by Nella Tyler
“Come on, baby girl,” I said to Addie, hefting her carrier. She could walk—she was actually getting quite good at it—but for certain things, I still liked to have her in the carrier.
I locked the door behind me and walked from my house through the backyard and towards the front of the main house. I started to find the key for my car, to load up Adelyn and the food and her stuff.
“Where ya headed?” I looked up and saw Tuck leaning against the driver’s side door of my car.
“Just a little trip out to the park,” I said with a shrug. My heart beat faster and faster in my chest.
“Oh? That sounds nice,” he said. “Going to see Cade while you’re at it?” I rolled my eyes.
“Why? Cade isn’t interested in me, remember?” I felt my palms starting to get clammy, nervousness rising up in me.
“So then why didn’t I get an invitation to come with you? Just you and Addie out in the park—that doesn’t sound like you.”
“I’ve taken lots of trips into town with just Addie and me,” I pointed out.
“You’ve been meeting with Cade,” Tuck said, meeting my gaze levelly.
“I have not,” I protested. “I’ve been getting out of the house.”
“And, meeting with Cade,” he insisted.
“Where did you get that idea?” I felt the blood rising into my face and tried to stop it; he grinned.
“If I didn’t know for sure, I’d know for sure right now, the way you’re blushing,” he said. “Come on, Sis.”
“I’m not admitting anything,” I said tartly. “But if I was meeting with Cade, it would be during his off hours. No harm, no foul.”
Tuck shook his head. “Sis, if you keep doing this, Dad is going to find out. How do you think he’s going to feel towards you, hiding this from him? How do you think he’s going to feel about Cade?”
I rolled my eyes. “Dad is not going to find out,” I said.
“He might,” Tuck told me, shrugging. “I managed to find out, didn’t I?”
I frowned at him. “I don’t know how you found out, but you are not Dad.”
“It’s important for him to know,” he said with a shrug. “Cade made a promise to Dad, and he’s not upholding his end of the bargain.”
“He’s not distracted,” I insisted. “He’s working just as hard as you are—not that anyone would know it by the way you talk.”
I pressed my lips together. I’d heard from more than a few people in town that Tuck had been downplaying Cade’s role on the farm, all but calling him lazy. “You had better not tell Dad that I’m meeting with Cade,” I told my brother firmly.
“What are you going to do if I tell him?” Tuck smirked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’ll tell him about you bad-mouthing Cade to all our friends in town,” I said. “I mean, I don’t know if he’ll care about you saying that Cade is not pulling his fair share, but I’m sure he’ll care about you telling people he’s a fool for hiring anyone at all.”
Tuck stared at me for a long moment. “You wouldn’t.”
I laughed. “I would just as readily as you would tell on me,” I said. “Mutually assured destruction, bro. You screw me over, I will make sure you’re nuked with Dad.”
“Dad wouldn’t care,” he said, puffing up.
“Dad would care,” I countered. “He would care a lot. Maybe even enough to be pissed at you for years for bad-mouthing him as well as me, as well as someone he hired. Maybe you won’t get the farm, after all.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared my brother down. “You willing to take that risk?”
“I’m not going to tell Dad,” he said. “But you need to know that if you’re not more careful about meeting with that guy, you’re going to end up getting caught. If you get caught, you’re going to be screwed all on your own.” Tuck turned around and walked away and I stood there for a moment. I should have felt utterly victorious, but I didn’t. I felt worried.
I considered texting Cade and telling him that something had come up. I couldn’t be 100% sure that Tuck wouldn’t take it into his head to sabotage us in some way—get Dad to come out to the park or drop some kind of hint that would get me in trouble.
You’re being ridiculous. You wouldn’t be this paranoid about meeting with a guy if you were open about it—don’t be this paranoid now. But I wasn’t being open about it; I was lying, at least by omission, to my Dad and I wasn’t sharing everything with my mom.
“Should we go anyway, Addie-girl?”
Adelyn looked up and me and burbled. “Good! Ma!”
I chuckled to myself, gathered up her carrier and the bag, and unlocked my car. I bolted my daughter into her safety seat and made sure she was fully secure, and then I stowed her bag next to her and climbed in on the driver’s side. Whether I was safe or not, I was going to meet with Cade.
You could be making a big mistake, I thought. He could end up leaving you just like Titan did.
I pushed any thought of my ex out of my mind and started the car, turning it around and heading down the driveway towards the road. I was going to be optimistic; things with Cade weren’t serious, and I was actually having fun with him. I would see how things went, and then if we lasted out through the end of the season, he and I would go on to see how we felt about each other. If things were going well by then, we could be more open if we wanted to.
I felt unsettled the whole drive into town knowing that Tuck knew about my visits with Cade. It was hard to predict what my brother would do.
I hadn’t expected him to yell at me weeks before about colluding with Cade to somehow get Tuck cut out of inheriting my father’s property; it wasn’t something I had ever even entertained as a possibility and even if I had, I would never have wanted to do it. And yet there he had been, on my doorstep, accusing me of trying to get him screwed out of what he viewed as his rightful inheritance.
