A Lot Like Perfect

“Are you going to hum like that all day?”

Aria glanced up from the sink to see Ember stalk into the kitchen, her expression nothing short of annoyed. Her sister plunked down at the ancient wooden table and pulled a bowl from the center where Serenity kept them due to sheer lack of cabinet space, then poured out a bunch of cornflakes.

“Probably,” Aria responded cheerfully and went back scrubbing the carrots she’d picked up from Voodoo Grocery a few minutes ago with the intent of making Isaiah carrot salad for lunch.

When they’d parted last night—reluctantly—it had been contingent on the premise that he’d come by so they could see each other alone before he had to get back to the barn for some final touches. She’d stayed away from him all morning, allegedly so he could focus on finishing the project without distraction, but that was just a lie she’d told herself.

Really, she didn’t want to rock the boat. If she crowded him, he might become a flight risk and she couldn’t stand to think she might be the one who pushed him away.

He hadn’t left town, as she’d discovered from Cassidy. She’d been afraid to ask, afraid to hope. But he was still here, still working on the barn. Still taking up an enormous amount of real estate inside her.

His continued presence might not mean anything significant. Or it might. She tried not to assign too much importance to it, or the brief conversation they’d had regarding the possibility of them hitting the county line together. It was hard enough to reconcile that they were now a couple. Or something. That had yet to be established, but she didn’t think it would help to slap a bunch of labels all over everything when she didn’t quite know what she wanted to call their relationship yet.

It felt fragile and precarious and like if she put any sort of stock in the things he’d said last night, she’d only wind up heartbroken.

All she knew was that the humming seemed to be involuntary, an expression of the huge thing inside her that she couldn’t contain. Ember could find another place to eat breakfast at—Aria glanced at the clock—eleven-twenty if she didn’t like the music.

“Judd doing okay?” Aria asked her sister, strictly to be polite. Serenity had ingrained that kind of thing into her. If you were in the kitchen with another human, you chatted about everything and nothing companionably. All women in Superstition Springs held the same phil

osophy.

Except Ember apparently. “Why are you asking? Afraid I’ve lost my kid somewhere? Or do you just want to jump on the bandwagon with everyone else to criticize my mothering skills?”

“Um…” Geez. Aria rolled her eyes at her carrots and started scraping off the skins into the scratched porcelain basin. “Maybe I was just curious. Who’s criticizing your mom-ness?”

Ember sighed. “Who isn’t? I’m doing it all wrong according to Serenity. Mavis J is suddenly an authority on proper discipline of a seven-year-old. Augusta Moon makes snarky comments pretty much every time she sees me. I’m chalking that one up to the fact that she’s convinced I used to…date her husband, though.”

Yeah, it wasn’t hard to fill in the pause with another word that better described what she’d actually done with Matthew Moon, but as per usual, Ember hadn’t confirmed or denied the rumors Aria had heard for years. “What do you think about the job you’re doing?”

Surprise flew across Ember’s pretty face, but she squelched it fast. Also typical. Ember didn’t like anyone getting the drop on her. She fiddled with a long curl of strawberry-gold hair as she chewed her cereal deliberately before swallowing and answering.

“He seems okay, doesn’t he?” She didn’t wait for an answer, clearly deeming the question rhetorical. “Grows like a weed, so obviously I’m not starving him.”

Her sister’s tone said she wasn’t so keen on the concept of chatting. Not a new revelation. Some days, Aria wondered why she’d been so upset about the fact that both Havana and Ember had taken off when in reality, they hadn’t been all that close in the first place. Ember and Havana always fought and as the youngest sister, Aria had often been forgotten. She and Havana were building their relationship back up again, but Ember…totally different story.

Which begged the other question her sister had never confirmed—why she’d come back home when she so clearly didn’t want to be here. It was only a matter of time before she got fed up and left again. Would it be something to beat her to the punch and leave first?

Havana bustled into the kitchen to form a party of three that should have been a party of one who was expecting the man she’d just started seeing. Dating. Falling in love with. Take your pick.

How was she going to get them out of here before Isaiah showed up? The last thing she wanted to do was admit that she’d veered hard to the right in her quest for Tristan and landed in Isaiah’s lap, almost literally. A blush heated her cheeks as she recalled exactly what he’d felt like under her backside as he’d held her on the banks of the spring.

“Just in time,” Ember muttered as she glared at Havana. “Maybe Aria can start cross-examining you now instead.”

Please. That was not what she’d been doing, but obviously Ember her had her own interpretation of what kinds of things sisters were supposed to discuss.

Lifting her hands in a what’s-up gesture, Havana peeked in the sink to presumably see what Aria was working on. “Nice carrots. I’ve got nothing to hide. Examine away.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ember jumped in before Aria could clarify that she’d only been asking simple questions. “That I’m trying to hide something?”

“Sounds like a Freudian thing to me,” Havana said with a laugh, which made Ember’s face crinkle up in a scowl. “Overly defensive much? Only someone trying to hide something would jump all over my comment.”

“I lost the bet,” Aria offered abruptly, determined to get her sisters to stop arguing at any cost, even if she had to hedge a little on why she’d lost. Both of them turned in her direction instantly, the words on their lips dying as she gave them a pained smile. “You both win. Tristan didn’t ask me out. Totally not interested. It was fine though. He was really sweet about it.”

“Honey, you lost that bet a long time ago,” Ember advised her with a sly wink. “How’s Isaiah, by the way? Oh, don’t look so shocked. At least four people saw you head to the springs with him last night.”

Havana clapped her hands in glee. “Story time. Everyone knows what happens at the springs when you go with a man you like.”

“Not me,” Aria muttered, ducking her head. She should have just grated the carrots and closed her mouth. “It wasn’t like that. It was…”