Chance of Rain by Amber Lin

she didn’t want him to know she’d been tearing up over a bare album with a complete set of class photos and a few pictures of a thin young boy, alone and solemn. Neither could she explain to Sawyer why she’d stopped checking the phone.
    It had been right around the time she’d brought him a snack. He’d been sweaty, covered in dirt and so handsome her insides had turned to liquid. When she’d handed him the apple, he’d given her this strange look and drawled, “Thank you kindly, Ms. Bouchard,” and what could she do? Good manners had always been a turn-on.
    She’d thought she could stay the rest of the day without fretting about leaving. She wasn’t getting in the way of his farm work, and it was clear he was in way over his head with the household chores. She liked being here. She loved the diner too, but it was the idea that kept her going, the history, the tenuous thread of family running through the puce vinyl booths. Being here with him was purely for her.
    So she’d stopped checking the phone line. No big deal. It wasn’t as if she’d unplugged the phone and hidden the cable, though the idea had occurred to her.
    It wasn’t only that she wanted to be near him. At least part of the reason she’d brought him food so often was a sense of lingering unease. All day he had been stoic. But last night—something had been wrong. She didn’t want to think about him like that, alone, if she hadn’t driven here before the storm hit. What if she left today and he was back in the barn, with no one to comfort him? No. She would stay.
    Downstairs, she served the meal she’d prepared, a savory ratatouille with garlic bread. She was really quite proud of herself for concocting a hearty meal out of some soft vegetables and spices of questionable expiration date. His kitchen had been sparse, not counting the entire wall of canned beans that filled the pantry. At least they wouldn’t starve. There was rice and beans, there was refried. There was even a selection of canned chili, and not a single one of them looked appealing.
    She spooned a generous helping of ratatouille onto Sawyer’s plate, ignoring his amused look. She knew he thought this was all too domestic, that she was presuming a permanence here that wouldn’t happen. No doubt he would have been more comfortable had they heated up a can of pinto beans with jalapeño flavoring over a campfire or maybe snacked on some MREs as if in a military camp with his team.
    Serving good food, making people feel at home—even if it was their own home—was what she did. And pampering such a strong, self-sufficient man didn’t diminish him, it made her feel powerful. A sense of satisfaction filled her as she watched him devour her meal.
    He slowed during the second plateful and launched into some story about scaling a 5,000-foot rock face without a lead, which seemed weird, because he’d been so tight-lipped about his missions that she thought it was against the rules or something. Until she realized he was talking about a vacation where he’d gone rock climbing in Yosemite with his buddies.
    “Good lord, that would have scared me half to death. I can’t believe you did all that for fun,” she said, because a) it was true and b) she didn’t want him to feel bad about his fear of heights when he had expended so much effort overcompensating for it.
    She should have realized that suggesting Sawyer, a Navy SEAL, was afraid of heights was about as big a faux pas as suggesting a cowboy couldn’t ride. That reminded her of last night, when she had noticed the empty barn.
    “Are you going to buy a horse?” she asked. “If you’re planning on a harvest this year, that’d really help. I think the Mallorys have some nice stock for sale.”
    He looked bemused. “Do you know everything that happens around here?”
    “The diner,” she reminded him. “Many a sale has been facilitated through me. I should probably have taken a cut all this time. I could’ve been