“He’s not going to want jalapeños in his eggs, Daddy. And I doubt he knows what chorizo even is.”

“Well, he should learn to eat a Texas breakfast. He’s in Texas.”

Shelby rolled her eyes and watched the two pans of eggs carefully, stirring at just the right time to get the perfect consistency. One pan was red and bubbly from the spicy chorizo sausage, punctuated with bright green slices of jalapeño. The other pan was the standard yellow of scrambled eggs with a bit of sharp cheddar thrown in. Boring, but what Shelby guessed Jake would like. And she really wanted him to like breakfast, for reasons she didn’t want to even explain to herself.

“Well, what about boudin?”

“Daddy, please. He probably doesn’t know what that is either. And that’s not a Texas breakfast. We aren’t in Louisiana.”

“Well. It’s better than just plain eggs. Who eats that? You’ll send him running for the hills. Where’d you say he’s from?”

“Chicago,” she said.

He huffed. “Huh. Crime rate there is terrible. Strict gun control and bad crime. Explain that to me.”

“Daddy. Please, let’s not start talking gun control before coffee. Or at all. And please don’t make him feel stupid about swimming with T-Ball.”

Shelby spoke sweetly, only because she knew it was the only way to get him to do anything at all she wanted. He was so stubborn. Not just about eggs. But everything. Not for the first time, Shelby fought off guilt as she thought about what life would be like living on her own instead of taking care of him, every day for the foreseeable future. Her life was stuck on an endless loop.

Life would also be easier if he would take disability. But he refused. “Don’t need no assistance from the fed-E-ral government. And I’m not disabled. I get on just fine,” he had said, more than once.

He didn’t seem to know or see how much she struggled to hold onto their land. Not that it was much: just a few acres, the tiny house, and the pond. But it was everything. It was theirs.

Correction—it was the bank’s. And she’d had more than enough notice that the bank would soon be reclaiming it without an impossible sum of money.

It would kill him to know how much trouble they were in. And how hard she was working, all because he couldn’t work and wouldn’t take the checks. Shelby couldn’t stand to see the look in his eyes if he realized that he had failed her. She’d kept a lot from him after this last tour. Partly because of the brain injury, partly because of Mama. They kept up this charade that the house wasn’t falling into disrepair, they had enough money for the mortgage, and that his pills were really multivitamins. Not pretty, but how they existed.

Unless the bank didn’t extend their grace period this afternoon when she went in. The thought made her stomach roll sharply.

Trouble was—there wasn’t a lot of work in town. Lucky just wasn’t that big. Most people barely scraped by and worked outside of town at refineries down closer to Orange or over the border near Lake Charles. Shelby had a few dozen side hustles that all added up to not enough. Baking cakes, collecting junk and reselling on eBay, even dressing up as a clown for kids’ birthday parties. She picked up extra shifts at the diner in town as well.

It just wasn’t enough. Not for their mortgage and food and his meds. Shelby wished he didn’t need the meds, but after the brain injury, he did. At least he wasn’t crazy—not like her mama.

Shelby sighed, stirring the eggs and turning off the burner. That wasn’t the correct term for her mother. But when she thought of the actual words: bipolar schizophrenic, it hurt her heart too much. And terrified her to think that same blood ran in her veins. Crazy was a trigger word and more than once she’d thrown a punch when someone used that word for her. They didn’t mean that Shelby was like her mother. She knew that. But she didn’t care. Because that word was the key unlocking the door to all of her deepest fear: that one day she would crack just like Mama did.

Sometimes she looked in the mirror at herself, trying to judge if she was okay. Was it hiding in there? Down deep in her eyes? Come unglued like Mama and end up in a facility? Only to somehow make her way out and run?

She understood her mama running, though. If Shelby ever cracked, it wouldn’t be here in front of people who loved her. She wouldn’t be a burden and wouldn’t let them see her go down in flames. She’d run too. Though she was still furious with her mama, Shelby understood her too.

The door to the bathroom creaked open and Shelby tried to prepare herself for Jake as he walked down the hall. She would not ogle. She would not stare at his broad shoulders or try to find excuses to stand close to him. Then he stepped into the room, his head almost brushing the low doorway. He held a leather shaving kit in his hand and had a towel draped over his arm. The smell of his cologne was sharp and sweet and so masculine it made her ache.

Get. It. Together.