I heard Addie caroling along with the music on the stereo and forced myself to be more positive. I was going to be seeing Cade, after all. We would have hours to spend together, and I fully intended to enjoy every last minute of the time we had.
I wouldn’t be able to go back to his place, but there were more things in the world to do than to have sex. Not that I don’t wish I could be having sex right now, I thought wryly.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Addie waving her hands almost in time with the beat in the music. If I hadn’t brought Adelyn with me, it would have been harder to get away, but bringing her made me feel weird about even thinking of going back to Cade’s place.
She was still too young to have any idea about what Cade and I might be doing, but I wouldn’t be able to just leave her in the living room and go into the bedroom, and I couldn’t exactly bring her into the bedroom with me.
Maybe I should ask some other single moms how they go about dating. There had to be at least a few who’d found new partners after their husbands and the fathers of their children had left the picture. They might be able to tell me how to manage it. It was the sort of thing that I’d normally talk to Mom about, but I couldn’t talk to her about it until after the growing season was over and I could be more open about how things were between me and Cade.
As far as Mom knew, there was a little flirtation, a few outings together, and after Cade and I had gotten on the same page about keeping it from my father, I had felt like I shouldn’t make Mom lie to Dad on top of the semi-lies I was telling. It wouldn’t be right.
I mulled it over all the way to the park where we’d agreed to meet. I didn’t see anything else that I could do other than continue to hold the threat over my brother’s head and hide my dates with Cade until after his promise to my father was no longer at issue.
It irritated me that Tuck was speaking badly about Cade in town, and I’d spent weeks undoing the damage that Tuck had wrought, as much as I could; but I couldn’t do much of anything about it.
I finally arrived at the park, and saw Cade waiting for us at the entrance. “Look w
ho we’ve got here, Addie! It’s Cade!” I looked at my daughter in the backseat and she gave a little cry of joy.
“Ade! Ade!” I giggled to myself at the excitement in her voice, at the fact that she was trying to say Cade’s name. I’d have to be careful with that, at least a little bit. If Addie seemed too familiar with Cade, it might bring about questions.
But for the time being, for the moment, I was happy just to be meeting with the guy I liked, who I enjoyed spending time with, even if I knew it wouldn’t end up with us in bed together. I unbuckled my seatbelt, and began gathering up my things to get out to where Cade waited for us.
“You happy to see him, little girl?” Addie waved her hands in the air and burbled her approval as I tugged her carrier out of the base that made up her safety seat. I hefted the diaper bag on my shoulder, made sure the car was locked, and then started in Cade’s direction.
He spotted us as we approached, and I felt my heart beat faster in my chest at the sight of him. He hurried to meet us on the way to him and leaned in to kiss me on the lips; it was just a moment, just a brush of his lips on mine, but it was worth all the trouble I’d had with Tuck before I’d left.
I decided to myself that I wasn’t going to mention anything about it to Cade; he would just worry, and I had it all under control. I took his free hand and we walked into the park together to spend the afternoon with each other, and my baby girl.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Cade
It was hot out. Of course, it had been hot for weeks and was only going to get hotter before fall finally came.
I leaned against the fertilizer cart and tugged a towel free of my pocket to mop at my face. It was a good couple of hours until the lunch break, and I was hopeful that I’d get a chance to cool off then, but until that time, I needed to keep on task, even if it was hot.
Bob Nelson was working on the opposite end of the fields, and Tuck was somewhere in the middle. The goal was to meet up at the center, all three of us having finished our rows for the day, at least as far as fertilizer was concerned. We’d already gone through and either scared or trapped and killed the bigger pests in the fields—they were starting to get the message that they weren’t wanted, though they’d need reminding again before the season was out.
I made my way down the rest of the row, walking alongside the cart, making sure the fertilizer went where it was supposed to and topping off the container on the wagon itself as I moved along. I paused again before I moved onto the next row in my lot to get a long drink of water from the thermos I’d stowed on the wagon before I started on the work for the day.
I sat in the shade of the cart for a moment and cooled off as much as I could. I wondered what Autumn would bring for lunch later. I’d brought something for myself as a just-in-case, but I’d come to depend on her heading out in the middle of the day to bring us something to eat from the kitchen. She hadn’t once made the few foods I didn’t like since we’d had our showdown in the front yard weeks before.
I knew I was making good time, but I didn’t realize how well I was doing until I heard movement in one of the rows near mine. It had to be Tuck; he was working the center portion of the fields.
I kept going, telling myself that things had gotten to be pretty much neutral between Tuck and me and that I was in fine shape with Bob Nelson. There wasn’t a whole lot that Tuck could do to make things bad for me, even if he did seem preoccupied lately, and even if I did catch him occasionally looking at me with an expression that wasn’t completely impartial.
He and I would never really completely be friends; ever since the first dinner, when I’d first had an argument with Tuck—maybe even before that—he’d decided against me, for whatever reason he’d cooked up in his mind.
I tried to get a look over the top of the corn to see where Bob was in his own work, but it was impossible; the stalks had grown too tall for me to really get a good look, and they were too close together to look through.
