Rust & Starlight
Chapter 8 : The Town Grocery
Ten days into his sentence — Mason had started calling it that, half-jokingly — Wren announced that they needed supplies.
“The pantry’s down to dust and determination,” she said at breakfast, pushing a list across the kitchen table. “I’d go myself, but the hydraulic hose on the tractor blew this morning, and I need to fix it before the alfalfa delivery comes.”
Mason looked at the list. Flour. Sugar. Coffee. Dish soap. Chicken feed. A new latch for the barn door. A dozen other items in Wren’s neat, angular handwriting.
“You want me to go to town?” he asked.
“I want you to go to the co-op in Millbrook. It’s twelve miles east. Pick up everything on the list, don’t talk to anyone, and come straight back.”
“Why can’t I talk to anyone?”
Wren’s eyes narrowed. “Because Millbrook has a population of 847 people, and 846 of them are professional gossips. The 847th is deaf, and even he’s heard about you.”
Mason almost laughed. “You think they’re going to recognize me?”
“Your face has been on every tabloid in America for the past five years. Yes, I think they’re going to recognize you.” She stood up, walked to a drawer, and pulled out a faded baseball cap. “Wear this. Keep your head down. Pay with cash.”
She handed him a worn leather wallet. Inside: two hundred dollars in twenties, neatly folded.
“I can’t take your money,” he said.
“It’s not my money. It’s the fence repair fund. You’re buying supplies for the farm. That’s allowed in the contract.” She paused. “Also, buy yourself something. You’ve been wearing the same shirt for ten days.”
Mason looked down at his flannel — the one that had belonged to Luke. He’d washed it twice in the barn sink, but it still smelled faintly of woodsmoke and memory.
“I like this shirt,” he said.
Wren’s expression softened, just a fraction. “I know. But you need more than one.”
The drive to Millbrook was twenty-five minutes in Wren’s pickup — a 2005 Ford F-150 with a cracked windshield and a transmission that shifted like it was having second thoughts. Mason drove slowly, both because the truck couldn’t go much faster and because he wanted to delay the inevitable.
The landscape was the same as the farm: endless prairie, occasional stands of cottonwood trees, barbed wire fences dividing the world into rectangles. But as he got closer to town, the fields gave way to houses — small, weathered farmhouses with porch swings and satellite dishes and American flags.
Millbrook itself was one main street, three stop signs, and a grain elevator that towered over everything like a concrete cathedral. The co-op was at the end of the street, a low-slung building with a faded sign that read Millbrook Farmers’ Exchange — Est. 1952.
Mason parked the truck, pulled the baseball cap low over his eyes, and walked inside.
The co-op smelled like fertilizer, coffee, and old wood. The floors were concrete, scuffed by a century of work boots. The shelves were a jumble of everything a farm might need: horse tack, canning jars, work gloves, seed packets, rat poison, candy bars, and a surprising selection of romance novels near the register.
The woman behind the counter looked up when he entered. She was maybe sixty, with steel-gray hair and arms that looked like they could wrestle a calf. Her name tag read Mabel.
“Help you?” she asked.
Mason held up the list. “Just getting some supplies.”
Mabel’s eyes flicked to his face, then to the baseball cap, then back to his face. He saw the recognition click into place — the slight widening of the eyes, the way her hand paused on the register.
“Well, now,” she said slowly. “Ain’t you a sight.”
“Just the supplies, ma’am.”
“Mabel. And I wasn’t asking for conversation. Just observing.” She took the list, scanned it, and nodded. “Wren Calloway’s list. You’re the fella staying at her place.”
So much for keeping his head down.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The one who crashed into her fence.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mabel grunted. She pulled a large cardboard box from under the counter and began filling it with items from the shelves, moving with the efficiency of someone who had done this ten thousand times. Flour. Sugar. Coffee. Dish soap. She didn’t say another word until the box was full.
“That’ll be a hundred and forty-three dollars and sixty-two cents,” she said.
Mason counted out the cash. As he handed it over, the bell above the door jingled, and two more women walked in. They were younger than Mabel — forties, maybe — and they stopped dead when they saw him.
One of them whispered something to the other. The other whispered back. Mason pretended not to notice.
Mabel, however, noticed everything.
“Ladies,” she said, her voice flat. “You need something?”
“Just browsing, Mabel.”
“Then browse quiet.”
