Single Mom's Protector - Complete Series

by Nella Tyler

  “What are you up to today, girl?” Bob Nelson helped himself to a fried chicken wing and looked at his daughter.

  “Mom has decided in her infinite wisdom that we need to clear out the attic,” Autumn said tartly. “We spent the whole morning on it, just about.”

  “And yet you still had time to fry up chicken and make salads,” I pointed out. “And, dress up for us.” Autumn rolled her eyes, blushing slightly.

  “Well, I made the salads last night and hid them out in the outside fridge,” she said. “After I got out of the shower, I fried up the chicken and made the lemonade. Simple as pie.”

  “I could use a shower,” I said, tugging at my sweat-soaked shirt. “Maybe I ought to just hose myself off right now, come to think of it.”

  Autumn snorted. “It’d give you relief for all of ten minutes before the heat made the wet clothes unbearable,” she told me playfully. “Better by far to duck behind a tree and take a hose shower.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’re a mother,” I said, playfully tart. “You shouldn’t be suggesting that strange men go get naked behind trees. People might think the worst of you.”

  “I was just making a suggestion,” she said primly. “Since I didn’t want you to be wandering around my father’s fields in wet, stiff clothes.”

  “Getting mighty flirtatious between the two of you,” Tuck said, looking at me sharply.

  “Just normal banter,” I said with a shrug, eating a bite of potato salad.

  “I’m not allowed to have a nice conversation with someone?” Autumn gave her brother a firm look, and then glanced at her father doubtfully.

  “Depends on how nice,” Tuck said. Bob’s phone rang in his pocket, and I watched him gather up his paper plate and walk away to have his conversation.

  “Something wrong with your lemonade, Tuck? It sounds like it’s made you sour,” Autumn asked her brother.

  “Nothing wrong with the lemonade; just don’t exactly appreciate my sister distracting one of our employees.”

  “I don’t feel distracted,” I said, shrugging off the idea of it. “We’re on a break, anyway, aren’t we?” Tuck held my gaze for a minute, and I was sure he was going to say something more, but then he looked down at his plate and picked up another piece of fried chicken to take a bite.

  Autumn reminded us to gather our trash when we were done and to remember to bring the picnic basket back with us when we came back to the house for the day. I could tell that Tuck’s comments had rattled her—they weren’t like his usual jokes regarding her “crush” on me.

  I felt more than a little uneasy, too, and as soon as Autumn headed back to the house, I finished off the food on my plate as quickly as possible, not saying anything at all to Tuck.

  I had never quite figured out what his issue with me was. Even before he’d had any real reason to suspect there was something between his sister and me, he’d had that conversation with his father that I’d overheard. I wasn’t sure if he was just against the idea of a farmhand working for his father at all or of it was something specific to me.

  But I knew I couldn’t afford to lose the job at this point. Into the summer, it was difficult to get another job if I got fired from this one, and I wasn’t about to give Tuck the satisfaction of getting his father to fire me for cause, anyway. Whatever it was that he had against me, I was determined not to let Tuck win.

  I gathered up my trash and put it in the bag that Autumn had left with the picnic basket. “Not a bad meal, all things considered,” I said, setting the trash bag aside and making sure that everything else was back in the basket. I was pretty sure that it would more or less keep for a few hours yet—there were cold packs in the basket, and the choices Autumn had made wouldn’t turn as easily—and we might get hungry for more later.

  “Pretty good meal,” Tuck agreed. I cleaned off my hands, found my sprayer, and got back to work as quickly as I could, remembering the look that had come over Bob Nelson’s face at Tuck’s pointed remarks.

  I felt irritable towards Tuck for and I was sure that Autumn was no happier than I was, but I couldn’t do anything about it apart from showing that I wasn’t distracted, that I was working just as hard as ever.