I told myself not to worry. Just because Tuck and I were alone for a few minutes, it wouldn’t mean anything. We’d both be too tired and too sweaty and hot to do anything more than stand around for a few minutes before moving along to the rest of the field to get to the end where we’d meet up with Bob and go to lunch.
I came to the end of my allotted rows, and a few minutes later, Tuck emerged from the green-toned walls of corn himself, looking every bit as sweaty and tired as I was.
“Getting into the dog days,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral and as natural as possible. “It’ll be good to take a break through the hottest part of the day.”
“Be better if we could make like the Spanish and take a three-hour break,” Tuck said, smiling slightly. He looked tired, but I could tell he was trying to put on as cheerful a face as possible; his father might show up at any moment.
“How’s your third of the rows?”
Tuck shrugged. “They’re about the same as the rest of the field,” he said. He leaned against the fence, mopping at his face. “Yours?”
“Looking good,” I told him.
“How are you liking farm work? I know it’s probably a bit different from construction.”
I shrugged. “It’s work,” I said. “Out in the sun, pretty intense...it’s more similar than you’d think.”
Tuck nodded slowly. “Dad’s talking about hiring on one or two people next season,” he said. He looked at me and then looked away. “Maybe you could sign on next year, too.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. After the little bit that Autumn had told me about the way that Tuck spoke about me in town, I didn’t want to add any fuel to the fire of whatever his grudge was with me, but I didn’t want to sound ungrateful, either.
“Or, you know, now that you’ve got the experience under your belt, there are other, bigger farms you could probably hire onto next year.”
“That’s always an option, if your dad doesn’t need me next year,” I said with a shrug.
“Thinking of getting into something steadier?”
I looked at Tuck sharply. ‘This is pretty steady work,” I pointed out.
“I just meant in general; this obviously is pretty seasonal. Are you looking to get something that’s more year-round, or maybe just a normal kind of job?”
“I’m looking to settle down in general,” I said. Whatever it was that Tuck wanted to get out of me, I couldn’t be sure. I decided to stick as close to honesty as possible. “I’m not getting any younger, and a job that’d give me a steady living would make it easier to find a woman to settle with, maybe start a family.”
Tuck nodded; I couldn’t read his expression. “My sister is beginning to think about settling down—for real, I mean,” he said. “Autumn thought she’d caught the dream with her ex. Are you familiar with him?”
I shrugged. “She was with Titan, right? Until he ran off, or whatever?” The story was known—at least a little bit—in town, and I felt like it would make more sense for me to be familiar with it than for me to pretend like I’d never heard anything at all about it.
“He went off with some woman,” Tuck said. He mopped at this face again and took a drink of water. “But I think he might be coming back into town soon.”
Autumn had told me that Titan had no intention of coming back into town any time in the near future; that he’d told her as much. I didn’t think Tuck would have any more direct a line to Titan than Autumn did.
“It’d be good for him to meet his little girl,” I said.
Tuck nodded. “There’s a connection between a man and a woman who have a child together,” he pointed out. “It’s a connection for life, you know?”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but I knew it would be a bad idea. “Unless one of them decides they want nothing at all to do with the kid,” I pointed out. “I mean, after all, there are lots of sperm donors out there who never have any connection with the person who used their stuff.”
“That’s true,” he admitted. “But I think my sister’s starting
to look for something more permanent. Addie’s getting to be old enough to notice that she doesn’t have a dad; that’s gotta be a hard thing for a woman to face. It’s not like she’s shamed or anything, but it’s still tough.”
“I think she does well,” I said, looking at Tuck from the corner of my eyes. “I mean, it’s tough for her, but she makes it look easy—like it’s exactly what she wants from life. From what I’ve seen of her.”
Tuck smiled slightly. “She’s a good mom,” he said. “She does everything she can to make sure Addie never wants for anything, and she’ll do whatever she can to give Adelyn the family that little girl deserves.”
I tried to decide what it was that Tuck was trying to tell me, but I couldn’t put it together. It was obvious that he was trying to suggest something to do with Titan, with Autumn and Addie, but he wouldn’t come right out and say it. I shrugged and drank down some of my own water.
“I should probably finish off my last couple of rows before we get to lunch break,” I said, turning the cart back on.
“I hope Autumn brings out something good,” he said, turning to his own rig.
I went back to work, trying to think of what it was that Tuck was trying to do; it was obvious to me that he didn’t have the highest opinion of me, but I’d always assumed that that had more to do with me being some kind of interloper on his father’s farm than anything else. I thought about what Tuck had hinted about Titan, about Autumn and Addie. It would only make sense that Autumn would want to find someone to settle down with. Her daughter needed a stable home life, and a good husband would give Autumn a lot of stability, not that her parents couldn’t give her enough as it was.
But Autumn had told me herself that Titan had given her every reason to believe that she would probably not see him again It was hard for me to believe that someone who would run out on Autumn in the first place, especially when she was carrying his child, would suddenly develop an interest in learning about his daughter, especially after he’d insisted he had no interest at all. It just didn’t make any sense.