The Call
The next day, she mucked out stalls without gagging, kept pace with Dustin stringing fence wire along the north edge of the pasture, and even managed to keep a snarky goat named Hazel from headbutting her, mostly.
She’d started calling the goat “Satan in a sweater.” Dustin called her Hazel.
“She likes you,” he said, watching Hazel headbutt Jordyn’s thigh with what looked suspiciously like affection.
“She’s testing the structural integrity of my femur,” Jordyn muttered. “It’s a dominance thing.”
Dustin grinned, hands on his hips, sweat glistening on his temples. “She only does that to people she trusts.”
“So she’s trying to kill me out of affection?”
“Exactly.”
Jordyn shook her head, but her mouth twitched into the beginning of a smile.
They took a break beneath the cottonwood near the back pasture. Dustin handed her a bottle of water and flopped down beside her. They didn’t talk much. The silence had become comfortable, full of breath and unspoken things.
“Do you have other siblings?” he asked eventually.
“Yeah…”
“Big family?”
“More like a broken one.” She glanced down. “Sadie’s the youngest. Thirteen. Smart. Quiet. Too good for the world she’s stuck in.”
“You close?” he asked.
Jordyn sighed “She used to climb into bed with me when our dad got loud. Thought if she was next to me, nothing bad would happen. Caleb’s the oldest. He used to be the protector when things got rough. He left home right before he turned 18 and never looked back.”
Dustin didn’t say anything. Just let the silence hold what needed to be held.
She looked up. “What about you?”
He shook his head. “Only child. My mom was my whole world until cancer took her. My dad went dark after that… just… disappeared inside himself.”
She glanced at him. His jaw was tight, but not angry, more like holding something back.
“You ever miss them?” she asked.
His eyes stayed forward. “Every day.”
He pulled something from his back pocket, a worn photo, creased and faded. He handed it to her carefully.
The woman in the photo was smiling wide, her arms wrapped around a younger Dustin. She had kind eyes and laugh lines and a sunhat that looked too big for her head.
“My mom,” he said. “This was the day we fixed up the garden. She always made time for the little things.”
Jordyn studied the photo for a long moment before handing it back. “She looks like she gave good hugs.”
“She did.” His voice was quiet. “She got sick my junior year. Breast cancer. It went fast. We were still trying to understand the diagnosis when she was already in hospice.”
He paused. “My dad unraveled after that. He stopped eating, stopped talking. Just sat in her chair every night, holding her sweater.”
Jordyn didn’t breathe.
“I tried to stay,” Dustin continued. “Tried to help him. But I was seventeen, angry, helpless. So I joined the Army.” A bitter smile tugged at his lips. “Told myself I’d make something of the mess.”
He turned to her then, eyes darker now, but clear. Honest. “War was easier in some ways. At least I knew who I was over there. Back home… I didn’t recognize myself. Until I met you.”
Her throat tightened. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know the way you go quiet when you’re overwhelmed. I know how you touch the horses like they’re breakable, even though you’re not afraid of much else. I know you look away when people get too close… but you don’t run… not anymore.”
He looked down. “I don’t need your whole story, Jordyn. Not if it hurts. But if you ever want to share it… I’m here. Not to fix it. Just to hear it.”
She swallowed. Hard. Her instinct screamed to pull away. But his words had cracked something open. Not all the way, but just enough for light to slip through.
After a long silence, she said, “I was nine the first time my dad forgot to come home.”
Dustin didn’t speak. Just let her voice fill the air, steady and soft.
“And my mom… she left when I was thirteen. No goodbye. No note. Just gone. I had to keep everyone else afloat… Caleb and Sadie. I didn’t even realize I was drowning until it was too late.”
A tear slid down her cheek, and she wiped it away fast. “I don’t tell people this. I don’t… trust like that.”
He didn’t reach for her. Didn’t say a word. Just sat with her in it.
Finally, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
And for the first time in a long time, Jordyn didn’t feel like she was holding the world up alone.
That night, Jordyn curled on the mattress in her studio apartment, a warm ache in her chest she didn’t know how to name. A book Dustin had given her was open in her lap, but she hadn’t read a word in ten minutes.
She kept thinking about the way he looked at her when she talked about her family.
He didn’t pity her.
He just listened.
Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. Her gut twisted.
“Hello?”
A pause.
“…Jordyn?”
Her chest locked tight. “Sadie?”
The line went quiet except for the sound of shallow breathing.
“Can you come get me?” her sister whispered. “He’s drinking again. Real bad. I can’t get him to calm down.”
Jordyn’s heart plummeted. She stood so fast the book fell off her lap.
“Where are you? Are you safe?”
“I’m in the shed out back. He doesn’t know I’m out here yet.”
“Stay put. Don’t move. I’m coming.”
As Jordyn sprinted down the diner’s back stairs, she nearly collided with Dustin coming around the corner with a crate of tools.
He caught her by the arm before she could fall. “Whoa. Where’s the fire?”
“I have to go,” she said breathlessly. “It’s Sadie. She’s not safe.”
Dustin’s eyes sharpened. “Let me come with you.”
“No.”
“Jordyn…”
She yanked her arm free. “This is my family, Dustin. You don’t know what he’s like when he’s drunk and mean. You don’t know how bad it can get.”
“I know you shouldn’t face it alone.”
Her eyes burned. “I always have.”
She didn’t wait for his answer.
Dustin stood frozen as her car roared down the alley.
The screen door creaked behind him.
Maisie, arms crossed, watched the taillights fade.
“She tell you what you already knew?”
Dustin didn’t answer.
Maisie’s voice softened. “You love her.”
He let out a breath like it hurt. “Yeah.”
“Then don’t just stand there,” she said. “Go after her. That girl’s spent her whole life thinking no one ever comes. Maybe it’s time someone did.”