  I was pretty sure that no one other than me and Autumn knew for sure that we’d had sex, or that anything had happened between us more than the most innocent movie date possible. I doubted that she’d even told her mom, much less her brother or her dad; but if they started to suspect that there was more than flirtation between us, things could go downhill fast.

  I got to work, spraying my allotted row with fertilizer, focusing intently on my work. I heard Tuck walking through one of the adjoining rows, though the corn was a bit too high to actually see him, and I assumed that at some point, Robert Nelson had finished his meal and gotten back to work, as well.

  I thought about Autumn; she was vulnerable, and I knew it. She was living with her parents, and I could understand that they wanted to protect her, but she was a grown woman, and it wasn’t as though she should have to be single forever. She would need someone to help support her emotionally, beyond just her parents, while she raised Addie. And, Adelyn deserved a father. Not that I was considering myself for the job, but it seemed like everyone wanted to protect Autumn so much that they weren’t willing to let her live her life.

  As I came to the end of one of my rows, I looked up and saw that Bob Nelson was watching me intently. “How many rows have you gotten done?”

  I shrugged. “About five, since lunch,” I replied. I wasn’t all that sure how long it had been since our break, but I knew it hadn’t been all that long. “Think I’ll get another ten or so done before we knock off for the day.”

  Bob Nelson nodded curtly and started off towards his own corner of the field once more, without saying anything about why he’d been watching me. Even without a comment on it, though, I was pretty sure I knew the cause: Tuck’s stupid remarks.

  I took a deep breath through the face-cover I wore to keep from inhaling fertilizer and turned my attention back onto the work in front of me. I couldn’t do anything better to testify on my own behalf than to do the best work possible, especially while Bob Nelson was watching me so intently. I couldn’t afford to screw up.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Autumn

  It was just after six in the afternoon, and I was still more than a little unnerved by the lunch break I’d taken with Tuck, Cade, and Dad.

  I had heard the guys coming back to the house at the end of the day and taken my dinner back to the guesthouse, telling Mom that since Addie seemed to be feeling a little off, I’d spare her the excitement of dinner at the table with so many people and feed her at my place. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to risk seeing Cade again, but that I didn’t want for Tuck to see me and Cade together for a while.

  It was obvious to me that Tuck had some kind of issue with the possibility of Cade and me getting together, and I didn’t want to give him any kind of reason to get hostile.

  I had to wonder what it was that was setting my brother off. It couldn’t just be a matter of Cade and me flirting, Tuck had never had an issue with me flirting with anyone before. I could almost wish he’d taken issue with me flirting with Titan when I’d first gotten together with my ex—but then, nobody had known any better than I had that Titan would end up cheating on me and abandoning me when I was in my second trimester of carrying his child.

  There was something more at play in my brother’s mind, but I had no idea what it was. Maybe Cade had said something to piss him off, and I just hadn’t been there to know about it? Or maybe it had something to do with Tuck’s insecurities—or maybe my brother was still carrying a grudge from that argument that he and Cade had had at the dinner table weeks before.

  Whatever it was, my brother was not being reasonable, but I couldn’t really tell him that.

  I ate my dinner and fed Addie hers, watching a show on TV that I’d seen a dozen times before. Part of me wanted to go back to th
e main house on the farm, but I reminded myself that I didn’t really want to deal with Tuck in whatever current state of mind he was in. I’d much rather have a quiet—if boring—night to myself with my daughter and deal with whatever was going on with Tuck another day.

  Of course, I didn’t end up getting my wish. A little after sundown, I heard a knock at my door. Mom would have called or texted me, and Dad never came by at night. I couldn’t think of any of my friends who it could be, and I certainly didn’t think that Cade would have had the gall to sneak back onto the property and knock on my door after leaving for the day—not the way that things were between him and Tuck already. So before I even opened the door, I was fairly certain it was my brother.

  “Tuck,” I said, confirming it in the sight of the young man standing on my front porch, “I’m tired and Addie is grouchy. What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you about Cade,” he said. “Let me in, will you?” I considered it; I could call my parents, but that wouldn’t resolve the issue.

