by Nella Tyler
“I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear that,” I said dryly. Bob laughed.
“I’m sure he will,” he jokingly agreed. “I wanted to have a talk with you about the offseason work.”
“I was actually just thinking about that,” I admitted. “Do you think you’ll have enough to keep me on for very long, or will it just be a few weeks?”
Bob half-shrugged. “I think I can promise to keep you on until about Christmas, the week of,” he said. “I’ve been thinking of seeing what price we get on this year’s corn and soy, and from there, I might develop the farm a little more. I’d need someone to help me execute that beyond just me and Tuck with occasional help from Autumn.”
“I’d definitely be game,” I said, nodding. “If you’ve got the work to do, then I’m game to do it. I like having longer, steadier work.”
“And if it gives you a chance to spend some more time with my daughter, that’s icing on the cake?” he said with a grin.
I chuckled, feeling a little embarrassed, but not as worried about Bob’s opinion of me dating Autumn as I had been in weeks before.
“It’s definitely a very important fringe benefit,” I agreed. “I want you to know that I really, truly have the best of intentions towards Autumn.”
“That much I can see,” he said. “It’s obvious to me that you two fancy each other, and I think you’re much steadier than that Titan she took up with.” Bob shook his head, sighing at the fate that had befallen his daughter at Titan’s hands. I couldn’t blame him.
“I want to do right by her, and if that means that you eventually need me to move on because you don’t feel comfortable with me working for you and dating her, I’ll do it,” I said firmly. “But if you’re okay with seeing so much of me, I’ll definitely work for you just as hard as ever.”
“That’s exactly why I wanted to make sure you were still good to sign on with me for the offseason,” Bob said, knocking some dust off of his coverall legs. “You’ve been a good worker for me all along, and in spite of what Tuck is trying to pull off, you’ve done better even than I expected from anyone I might have hired. You’ve got a spot here as long as I’ve got work to give you.” He checked the time and looked around. “As soon as you’re done with this, you can knock off for the day,” he told me, gesturing to the harvester and the other equipment I’d taken out to do the repairs.
That was actually welcome news to me: I had been thinking of finding a way to corner Autumn without making her feel threatened.
I finished up my work and put everything away, briefly remembering the time that Tuck had tried to accuse me of stealing from the farm when he’d merely misplaced the equipment himself.
I didn’t try and find Autumn after I cleared up for the day. I wanted to get into my truck, get home, and get a shower before I came back. I thought about buying her some flowers either on my way home or on my way back to the farm; all I knew was that I wanted to get to the bottom of whatever was bothering her, before it did something to our relationship. I smiled to myself, remembering something that she had told me a few months before, when we’d still been seeing each other in secret. I thought to myself that it ought to be fairly easy to accomplish what I had in mind, and I started my truck and headed down the dirt driveway leading to the road with a little more optimism in my mind.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Autumn
When I realized that Cade had left early for the day, something inside of me relaxed. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I had made arrangements for Titan to come over and meet Adelyn, and every time I got close to Cade, I was torn between blurting it out and saying nothing at all. It was just too stressful to be around him when I knew that Titan was coming, even if I no longer had any interest in Titan as a potential partner. All I wanted was to get the meeting over and done with, see if there was any hope at all for Titan as a father, and put it behind me. If Titan had any promise as Addie’s dad, I could bring Cade into the discussion as to just how much influence Titan should have in her life.
My parents didn’t even know that Titan was going to be visiting me, so I had to make excuses for going back to the guest house so early. I didn’t bother showering, but I did get Addie cleaned up because I wanted her to make the best possible impression on her dad.
She deserved to be loved, she deserved a father who cared about her, but I wasn’t above hedging my bets a little bit. A little one-year-old girl who was covered in mud might not be as promising a prospect to Titan as a clean, bright toddler in a dress with her hair combed.
