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“It’s my emotional support hoodie.”

“It smells like horse.”

Her mouth opens, closes, then her hand lifts with her middle finger extended, nice and proud.

“There she is,” Tripp mutters.

I point toward the door. “Truck. Five minutes.”

“Bossy bastard,” she grumbles, but gets up from the table.

The ride into town should be normal. It’s just thirty minutes of road, cornfields, and Autumn messing with the radio until I tell her to quit touching shit. Except nothing with her feels normal right now. She fidgets beside me, tugging at her sleeve and shifting against the seat like her clothes are bothering her. Every time the truck hits a rough patch, she goes still for half a second before glaring out the window.

“You always move this much?” I ask.

Her glare cuts sideways. “You always this annoying?”

“Usually.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

That should be the end of it, but the cab feels smaller than usual, packed too tight with that damn black cherry almond scent trying to sneak under everything else, and my vanilla coffee scent. I keep my eyes on the road, because looking at her won’t help a damn thing.

The grocery store goes mostly fine, if you count Autumn throwing frozen dinners, chips, and enough muffins and popsicles to feed an infantry into the cart, while muttering about ranch food taking too long to cook, and what’s wrong with quick and easy. She also almost fights an old woman over the last bottle of some fancy coffee creamer, then looks personally betrayed when I put actual vegetables in the cart.

“You eat these willingly?” she asks, holding up a bag of carrots.

“Some of us don’t live on spite and sugar.”

“Sounds boring.”

“You’d know boring. You picked macaroni shaped like dinosaurs.”

“It’s for Clint.”

I glance down at the box, and she doesn’t even try to hide her grin.

Damn it.

I almost laugh, but I don’t.

By the time we hit the feed store, Autumn’s quieter when she climbs out of the truck. I grab the order slip from the visor and head inside, trusting her to follow, which might be my first mistake.

The bell over the door jingles, and the smell of grain and old wood fills my nose. Autumn steps in behind me and pauses for just a second, nose wrinkling before she covers it by looking at a display of horse treats.

“You need me to grab anything?” she asks.

“Treats if you want Captain to forgive you for calling him dramatic.”

“He is dramatic.”

“He’s a horse.” I shoot her a look over my shoulder, but she’s already smiling at a bag of peppermint treats.

“Briggs?”

My hand stills on the counter.

I know that voice. Damn it.