  “I’m trying to get Addie calm enough to go to sleep at a reasonable time tonight,” I warned Tucker. “So if you’re planning on yelling at me, I want you to walk right back to the house and save it for another day.”

  “Why are you flirting with him so hard?” Tuck crossed his arms over his chest. “Haven’t you learned anything from how Titan treated you?” My eyes went wide and I stared at my brother in shock at what he’d said. I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment at the suggestion that Tuck was making.

  “Are you trying to say that every man on the planet is exactly like Titan? That you’d leave the mother of your child—your fiancée—behind because you’d found someone you liked better, because you’d cheated on her?” I took a deep breath and glanced over my shoulder into my house. Addie wasn’t kicking up a fuss, but I’d heard my own voice rising in anger at what Tuck had said.

  “No,” he replied sharply. “But just because I’m not a shit like Titan doesn’t mean that other guys aren’t. You don’t even know Cade—and a guy who’s single at his age… Well, it doesn’t speak well of him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re talking like Cade is forty or something,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s not even thirty yet. And it’s not like you’re all that much younger than he is!”

  “Still,” he insisted. “I don’t like it. I don’t like what you and he are like together.”

  “What we’re like together?” I stared at my brother in disbelief. “What we’re like together is two grown adults who are moderately attracted to each other. It’s just flirting—it’s nothing serious.” But even as I said it, my heart beat faster in my chest. I hoped against hope that it was something more serious, but I couldn’t very well tell my brother that, could I?

  “Why are you even fooling around with him? Don’t you have any loyalty?”

  I blinked, trying to work my mind around whatever it was my brother was trying to suggest. “How would flirting with Cade have anything to do with loyalty—to anyone?

  Tuck crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, I know you’ve got a kid and all, and it’s shitty that Titan abandoned you, but that doesn’t mean you can try and cut me out of what I’m due.”

  I closed my eyes, shaking my head. What was Tuck even talking about? I had no idea. “You’re going to have to get a lot clearer if you want me to explain anything to you,” I told him, opening my eyes. “Because right now, I have no idea what you’re going on about.”

  “Pretty convenient that you’re into a guy that you talked Dad into hiring right after he bought a new piece of land to add to the farm,” Tuck pointed out.

  “Dad hired Cade on his own merits,” I said. “What does the expansion have to do with anything?”

  He scowled at me. “You talked Dad into getting a new farmhand with the new expansion of the farm,” he said firmly.

  “Okay, yeah—because he wasn’t sure that you and he would be able to handle it on your own, and I can’t help out,” I countered.

  “Then you agree to do all the legwork for him, and magically we get this guy who it turns out you’re into,” he continued.

  “No—I didn’t even know him before Dad hired him,” I protested. “And I’m into him because I’ve started to get to know him over the weeks.”

  “So, you really expect me to believe this wasn’t a set-up?”

  I stared at my brother. “I expect you to believe that because it wasn’t a set-up at all,” I told him firmly. “I picked the resumes that looked the most like what Dad would need, Dad interviewed the applicants, and Cade got the job. What the hell is eating you?”

  “If Dad decides to sell off part of the farm later on, he’ll choose someone who it seems like he can trust,” Tuck said sharply. “Cade—Cade shows me up on everything all the time! He’s too good, he’s always too good, and he makes me look like I’m lazy.”

  “How is that my problem?” I couldn’t believe how far and wide my brother’s brain had traveled, apparently without me even knowing about it.

  “That’s bullshit and you know it,” Tuck said. “Those comments he made about being motivated. He wants to buy out part of the farm one day when Dad can’t manage it on his own, and he’s showing me up so that Dad will sell to him.”

  I opened my mouth, realized that I was so stunned by Tuck’s accusation that I couldn’t even formulate anything to say, and closed it again. I stared at my brother in complete shock. What in the world had gotten that idea into Tucker’s head?

