“Okay. That was one of the ones with average ratings. Not good, not bad. Lots of people like it, but if you don’t, we’ll move on to the next.”
This was how they went through the store, aisle by aisle, item by item, testing bouncers and looking at crib designs and developmentally appropriate toys. Lucy used an app on her phone to add the ones they liked to the registry. Aiden thought it would take the entire day, but in two hours they were down to the last item on her list: a baby carrier.
Aiden had tried on three so far, and an employee had bustled up to offer them a weighted baby doll. He slipped it in the front of the carrier he was wearing, which miraculously fit his big frame. “That’s the one,” he declared. There was almost no pressure on his shoulders, and his back took none of the strain of the weighted baby. Not that it was particularly heavy, but he could imagine how it would feel after an extended session.
He could imagine it.
Lucy looked at him, eyes shining.
“What?” He twisted and posed in front of her. “You don’t like the color?” He didn’t know what color it was, but the label called it “electric orchid.”
“No, it’s—I never thought I’d like this color on you so much.”
He spun around, hands out, and she laughed, a sound so full of joy that it made Aiden laugh, too. They were both laughing when Lucy’s phone rang in her hand.
A serious expression descended over her face. “It’s a Portland number,” she said, almost to herself. “I should get this. Hello?”
The corners of Lucy’s mouth turned down, and she stepped a little farther away from Aiden as she listened to the person on the other end of the line.
As the conversation went on, with Lucy saying yes and sure and finally thanks, Henry. I’ll think about it and get back to you.
By the time she hung up the phone, Aiden thought his heart might burst out of his chest. “Who was that?”
“It was my ex.” Lucy stared at the phone as if the entire thing had been a dream, then shook her head. “He called to offer me a job.”
His heart sank right down to his toes. “What kind of job?”
“Product development. For his think tank.” Lucy’s voice dropped to a whisper. “In Portland.”
“You should do it,” he said over his heartbreak. “It’s the perfect job for you.”
Lucy’s forehead was wrinkled with worry. “I’ll think about it.”
“It really is perfect,” he insisted, suddenly feeling like an idiot wearing this baby carrier. If she moved back to Portland, he’d never get the chance to use it. He took the doll out, then took the carrier off, hanging it carefully on the display rack.
“I could create as many products as I wanted,” Lucy said, but she sounded unsure.
Aiden wasn’t unsure. Not in the least. She had never asked anything of him. She had never asked him to give up his dreams or let his responsibilities go.
She should take the job.
But his heart wanted her to stay. He hadn’t known how much until this very moment.
“You don’t have to decide right now.” He gave her a broad smile. “We got through your registry. How about we celebrate your job offer with some ice cream?”
“Sounds good.” Lucy’s smile was tentative.
Aiden walked out of the store by her side, his heart beating painfully, wondering how he’d ever ask her to stay with him.
He didn’t think he could.
Twenty-Seven
The rain didn’t stop all weekend. It beat down over Aiden’s ranch, ceaseless and heavy. Dark clouds hung ominously over the ranch. It matched his mood perfectly. He had to give it credit for that.
But Aiden couldn’t sit inside. He’d given his knee the first day off, but now it was too dicey. He wanted more than anything to prepare for the harvest—it was almost time—but he’d need dry weather for that.
After he’d checked on the cattle, he walked out to the hops fields in tall boots that made no difference. His socks soaked through in the first few steps and worry gripped his gut.
Aiden had spent the entire summer worrying about making sure the hops got enough water. How many times had he fixed the irrigation system for that very purpose, working on it at all hours? Now the fields were swamped.
He could lose them, he realized as he trudged through, the rain tapping a relentless pattern on his jacket. At least one of the fields was in danger already.
Out in the field itself, Aiden found himself awed by the water. He didn’t know what he’d planned on doing when he came out here. Something. Something other than standing here while his crops drowned in front of him. But even if he got on his knees and pushed the water away with his hands, he couldn’t dig them out of the water or himself out of his hole. That was reality. He should have known it before he came all the way out here, putting his knee at risk.
The sky, which he thought couldn’t get any darker, dimmed. Aiden peered up at the clouds. He’d come outside when the rain was relatively light, but now it was picking up again. Lightning sizzled out over the tree line. When the boom of thunder followed, he made his way back to the farmhouse.
He stood on the porch, out of the rain, and watched another layer of the storm beat down on the ranch. He’d parked his truck safely in the pole barn, but now he wondered if that had been a bad idea. He might need it to get somewhere in a hurry. Of course, driving in the rain wouldn’t be the best idea he’d ever had, but he had a feeling something worse was coming than a couple cracks of thunder.
“What will be will be,” he told himself aloud, his voice barely audible over the whipping wind. Aiden turned to go inside.
That was when he heard another boom, this one louder and…different. Another sound came with it, and Aiden whirled around to see the thing he’d dreaded racing toward the hops fields.
A flash flood.
It rushed down over the hills, and he knew what must have happened. The river overflowed in the storm. The bank broke down. And the land, already saturated, could take no more water.
