike path.

Doug. Daniel's best friend.

I'd only met him once, the day Emma and I came here the first time, and only for like five seconds before Alexis kicked him out.

Alexis and Daniel were keeping us sequestered from everyone. They didn't let anyone come over. I guess Emma's aunts and cousins wanted to meet her, but I think they sensed Emma wasn't ready for anything beyond the immediate family, so they said no. Doug was also not allowed to come over, but this had something to do with a guitar?

I looked him up and down.

He wore a Carhartt jacket and had sandy blond hair, acne scars on his cheeks, deep permanent smile lines around his brown eyes, and crooked teeth. His work boots were muddy, and his pants had paint on them. He looked weathered and rough, like he lived full-time in a barn.

Conventionally none of this should have made him attractive, but he had a rugged sexiness about him. Like this was a guy who knew what to do with a carburetor. This was someone who could get a baby calf out of a birth canal. He could install gutters.

Maybe I was giving him too much credit, and he was completely useless—but I was usually pretty good at profiling.

Men like this were tough as nails. I'd nursed enough of them to know. They'd cut a finger off in a combine and finish working for the day before they'd come in to have it reattached. They had bodies made of solid muscle, hands so rough you could exfoliate with them—and pet pigs apparently because what the hell.

The animal grunted over to me and pressed his snout into my jacket pocket.

"Uh, excuse me," I said, backing up.

"Sorry. Move it, Kevin, let's go," he said like he was talking to one of his buddies.

The pig looked at him like he understood everything he'd just said and backed up. Doug riffled in his jacket and gave the animal a mini Snickers.

"You're Emma's friend, right?" he asked, balling up the wrapper and putting it back in his pocket.

"Maddy," I grumbled. I was slightly annoyed that my penis quest was being interrupted.

"I thought so. Doug." He peered around like he was checking that I was alone. "Where you going?" he asked.

"Uh, nowhere. Walking," I said impatiently. "Where are you going? You have a pig."

He looked at the animal. "Yeah, it's getting cold. Time to retire him for the winter."

"Retire him from what?"

He pulled his face back like he couldn't believe what I just asked. "This is Kevin Bacon," he said like I should know who this is.

"So?"

"He's the town mascot."

"Never heard of him."

"You've never heard—" He put his hands on his hips and looked around like there might be someone to be indignant with him. "Daniel didn't mention him?"

"No," I said, dryly. "It never came up."

He stared at me. "This pig is a celebrity."

"Riiiiight," I said, feigning interest. "Look, I gotta go. I'm looking for dick graffiti. Nice seeing you."

I started walking again.

"Have you seen Dick Rock?" he called.

I stopped and turned. "There's a Dick Rock?"

"Yeah, wanna see it? I can take you."

He nodded toward what looked like an overgrown game trail that vanished into the tree line.

"In there," I deadpanned.

"Yeah. It's cool."

"And who sponsored this message? The deer ticks?"

He pulled a can of OFF! from his jacket pocket and waggled it at me. "I have deet."

"Of course you do."

I didn't move to take his can, or his offer.

"It's the best dick in Wakan," he said. "Dick art," he corrected.

"Ha."

Frankly I'd be interested in checking out either. It had been waaay too long.

Doug waited for my reply.

I didn't know this guy.

Yes, he was Daniel's best friend. That should vouch for his character. But this was a small town. Maybe he was the best friend on a technicality. Best friend due to a lack of options.

Still. I wanted to see the dick rock.

I crossed my arms. "I want you to know that if this is some creepy ploy to get me alone in the woods to do something to me, it's not going to go well for you."

He blinked at me. "Okay…"

"You will not murder me. I will murder you," I said. "And I'll cover you in honey so the pig eats your body and they'll never find you. So is there still a Dick Rock? Or are we saying goodbye now?"

He stared at me. "Uh… there's still a Dick Rock."

"Fine. Take me."

He put his thumb over his back. "Maybe I should text someone and tell them where I am," he said.