  “What in the world are you even talking about, Tucker Nelson?” I shook my head, almost completely bereft of belief. “In what world is the stupid plan you’re talking about even a thing that exists?”

  “In this world!” he insisted. “I know you want stability for Addie. I know you like Cade. And, I know Cade wants to own a piece of this farm. It’s as obvious as the damn sun.”

  “You need to get the hell out of my house,” I told my brother. “Go back to the main house and get some sleep. You’ve been out in the heat too much.”

  “This isn’t just your place,” Tuck said stubbornly. “Mom and Dad own it, and when I inherit the farm, I’ll own it,” he told me.

  “Assuming that you inherit the farm, I guarantee you that Mom and Dad would never put my welfare in your hands alone,” I told him hotly. “Get off my porch and go home right now.”

  Tuck looked for a moment like he was going to keep arguing, but then he turned on his heel, jumped off of my porch and onto the walkway, and stalked back towards the house in the darkness. I sighed and leaned against the frame of the door, shaking my head at the nonsense that had just happened between me and my own brother.

  I realized I was standing in my own open doorway and went back into my house, closing and locking the door behind me. I needed to talk to someone about what had just happened.

  I couldn’t talk to Cade about it—he would just feel guilty, and probably would worry about the future of his job, with Tuck against him. I couldn’t talk to Dad about it for obvious reasons. I also couldn’t really talk to any of my friends about it, since they didn’t even know that I was interested in anyone, and I didn’t want to share the news of my brother’s irrational attack with them.

  That left Mom.

  I checked on Addie first. I’d put her in her playpen with the kid-friendly music station on the TV, and she was playing more or less contentedly, mumbling to herself. I found my phone and took it into the bedroom with me. I hoped Mom would be able to talk to me without Dad eavesdropping.

  “What’s up, sweetie?”

  I took a deep breath. “Mom, is Tuck close by? Or Dad? I want to talk to you about something private.”

  “I’m in the office,” she replied. “Your dad’s watching TV in the living room and Tuck just came in and went upstairs.”

  “Okay,” I said. My heart was still beating fast from the stress of my argument with my brother. “I need to tell you about what Tuck was just over here doing.” I told her about
the argument, about Tucker’s accusations, and Mom stayed quiet throughout the story—so much so that I worried more than once that the call had dropped.

  “Your brother’s under a lot of stress right now,” she said finally. “I’ll admit, most of it’s self-inflicted. You were right to make him leave you alone—what you do with your life is none of his business.”

  She paused and I wondered if that was all she would have to say on the subject. “I do want you to be real careful, if you’re going to get involved with Cade,” she said finally. “Make sure it’s what you want, what he wants, and most of all that it’s what’s best for Addie.”

  “Mom, all we’re doing right now is flirting,” I said. I couldn’t even admit to her what Cade and I had done the day we’d gone to the movies together. “I’m not going to get into anything serious unless I’m sure. I’ve learned my lesson on that score.”

  “I’ll see if I can’t talk to your brother about the way he’s acting without letting him know you told me about tonight,” Mom suggested. “I’ve noticed his temper is shorter than usual, especially in regards to Cade.” She sighed. “He’s even beginning to get on your Dad’s nerves—but don’t tell him I said that.”

  I laughed. “Glad it’s not just me he’s coming down on, I guess,” I said, shaking my head again at the ridiculous argument. “You don’t think there’s anything in what he was accusing me of, do you? You don’t think I’d be that sneaky?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “And, you have just as much a right to a piece of this property when we’re gone as Tuck does. He’ll have to learn to mange himself properly or he’ll be unpleasantly surprised with how your father settles matters in his will.”

  Mom changed the subject after that, and I told her that Addie was settling in for the night. It was nearly time for my daughter’s bath and to go to bed, and while I was relieved from talking to Mom, I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d heard the last of Tucker’s insecurities.