Aiden went down the steps, his knee protesting, heart trying to beat its way out of his chest. “No!” he shouted, waving his arms like the water could see him. “No! Don’t do this!”
The gush of water did not hear him, or if it did, it didn’t care. It hit the hops. The field closest to the barn seemed to be spared, but as Aiden watched, the water rushed through the hops, pulling at them until the bines tore away from the poles.
Destroyed.
An entire field, gone in an instant.
He stayed, looking, until the water clouded his eyes. Something bright caught in the corner of his vision.
A little rental car, trundling up the driveway. It pulled to a stop next to him, and Lucy jumped out. That spurred him into action.
“What are you doing out here?” He put an arm around her and hustled her toward the house. “There’s a flash flood. The roads could have been—”
Lucy went with him, clutching a folder tightly in her arms. She wore an oversized blue raincoat that barely hid her bump. “I made it here before anything crazy happened. Just a lot of rain.” They hurried inside and shut the door behind them. Aiden dripped water all over the foyer. “Were you out there in the flood? That’s dangerous, Aiden.”
“I was on my way in.” He pushed away the thought of those hops plants destroyed in front of his eyes and tried to focus. As much as it made his stomach twist, he knew that it could have happened anyway. After all, the plants had been under attack from the hops mites long before this storm. The decision was made simple by this newest development, at least. Aiden could sell all the remaining hops, salvaging the ones that the flood had spared, and beg the bank for an extension on the loan.
Or he could take the chance on the brewery. He could finally return their calls. He could use whatever hops he had left to jump-start his beer making career.
Suddenly, he felt cold to the bone. “Give me a minute, Luce.”
She considered him. “No rush
. Okay?”
He took a long, hot shower, then toweled off until he actually felt dry.
Back in the living room, Lucy waited for him with mugs of hot chocolate and papers spread across the coffee table. She lit up at the sight of him. “Come sit with me. I’ve been thinking.”
“Sounds dangerous,” he joked. But he had the sinking feeling that her thoughts might take him in a direction he didn’t want to go.
“It’s not dangerous, it’s facts,” Lucy said confidently.
He took a seat, and a mug, and looked at what she had on the tables.
“These are the financials for the ranch,” she said, giving him time to look before she continued. “The situation, honestly, isn’t very good. Even if you sell all the hops—and I saw the damage from the flood, so it’s not much—and your entire herd, you’ll still be playing catch-up for the next three years. Five, maybe, on the outside.”
Aiden gritted his teeth. This was not the news he wanted to get at this moment, but it was the truth, and he would face it. Like he had always faced it.
“That’s what we’re looking at. I wanted you to have all the information before…”
“Before what?”
Lucy looked him in the eye. “I want you to put aside all of your logic and all the expectations people have for you about this ranch.”
He couldn’t do that. Not really. But he tried his best to shove it all to the back of his mind. “Okay. Why?”
“What do you really want to do? When all that’s not right in front of your face?”
“Brew beer.” The answer came easily. And then all his responsibilities crashed over the idea, squashing it completely.
“Here’s what I think,” Lucy said, excitement creeping into her voice. “I think you should call your contact from the beer company. I think you should get rolling on your plans to brew. And…” She hesitated, taking a deep breath in and letting it out. “I think you should come to Portland with me.”
“Come to Portland?” Aiden tried to stop himself from laughing. He had never once considered moving to the city. Why would he? His legacy was here.
“The beer scene is thriving there.” Lucy picked up another sheaf of papers from the table. “I’ve got research. More of a market for you to test beers at least, and at most, a way for you to get a foothold into nationwide distribution for your product.” Her eyes brightened. “Plus, I’d be able to support all of us with that job at the think tank. I spent some time thinking about it over the weekend, and it would be exciting to do more diverse product development. I could have my companies running alongside, and that would mean—”
“You’d work all the time?”
“No.” Lucy shook her head with a smile. “It would mean you could have some freedom to experiment with your own business. We could do it all together. Raise the baby. Get our businesses off the ground. There’d be a big enough cushion that we could be comfortable.”
It was too much to take in, with half his crop destroyed and the rain coming down hard on the roof. “You were never going to stay here, were you?”
“Aiden, that’s—” Lucy looked hurt. “I love my hometown. There are people here, friends, that I never thought I’d have. I’d never have found them in an academic career in Portland, that’s true.”
“So why don’t you stay? You be the one to move—here—and I’ll keep the ranch. You can start your cleaner business, sell the pesticide to everybody on earth. We could raise the next generation here. Our baby could have what we did.”
Now her expression was pure sadness. “Aiden, that’s—”
“It’s not any worse than Portland.”
“No. It’s different. But it’s smaller here. High school…” She looked away, then brought her gaze back to him. “High school hurt. There’s a small-town mentality here that some people can’t ever break out of. I don’t want that for my baby. As much as I love it here, and as much as I would want to visit, I want her…him…to grow up…free. With more opportunities. Fewer stereotypes. We can’t do that here.”
“I think we could.”