"Yeah, maybe you should."

I grabbed the can of OFF! from him and sprayed my arms and legs while he pulled his cell out with his back to me and started texting. He kept looking over his shoulder like I might be coming up behind him with a strangulation device.

I also texted someone. I sent Emma a message that said, "Going with Doug to see a dick rock. If I disappear, I'm burying a body and I'll be home by dinner."

I hit send, put my phone back in my pocket, and peered around impatiently.

"Message sent?" I asked as he put his phone away.

"Yeah. I texted Daniel."

"Good. Let's go."

He made a sweeping motion to indicate the ladies-first thing. I made the same gesture, but more dramatic, suggesting that he go first because no way was I being marched through the forest with a strange man at my back.

He went first.

I kept the OFF! in my hand to use as pepper spray should the situation arise.

The trail snaked into the woods and within a minute we'd lost the bike path.

"So, Daniel says you guys are nurses?" Doug said. And then, "Dick," as he pointed to a penis carved into a birch tree.

"Yeah, I'm a nurse."

"Cool. I'm an EMT. I drive the ambulance at the clinic," he said over his shoulder.

"So do you have a farm or something?" I asked, not really interested in the answer.

"Yeah."

I swatted a branch out of the way. "What kind?"

"Dairy mostly. Petting zoo, bees—Dick," he said, pointing to another trunk carving. "You know, you're kinda scary."

"Thanks," I muttered.

My phone pinged. It was Emma.

Emma: Daniel said he just got a text from Doug saying he's taking you to Dick Rock and if he goes missing it was you who killed him ???

I gave the message a satisfied smirk and put my phone away.

We walked along in silence, the pig snuffling behind us.

Dicks continued to pop up as we went, like little breadcrumbs shaped like mushrooms.

"Who did all these?"

"Teenagers," he said. "There's not a lot to do around here."

"Did you do this as a teenager?"

"Oh yeah. Totally. Time-honored tradition."

He held a large branch back and revealed a clearing that ended against a bluff. In the middle of the thirty-foot rock wall, in pink and green spray paint, was the largest dick of the day.

Doug stepped aside and presented it to me. "Dick Rock."

Impressive. The five- or six-foot phallus was framed with glued-on bottle caps, pennies, and hundreds of colorful wadded-up pieces of chewed gum.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

I tilted my head, studying it like some famous work of art. "What do you think the artist was trying to say by having the ball hair be green?"

He looked back up at it. "I think they were trying to say they ran out of the pink spray paint they stole from the hardware store."

I snorted.

There was a makeshift firepit in the middle of the clearing with a circle of logs around it. Lots of empty beer cans.

We both sat, facing the peen shrine. Kevin Bacon left us to shuffle around in the woods.

Doug leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "So how's she doing? She doing okay?"

He didn't need to tell me we were talking about Emma. "She will be."

"Man, I couldn't believe it when I heard it. But then I kinda could, you know? Amber."

He said her name like we both knew what it meant. I guess we did. He knew her too. She used to come here to Wakan to dry out. In fact, Doug probably spent more time with Amber than I had, since she never made a point of visiting Emma. Good to know we mutually disliked her.

He and I had more in common than I thought.

I felt him staring at me.

I leveled my eyes on him. "What," I said flatly.

"Nothing. It's just you remind me of someone."

I gave him a look. "Who."

"Naw, you'll get mad."

"This better not be some fucking negging thing."

He sat back and put up his hands. "Whoa, it's not. I'm being serious."

"Then who?"

"This rooster I have—"

I glared.

"No wait," he said. "It's not an insult. He's this little bantam chicken. Russell Crow. Really beautiful but mean. He attacks me every morning when I come in the yard."

"Oh yeah, that sounds like a compliment," I said sarcastically.

"Let me finish. That guy's my little buddy. I love him. He's just protective. He's taking care of his family. And he's mostly mean when he's hungry." He paused. "Are you hungry?" he asked carefully.