The women drifted toward the canning jar aisle, but their eyes never left Mason. He could feel their gaze like a physical weight — the same feeling he’d had a thousand times in Nashville, except there it had been admiration. Here, it was something else. Suspicion. Curiosity. The kind of interest that preceded a phone call to a tabloid hotline.
Mason picked up the box. “Thank you, Mabel.”
“Hold on.” She reached under the counter and pulled out a brown paper bag. “Wren called ahead. Said to give you this.”
He opened the bag. Inside: a ham sandwich, an apple, and a slice of rhubarb pie.
“She said you probably haven’t been eating right,” Mabel added. “And she’s right. You look like a scarecrow with a hangover.”
Mason almost smiled. “Tell her thank you.”
“I’ll tell her no such thing. She knows I think she’s a meddler.” But Mabel’s eyes were kind. “You take care of her, you hear? That girl’s been through enough.”
He nodded, not trusting his voice, and carried the box to the truck.
He was loading the supplies into the bed when a black SUV pulled into the parking lot.
It was out of place in Millbrook — too clean, too expensive, with tinted windows and rims that cost more than Wren’s truck. The engine cut off, and a man got out.
He was in his late thirties, dressed in a dark suit that looked tailored, with a face that was handsome in a forgettable way. His hair was short, his jaw was sharp, and his eyes were the color of cold coffee. He carried a leather portfolio under one arm.
“Mason Cross?” the man said.
Mason’s stomach dropped. “Who’s asking?”
“My name is Julian Voss. I’m a talent scout for Blackthorn Records.” He extended a hand. Mason didn’t take it. Julian let it drop, unbothered. “I’ve been looking for you for three days. Your manager said you’d gone off-grid. Your ex-wife said you were probably dead. But I have a nose for talent, and talent leaves a trail.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You haven’t heard my offer.”
“I don’t care what your offer is. I’m not making music anymore.”
Julian smiled — a thin, practiced expression that didn’t reach his eyes. “With respect, Mr. Cross, that’s not what I heard. I was having breakfast at the diner, and two ladies came in talking about a man playing guitar on a porch last night. They said it was the most beautiful thing they’d ever heard. Said it brought them to tears.”
Mason’s blood ran cold. The women from the co-op. They must have driven past the farm on their way home.
“You’re wrong,” he said.
“Am I?” Julian pulled a business card from his portfolio and held it out. “I’m staying at the Super 8 in Hays. I’ll be there for two more days. If you change your mind, call me.”
Mason didn’t take the card. Julian tucked it under the truck’s windshield wiper instead.
“The song you were playing,” Julian said, turning back toward his SUV. “It’s called ‘Kansas Rain,’ isn’t it? That’s what the ladies said. ‘Kansas Rain.'”
He got into the SUV and drove away.
Mason stood in the parking lot, his hands shaking, the ham sandwich growing warm in his pocket. The card under the windshield wiper fluttered in the wind.
He didn’t touch it.
He got into the truck and drove back to the farm.
Wren was in the barn when he returned, her coveralls stained with hydraulic fluid, her hair tied back in a bandana. She looked up when he pulled in, wiping her hands on a rag.
“Took you long enough,” she said.
Mason got out of the truck. He didn’t say anything. He just walked to the back, lifted the box of supplies, and carried it into the house.
Wren followed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Mason. Look at me.”
He set the box on the kitchen table and turned around. His face was pale, his jaw tight.
“A talent scout found me,” he said. “In Millbrook. He heard about the song.”
Wren’s expression didn’t change, but her hand tightened on the rag. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him I wasn’t interested.”
“Is that true?”
Mason didn’t answer. He pulled the paper bag from his pocket — the one with the sandwich and the pie — and set it on the table.
“Your friend Mabel sent lunch,” he said. “She said you’re a meddler.”
Wren stared at him for a long moment. Then she walked to the table, opened the bag, and pulled out the slice of rhubarb pie.
“Sit down,” she said. “Eat your sandwich. We’ll talk about the talent scout later.”
Mason sat. Wren cut the pie in half and pushed one of the pieces toward him.
For a while, they ate in silence. But the silence was different now — heavier, charged with something unsaid. The card from Blackthorn Records was still on the truck’s windshield. And somewhere in the distance, Mason could hear the melody of “Kansas Rain” playing in his head, demanding to be finished.side, and when Mason finally climbed the ladder to the loft, he was still humming.