Her heart sped up as she glanced at him. His hair was still damp and he wore a short-sleeved button-down shirt untucked over camo shorts. Even in a small town like Lucky, there were attractive guys. Matt was handsome. Rhett, unfortunately, looked like a male model. But there was something about Jake with his almost-red hair, propensity for blushing, and his chiseled features that got Shelby all wound up. Now that she’d seen the incredible body he hid under his clothes, it didn’t help. She turned back to the eggs, feeling a blush of her own rising.

“Boy, you look like half a banker, half a hick,” Daddy said. Shelby stifled a giggle.

“I—thanks?” Jake said.

“Sit down,” Shelby said. “Coffee?”

“Please,” Jake said. He sat across from Daddy, who grinned like a fool at him.

Shelby silently counted to see how long it would take Daddy to bring up Chicago’s gun control laws or T-Ball. Her guess was under a minute. And between the two subjects, she was hoping he chose the gator.

“Cream? Sugar?” she asked.

“A little milk or cream is fine. Thanks for having me for breakfast.”

Daddy laughed and Shelby blew out a breath. Forty-two seconds. “Looks like T-ball almost had you for breakfast. What brand of stupid are you, swimming with gators? You one of those YOLO people?”

“Daddy,” Shelby warned.

But as she put a plate of eggs in front of Jake, her thoughts wandered back to the sight of him dripping wet as he emerged from the lake with his broad shoulders and all those sinewy muscles she hadn’t imagined hiding under his buttoned-up shirt. Which, now that she noticed, was a little tight over his biceps...

“Shelby! Eggs?” Her daddy said and now he was grinning at her like he knew just what she was thinking about.

“Hold your britches,” she said and banged a plate down in front of him. “A thank-you might be in order.”

“Thank you,” Jake said hurriedly.

“Oh, I didn’t mean you. You’re a paying guest.” Shelby pulled her daddy’s plate away from him. He glared at her, then smiled like a used car salesman.

“Thank you, my sweet servant of a daughter for going out of your way to make eggs just the way I like them, rather than the sissified version you gave our paying guest.”

She shoved the plate at him and made her own small plate and sat next to Jake.

Jake looked at their plates and then his own. “I didn’t mean to be trouble,” he said. “I could have eaten...that. What is that, exactly?”

“It’s eggs with chorizo and jalapeños,” Shelby said. “Didn’t know if you could take the heat.”

“Oh,” Jake said. “Probably not. Thank you. I mean it. You didn’t have to do this.”

He touched her hand lightly across the table and she jerked hers away, feeling an unsettling fluttering of nerves at his touch. He looked just as surprised, like he hadn’t meant to make contact. Daddy snorted and she gave him a fiery side-eye. That man. For all his blustering about shotguns, if she left him alone for five minutes with Jake, he’d probably try to trade her hand in marriage for their property.

That thought circled her right back to the meeting with the bank and her stomach recoiled from her food. Shelby worked to swallow her eggs. Whatever happened, until that meeting at the bank was over today, she would not be able to escape the sinking feeling.

For a few moments, the only sound was chewing and the old country station playing on the radio above the stove. It was always playing. Aside from power outages and the yearly battery change, that radio had been playing for twelve years. It had been playing the day her mama left and she kept it on her favorite station ever since. Once a year she held her breath and changed out the batteries, trying to make it in thirty seconds or less. It was superstitious, but she didn’t care.

“So,” Daddy said, “You given Rhett an answer yet?”

Shelby rolled her eyes and gave him a look, then pointedly looked at Jake. “I said no. Again.”

“Good. How many times has he asked now?”

Daddy was smiling at Jake now, clearly trying to pique his curiosity. And oh, was it piqued. Jake had his eyebrows raised and was looking between the two of them. She was going to kill her daddy.

“Five. Who cares. Moving on.”

“Asked what?” Jake said, wiping his mouth.

“Oh, the mayor’s son keeps proposing to Shelby. I mean, it’s hardly surprising. He’s not the first. He’s probably the worst, but not the first.”

“Daddy,” she hissed.

“To propose?” Jake asked.

He was looking at Shelby now. She could feel his gaze and her cheeks burned. She got up with her plate and took his, which was empty. At the sink she began washing up, hoping the conversation behind her would end and that Jake wouldn’t see the embarrassment on her cheeks. Though he looked even cuter when he blushed, she could understand why he hated it. She felt totally vulnerable on the rare occasion she blushed. It was like her body betraying her true feelings, writing them right there on her face for people to see.