She fought me when I tried to get the dress on her, but once it was on, she was more or less set, with her dark hair clipped up out of her face. I put her in her playpen with a few of her favorite toys and tried not to check the time more than maybe once every five minutes as I waited for Titan to arrive.
I caught sight of Titan’s mom’s car moving up the driveway with only about five minutes to spare before the time we’d agreed on, and once more something started to relax in me. Whatever else happened, I would have done the right thing by letting Titan have a chance to meet his daughter. Whether he actually followed through and did right by her as her father was up to him.
I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and carried the playpen out onto the patio. I felt weird about the possibility of inviting Titan into the guest house. I sat down and waited for Titan to park the car, my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn’t sure why; I had long since given up on having anything with him, and I had just about given up on the possibility of him having anything to do with Addie.
“Hey, babe,” Titan said when he got out of the car, grinning at me. I smiled back, even though his calling me babe made me a little uncomfortable; it was what he’d called me when we were together.
“Come on over here and meet your daughter,” I called back to him. Titan closed the driver’s side door and walked up to the porch, and I gestured to Addie in her playpen. I watched Titan’s face intently—would he fall in love with her the same way I had, the first time I’d laid eyes on her? Titan bent over the playpen and looked in at our daughter, and I felt a kind of clench in my stomach.
“She’s just as beautiful as her mama,” he said, glancing at me with a little smile. “Can I pick her up?”
“She’s a little squirmy,” I told him, “but go ahead.”
He reached into the playpen and lifted Addie out; she fidgeted in his arms, but she’d never been all that fussy in general, so once she saw that I was okay with her being held, she more or less settled down.
“I am going to be the best daddy to this little girl,” Titan said, giving her a little hug and sitting down on the bench swing. He looked up at me. “You never did send me many actual pictures of her, you know.” I shrugged.
“You never seemed all that interested,” I pointed out. “In fact, I seem to recall…” I pressed my lips together. My mom would say that it was in bad grace for me to chastise Titan at a moment like this. “I’m glad you took the time to come and finally meet her.”
“So am I,” he said, looking from me to Addie with a little smile. For a little while, he played with her, and I managed to scrape up enough decency to offer him some lemonade. I tried to feel good about the fact that Titan seemed to be interested in learning about Addie, but it felt more to me like he was asking the same kind of questions that random people in town always managed to ask, rather than that he was actually interested in her as her father.
I put her back in the playpen when she was starting to get restless and fidgety, and sat down to talk to Titan. “So what brought on this sudden interest in learning about your daughter?” He shrugged.
“I just thought—you know, I wanted to do the right thing,” he said, looking at me. I recognized the expression on his face almost immediately. It was the same one he always used to use when he was sweet-talking me, the soft, self-deprecating look.
“That sounds good, but if I’m going to let you in, I have to believe you’re going to follow thr
ough,” I said, keeping my voice firm, even if I tried to stay polite. “I don’t want to break Addie’s heart with having you traipse in and out of her life just as you please. If you want to do the right thing, I want you to mean it, whatever is going on between you and me otherwise.”
“Whatever’s going on between us?” He grinned slightly.
“You left me,” I told him flatly. “You ran off to the other end of the country to be with someone else. You broke our engagement and left me to finish a pregnancy as an unwed mom. Do you know how much that hurt?” I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head.
“I’m sorry for that,” he said, reaching out uselessly to take my hand. “I want to do right by you, too, babe.” The sound of him saying the word babe was enough to make my stomach lurch inside of me. Did he really think that after all this time I was just going to forget the fact that he’d abandoned me—and abandoned his own daughter?
“I’m not really interested,” I started to say. I heard a car coming up along the driveway. Titan stood and walked over to the playpen, reaching in to pick Addie up; I wanted to tell him not to, but he had lifted her out of the pen before I even had a chance to say it.
“Are you really going to deny our little girl the chance to have a two-parent home?” I felt my face go hot and then cold.