I was hungry. And maybe I was a little crabby too. Things hadn't exactly been great the last few weeks.

I didn't reply.

He dug in his pocket and pulled out another Snickers and handed it to me.

"Thanks," I grumbled, taking it.

"You want some lunch?" he asked. "I was going to make some. My house is just over there." He nodded to his left.

I narrowed my eyes at him like there was some ulterior motive.

"It's just lunch," he said. "If you're thinking of eating in town, hardly anything's open, just an FYI. Plus it's a mile back."

"You said you have a petting zoo?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"What's in it? A bunch of tiny cocks?"

"Russell Crow's the only tiny cock on my farm."

He managed to get a laugh out of me.

He was grinning. "I've got a miniature donkey, some hens, a couple of rabbits, a baby goat—"

"Let's go."

He had me at baby goat.

Doug's farm was actually adorable. It looked like the kind of place where you could get married. I think some people did.

He walked me around the outside first, showing me the barn and the wood-fired oven he used to cook pizza on Friday and Saturday nights for tourists in the summer. He said people brought their own wine and blankets and lawn chairs and made it a picnic thing.

Doug was kind of a hustler.

Besides the pizza and the petting zoo, he sold eggs and milk to the restaurants in town. He did odd jobs. Kevin Bacon had Doug's Venmo handle on his vest.

I liked hustle. I respected anyone with a good work ethic.

Doug put Kevin Bacon into the barn.

"Let's do lunch first," Doug said, walking me up the steps to his house. "I'll show you the petting zoo after."

I didn't know what I expected, but his house wasn't it.

It was nice. Like, farmhouse chic but an actual working farmhouse, not the kind someone re-creates in their rambler in a suburb.

He took off his boots at the door and hung his jacket on a nearby hook. When he took the jacket off, my suspicions about the farmer's body thing were confirmed. Solid muscle. Large biceps and a nicely contoured chest under his black T-shirt.

I could still kill him though if I had to.

He went straight to the kitchen, and I peered around the open floor plan. You could tell a lot about someone by how they lived. The cozy living room had a stone fireplace. There was a buffet table full of pictures behind the sofa. I spotted a framed one of Doug in a military uniform.

"You were in the army?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, pulling things out of the fridge. "I was a medic."

I ran a finger along the coffee table. No dust. He had a vase of dried lilacs on the end table. It was a little funny to think of this giant man picking flowers, but I could somehow imagine it anyway. I walked around looking at the art on his walls.

There was a wood carving that I recognized as one of Daniel's hanging over the fireplace. Probably an earlier piece by the look of it. Maybe a gift? Or maybe Doug was supporting his friend. Either way I liked that he had it. It meant he was a good enough friend to buy it, or a good enough friend to be gifted it. No matter which scenario, he was a good enough friend to hang it, even though it wasn't as polished as Daniel's work was now. Doug was proud of this. He put it in the most prominent spot in the room. He wanted people to see it—or he wanted to see it because it was sentimental for him.

Green flag.

There was a small, clean bathroom with a pedestal sink. The dainty floral wallpaper looked like something a grandma would hang.

"Did you pick this wallpaper?" I called.

"Naw," he said, setting a cast-iron skillet on the stove. "My grandma. I like it though."

I liked it too.

"Your house is clean," I said.

"I don't like how I feel when it's not clean. It messes with me."

"How many bedrooms?" I asked.

"Three," he said.

"Can I see them?"

"Go ahead."

I made my way upstairs. The first room was a guest room. It was clean and neat, with pale green paint on the walls and a quilted bedspread. It had a white antique washbasin and pitcher on the dresser. Nice.

The next room was full of canning supplies and boxes of bear-shaped plastic honey containers. The last one was the primary bedroom.

It was the kind of room that you looked at and just knew someone's great-grandma gave birth to allllll her kids in here. It was probably totally unchanged in the last hundred years except for the addition of running water in the bathroom.

