Levi picked at the hem of his shirt not looking at her. "For what it's worth, I think you're the best thing that's happened to this place in a long time. We were falling apart before you got here. Now it feels like I don't know. Like we're a family again."
Evelyn's throat tightened. "You were always a family." "Yeah, but we forgot how to act like one. You reminded us." She didn't know what to say to that.
Didn't know how to explain that she hadn't been trying to fix anything. She'd just been trying to survive. That every meal she cooked, every shirt she mended, every fire she kept burning was an act of self-preservation, not charity. But maybe it didn't matter. Maybe the why didn't change the what.
"Play it again." She said finally. Levi smiled and raised the harmonica to his lips. This time, the melody sounded less lonely, like it had found someone to listen. The next few weeks passed in uneasy peace.
The brothers worked the ranch, Evelyn kept the house, and the town kept talking. Rumors spread like wildfire. Some said she was a gold digger, others said she was running from the law. A few claimed she was secretly married to one of the brothers and hiding it. None of it was true, but that didn't stop people from believing it.
Holden noticed the change in her, the way she tensed whenever anyone mentioned going to town, the way she avoided eye contact when strangers were around, the way she'd started double-checking the locks on her door again, like she was waiting for something bad to happen. One evening, he found her on the porch staring out at the horizon with an expression that looked like she was planning an escape route. "You okay?" he asked. "Fine." "You're a terrible liar."
Evelyn glanced at him. "And you're terrible at minding your own business." "Probably." Holden leaned against the porch rail, his arms crossed. "But I'm also not blind.
You've been different since that trip to town, quieter, more careful." "I'm always careful." "This is different." She wanted to deny it, wanted to tell him he was imagining things, that she was fine, that nothing had changed. But she was tired of lying, tired of pretending.
"They think I'm using you," she said finally. "All of you. They think I'm some kind of I don't know, opportunist. Or worse." "And you care what they think?"
"Don't you?" Holden shrugged. "Not particularly. People in this town have been talking about my family since before I was born. You learn to tune it out."
"Easy for you to say." "You belong here." "And you don't?" The question hung in the air between them. Evelyn looked away.