But, no. Daddy went right on like he was a woman in a hair salon, sharing the latest gossip while getting a perm. “Yep. Half the town of Lucky has tried to marry her. Only a handful asked me first, though. I chased them off with my shotgun. Shelby took care of the rest.”

“Done, Daddy?” she said with an overly sweet voice.

He wasn’t, but she grabbed his plate anyway, making sure her dish-washing made as much noise as possible. Banging dishes was therapeutic. Cabinets and doors too.

Just then a voice called out from the front.

“Knock knock,” Matt said, coming into the kitchen. He looked over the room and his gaze softened when he saw Shelby.

“Shelby.”

“Matt.”

Shelby caught her father gesturing to Jake that Matt was another one of her suitors. Jake choked on his coffee and Daddy giggled. She briefly considered hitting him over the head with his leg.

“Jake,” Matt said.

“Hey, Matt,” Jake said.

“You ready, Shel?” Matt jingled the keys in his hands.

“Where you going?” Jake asked.

“Work,” Shelby said.

“Oh,” Jake said. “Can I hitch a ride into town? I’d like to stop by the garage.”

“Sure thing,” Matt said. “And I’ve got an old Jeep you can borrow for the week if you want. Greg mentioned you were looking for something to drive. I can get it to you tomorrow. If you need a ride anywhere today, just call me.”

“Thanks,” Jake said. “I’ll pay you for the Jeep when it’s ready. Like a rental. It’s only fair.”

“I don’t need your money,” Matt said. Shelby noticed the tightness in his jaw.

“Okay, but—” Jake started.

“No. Now can we get out of here? Shelby, you look great as always. Are you ready?”

“Five minutes,” she muttered.

“I need to go grab my things from the trailer,” Jake said. “Thank you for breakfast, Shelby. Best eggs I ever had.”

The kitchen was small and as he put his coffee mug in the sink, she had to lean back against it to let him by, the brush of his body sending tingles everywhere.

Matt and Daddy both snorted and she glared at them. When Jake was out the back door she whipped Matt with a dish towel.

“Both of you, quit it. I don’t know what’s going on—”

“Matt’s just being protective of his girl,” Daddy said with a big grin.

“She’s not my girl,” Matt said just as Shelby said, “I’m not his girl.”

They glared at each other now. So much glaring for so early in the morning. She needed a nap. Or a pot of coffee. She’d stayed up until almost four reading. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

“But you’re not his girl either,” Matt said.

“Seriously, Matt? I don’t even know Jake. It’s been less than twenty-four hours. You and your stupid jealousy can go jump in the lake.”

“Speaking of lakes,” her father said. “You’ll never guess who was almost gator bait this morning.”

“He fell in?” A smile played around Matt’s lips. Shelby whipped him again with the dish towel and now the playful Matt returned. “Ow, Hey. I’ve got delicate skin.”

“He went swimming.” Daddy had the biggest grin on his face and she turned the dish towel to him now, snapping him on the bare shoulders. “Ow, girl!”

Matt was bent over shaking with laughter, silent at first and then loud guffaws and hoots. “Well, I don’t need to worry about him, then. Shelby would never fall for an idiot.”

“You two better stop it before he comes back,” Shelby said. “I mean it! Stop it!”

“This is too rich, Shel,” Matt said. “Sorry.”

“I’m going to get ready,” she said. “Behave.”

Shelby closed herself in the bathroom. The mirror above the sink was still a little steamy around the edges from Jake’s shower. He’d left a razor on the sink. She picked it up and, without realizing she was going to do it, smelled it. A woodsy, spicy scent clung to it and she closed her eyes.

That tiny smell almost broke her.

She liked Jake. Not just because he was new and different, but she did like that about him. Hope, hot and hungry, unfurled in her belly. A hope of something she couldn’t have. But maybe… While her father joked about proposals, there hadn’t been that many. Other than Rhett, who seemed incorrigible. But there were men who were interested in her. And Shelby didn’t know if she really and truly wasn’t interested back or if she simply couldn’t let herself love anyone because she didn’t feel like she could leave her father.

She should like Matt. He was kind and faithful and loyal to a fault. Handsome. Funny when he wasn’t being so serious. She’d never seen him as anything other than a best friend, but often wondered if the situation was different or if she’d met him in a bar in some other life, how she’d feel about him.

She heard echoes of her father’s voice in her head: If ifs and buts were candy and nuts… She couldn’t remember the rest. There was no point in hoping or thinking what ifs. She had to focus on getting through her shift at the diner and the afternoon at the bank. That was real life. Like it or not, this was all she had.