Lucy pursed her lips, and his gut went cold. “I think I could. But I’m not sure you could. It takes work to break away from all that. And when you’re here at the ranch all your life…”
“Are you calling me small minded?” Aiden stood up from the couch and went to stand near the window.
“No. I’m only saying that it’s easy to slip into old patterns. I still have to work to keep myself out of them, and—”
Anger, like the flood, swept through him. “You know what, Luce? I hear you loud and clear. Go to Portland. Raise your child however you want. I’m only the sperm donor. You don’t need me. I see that now. But other people do need me. I’m staying.”
“Aiden, that’s—” Her voice clouded with pain.
“I think you should go.” He turned to face her and watched a tear slip from her eye. “Not—right now. The roads are dangerous. But when the storm is over, we should…we should take some time apart.”
Lucy’s eyes flashed. “Forget that.” She went to the door with her shoulders squared. “Goodbye, Aiden.”
“Luce, it’s—”
“Flooded. So what?” She didn’t turn back, just pulled the door shut tightly behind her.
He watched her go.
She didn’t bother to put on the raincoat. The rain fell on her hair and her clothes, but Lucy didn’t seem to care at all.
Twenty-Eight
There had never been a more insistent knock on the front door of Aiden’s farmhouse. The pounding noise swam into his dreams, yanking him out of a pleasant interlude that involved a ranch with all its hops fields intact, a brewery deal worth a million dollars, and a happy, pregnant wife. At first it sounded like a log splitter, but eventually the sound morphed into a thudding at his front door.
And…yelling?
Aiden threw his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing his eyes and cursing under his breath. He’d called in the ranch hands early and gone back to sleep, telling them that he was taking the day off and not to bother him. Now they were bothering him. He’d go down right now and make them aware of their mistake. He’d been perfectly clear—unless the entire ranch was burning down, he didn’t want to see another face all day. And there was no way it could be burning. The rain still came down in intermittent sheets.
Another round of knocks at the door. If he didn’t hurry, they’d take the whole thing down—whoever it was. Aiden prepared himself to fire one of his ranch hands. At this point, if they couldn’t listen to simple instructions, he had no need of them. Not when he felt this low.
He stepped into a pair of jeans and ran his hand through his hair, not bothering to make himself any more presentable than that. Aiden took the stairs hard, stomping on every step. The surly feeling raging through his muscles wasn’t welcome, just like the person on his front porch.
He’d extended his hand to yank open the door when they knocked again. A woman’s voice rang out. “Aiden! What are you doing in there? Come out and talk to us!”
And a second voice: “I don’t have time for this, Aiden. I should be busy running a company instead of screwing with other people’s lives.”
He pulled open the door to reveal none other than his mom and sister. Both wore hooded raincoats against the rain, and both looked furious.
“What can I do for you?” He looked from one to the other, hoping his own fury telegraphed in his expression. “You woke me up.”
“You’re late for work around the ranch.” His mother gave her pronouncement and stepped around him and into the foyer. Andrea pushed past him.
“I took the day off. Not that it’s any of your business.” He closed the door and stood in front of it while the two women shed their coats, hanging them up on the rack in the center of the foyer. “I see you’re inviting yourselves in.”
Andrea gave him a pointed look. “We need to talk.”
“No.”
Linda didn’t seem to hea
r him. “It’s time to tell us what you did to drive Lucy away.”
“What?” Aiden was so flabbergasted he laughed out loud. “I didn’t do anything to drive her away.”
“Bull.” Andrea shook her head. “She called me last night to say she’s leaving town earlier than she expected. And she wants to cancel the shower.”
“Which we’ve already rented a room for,” Linda chimed in. “I put down the deposit.”
“And now we’re in the position of having to cancel for frankly mysterious reasons. I bet it’s because of something you did.”
“Shut up, Andrea.” God, he hated this.
“Aiden,” his mother said, switching gears. “You two were so good together. And it really seemed to me that Lucy had some interest in keeping her parents’ house and staying in town.”
“Did she? Or did you plant the idea in her mind and gently guide her toward that decision?”
Linda raised both hands in the air. “I mentioned it. But I never pressured her. I just want to know why there’s been a sudden change like this. I’ll admit that I was hopeful the baby would be close by in those early months, and that’s a disappointment, but…what happened, Aiden? You look miserable.”
“I’m not the one who can’t decide what he wants.” Frustration built inside him. “Lucy has the world at her feet. She can have a job offer anywhere in the world. She can throw a few ingredients together and come up with a product ready for the shelves.” The rain had picked up again, lashing against the front windows. “She has everything.”
“That’s hardly true,” Linda scoffed. “Nobody has everything.”
“Maybe not, but she has enough to know she doesn’t need me. And if she doesn’t need me involved—” A dull pain shot through his chest. “It’s best for her to be elsewhere. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running into her in the supermarket.”
“Of course she needs you.” Andrea’s tone was acid. “If you don’t think she needs you, you’re crazy. She’s brought you up at every meeting I’ve had with her. Thank god for Aiden, otherwise I’d have been trapped on my couch forever. Sickly sweet stuff like that.”
The Rancher’s Baby Bargain Page 18