He had an antique four-post bed that was all made up with a vibrant patchwork quilt. Like the rest of the house, the room was spotless. The worn hardwood floors shone under the sunlight coming in from the windows. He had a rusty red area rug, wooden dresser, and an armoire.

I opened the armoire.

Was it my business? No. Didn't care.

Women should snoop. Snooping saves lives. Lets you know if you're in the house of a serial killer or a married man or a guy with a closet full of Sharpies to draw dicks on trails.

I didn't find dick stuff.

What I found was an organized collection of working attire. His clothes were neatly hung, all facing the same direction and buttoned on the hanger. He liked order.

I also liked order.

I closed the door.

This room was another green flag. So far Doug was checking out.

There was a guitar in the corner by the nightstand.

I grabbed it and brought it down with me.

"I don't have any turkey or anything," he said as I came down the creaky stairs. "I'm a vegetarian. But I think I can pull something good together."

"I'm a vegetarian too," I said.

"Oh yeah?"

I held the guitar up. "Can you play this?"

He looked over. "I only play one song."

"Are you good?"

"Not really."

"I want to hear it," I said.

"Okay."

I sat at the butcher block island while he made us lunch. He had his back to me so I couldn't see what he was putting together. There was a lot of sizzling. Then he took a grilled sandwich from the pan and cut it in half with a satisfying crunch and plated it and set it in front of me. I lifted the edge of the bread and looked inside. "This looks fucking amazing," I said.

"Thanks. It's a goat and Gouda grilled cheese with raspberry jam and honey."

He poured me a glass of lemonade and poured himself a huge glass of milk. Then he picked up his sandwich and leaned against the kitchen counter to eat it.

I took a bite and had to close my eyes. It was incredible. It was probably the best thing I'd ever eaten and the man pulled it out of his ass in less than ten minutes. This was a love language to me.

"This is good," I said, begrudgingly. "I'm impressed."

He nodded at it. "I made the goat cheese and jam myself. I grew the berries. I baked the bread too. The honey's from my bees."

"You made all this stuff? Like, from scratch?"

He chewed and swallowed. "I like to cook. Bottle things. I try to stay busy."

"You're not busy enough?" I said. "You've got the petting zoo and the pizza thing and the pig side hustle. How busy do you need to be?"

"I get depressed if I don't have stuff to do," he said. "Especially in the off-season."

I stopped to study him. "You feel depressed or actual depression?"

"Actual depression," he said, taking a bite.

"Have you ever been to therapy?" I asked.

"Every week," he said.

"Do you take meds?"

"Never missed one dose. Do you always ask such invasive questions?"

"Do you always answer them?"

"I do if I'm not ashamed of the answers," he said, licking honey off his thumb.

Green flag, green flag, green flag.

I liked a man who was self-aware. I liked a lot of things about him, actually. Interesting.

"So what's your life like here?" I asked, in between bites. "You just wake up at the crack of dawn and do farmer things?"

"Pretty much."

"Feeding the animals and all that?"

He nodded. "Yup."

"Do you ever get lonely?"

He looked at the last bite of his sandwich. There was a pause. "All the time."

He popped the final piece in his mouth and went to put the ingredients away.

I finished eating. When I was done, I took my plate to the sink to wash it.

"Just leave it," he said.

I ignored him and washed it. I reached for the pan.

"Leave it, I'll do it."

"I know how to clean a cast-iron pan," I said, picking it up.

"I didn't say you didn't. I just don't want you to have to work. You're a guest." He lifted it out of my hand and set it back on the stove.

I crossed my arms and looked up at him. "So you don't have a girlfriend?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Why?"

"Why don't you have a boyfriend?" he countered.

"I'm a travel nurse. I leave them. I don't live anywhere."

"I live in a small tourist town," he said. "Practically everyone who lives here year-round is related to me."

"Okay. Fair enough."

He looked amused.

"Don't look at me like that," I said.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm a little chicken," I snapped.

He laughed, the creases around his eyes deepening. God, he was handsome.

I let out an exasperated breath through my nose. "Are you going to play the guitar for me or not?"

"You are so bossy."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Not even a little." He grinned.

I had to fight to keep my expression straight. He looked thoroughly entertained by me.

I jutted up my chin. "I have to warn you that if I don't like your playing, you will see it on my face. That's just how my face works."

"Fine with me."

"Why would you be fine with me hating your playing?"

"I mean, I hope you don't, but I play because I like it."

"Good. I'll be waiting in the living room."

I turned and marched from the kitchen and plopped in a recliner.

He closed the fridge, then walked around the island and sat with the guitar in his lap on the sofa, tuning it.

He started doing vocal exercises.

Oh my God, there was going to be singing. I was either going to love this or hate this.

He cleared his throat, made very intense, totally unnecessary eye contact with me, and started singing "More Than Words" by Extreme. My absolute favorite song of all time. I could not believe what I was hearing.

He was not a good singer. At all.

Was it terrible? Yes.

Was it maybe the worst rendition of it I'd ever heard?

Also yes.

He couldn't pull off the high notes. His big fingers fumbled the strings, he was out of tune—but he knew it. He laughed every time his voice cracked.

He meant what he said. He didn't care.

He liked to sing. He liked the song. He didn't give a shit what I thought, and he was having a good time—and I respected that. It made me have a good time. It was endearing—and brave. Especially considering what I told him about my face.

He ended and looked at me and I gave him the first smile I'd given him the whole day. Maybe the first smile I'd given in weeks.

It had been a shitty couple of weeks.

"Thank you," I said, earnestly. "That was wonderful."

He grinned and took the strap off and set the guitar against the end table. Then he flexed his finger and winced, sucking on it.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I have this splinter—"

"Let me see it."

I sat next to him on the sofa and took his hand. "Where is it?" I asked.

"Right here."

I looked at it. It was deep. "Do you have a needle and some alcohol?" I asked. "Tweezers?"

I spent the next ten minutes working the sliver from his skin. I was right about him being tough as nails. He didn't flinch once while I was getting it out.

He smelled good this close. And he was warm. Heat radiated off him. I kept getting the feeling he was looking at me while I was focused on his hand, but I was afraid to look up, I was too close to his mouth.

I extracted the splinter. "How long did you have this?" I asked, showing it to him.

"Couple of days."

"A couple of days? Why didn't you get someone to help get it out?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Busy. Nobody around."

"The next time you have an injury, you call me," I said.

"It's just a splinter—"

"You call me."

"All right. I will. But only because you scare the shit out of me. I don't want to ruffle your feathers." He grinned.

I rolled my eyes and he chuckled.

Maybe I was a mean little protective chicken. Maybe I was starting to feel a little protective of him. This nice, unbothered, lonely man who didn't care what people thought and probably rarely asked for help, even when he needed it.

He was kind to animals. Hardworking and funny. Maybe a little much at first, but I think that was a shield. I think he was tender underneath. Vulnerable. I bet he showed up for people he loved. I bet that's why he showed up that day Emma and I first came here. He was probably Daniel's first phone call.

He deserved to be the best friend. He wasn't a technicality.

He looked at his finger. "You were gentler than I thought you'd be."

I wrapped the splinter in a tissue and set it on the coffee table. "I can be soft," I said, quietly.

"I bet…"

I glanced up at him and he gave a smile. Then his eyes dropped to my mouth.

Heat rushed to my cheeks.

Fuck.

I liked him. For some reason I didn't want to.

Maybe because I didn't believe there was any point in it.

I wanted to hope that Emma was going to thrive here. That she would heal and be okay. But the reality was that she might not. And if she didn't, she wouldn't stay. And then I couldn't stay. I would have to go where she went because that's what I did. I looked out for her. She was my family.

So a relationship with a handsome rugged farmer was not going to be a thing.

But a fling could be a thing. A one-night stand. A hookup.

A situationship.

I licked my lips. I never liked putting off till tomorrow the things I could be doing today.