“Actually, I’m not doing that at all,” I started to say. I had been trying to find a way to explain to Titan that I’d moved on since it started to become apparent to me that he was looking for a way to reconcile—something that was far from what I wanted.
I heard the car coming to a stop and turned to look; in an instant, I recognized it as Cade’s truck. My heart and stomach both felt as though they’d fallen to my knees. Cade leaped out of the truck and I saw the flowers in his hands, the brief, hopeful look on his face.
Then he glanced at Titan, saw him holding my daughter, and just stared for a long moment. I saw the expression on his face changing, the hope completely dissolving, anger and sadness taking its place. He threw the flowers in his hands down on the ground and shook his head, stalking back towards his truck. He didn’t look back, not even when I called out and started to half-run towards him. Cade climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the truck around and hurried up the driveway, and all I could do was just stare at his taillights.
“Who the hell was that?” I turned to look at Titan; he’d put our daughter back down and looked annoyed.
“That’s the guy I’m seeing now,” I told him matter-of-factly.
“You’re seeing someone?” He looked me up and down as if he couldn’t believe it.
“You’re damn right I am,” I said. “You abandoned me, Titan. You abandoned our daughter. Didn’t you think I would move on? Especially after that message you sent about how you had no interest at all in having anything to do with me or our daughter?” I was furious—at Titan and at myself. He rolled his eyes.
“He’s probably just got some MILF fetish,” he said. I stared at him, staggered at what I was hearing.
“Why did you even come here, Titan?” I shook my head, torn between anger and grief. “Do you really have any interest in being an actual father to Adelyn?” He shrugged.
“I figured I’d give you a chance,” he said. “Figured you probably weren’t getting much action since you had a kid—not many guys want to stick it in a mom.” If my eyes popped out of my head I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“You came here to hook up with me?” I shook my head. “I haven’t been interested in you ever since you left me, you asshole.” I laughed. “Besides, I thought you were just so all about that girl you left me for.” He briefly looked shamed, then angry.
“She dropped me,” he said. “So yeah, I figured we could pick things up and see where they went. You’re not in a position to be choosy.” I laughed bitterly and walked across the porch, snatching up my daughter.
“You and I are never, ever going to have anything between us again,” I told him. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re nothing but a sperm donor. You aren’t ever coming near my daughter again. And if you don’t leave in the next two minutes, I’m calling the police, my father, and my brother to make you leave.” He snorted and rolled his eyes but started to move towards his mom’s car.
“You’ll be missing me eventually, especially now that your side man is dropping you,” he told me. I tried to keep myself from grabbing Adelyn too hard. I was so furious that it was hard to hold onto my temper, even with my baby in my arms.
I watched Titan turn his car around and then blast up the driveway, following in Cade’s exit. I was shaking, adrenaline surging through my body, and Addie started to whine in my arms, catching onto my mood.
I needed to do something. I needed to go somewhere else. I walked from my front porch across my parents’ backyard to the house, looking for someone to tell—my mother preferably, though I was pretty sure Dad would lend a sympathetic ear, as well.
Instead, I found Tuck, seated in the living room, watching TV and eating popcorn. “Where are Mom and Dad?” I tried to keep control of my voice, but it cracked and wavered anyway.
“They’re in town; what’s up?” He frowned at the sight of me, and I wondered just how well I was even holding myself together.
“I don’t want to tell you about it,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll just go into the kitchen and wait for Mom and Dad to get home.” Tuck stood and before I could even process what he was doing, he took Addie from my arms. I hadn’t even realized I’d been about to drop her.
“Tell me about it,” he told me firmly. “I’m your brother. I know I’ve been shitty lately, but you’re obviously upset, and not in a way that can wait for Mom and Dad.”
I hesitated for a moment longer, but then everything sort of built up inside of me and I heard myself telling him about everything: about lying to Cade, about agreeing to meet with Titan, about the meeting itself and how Cade had interrupted it, and finding out that Titan was just interested in a rebound with me, since his situation with the girl he’d left me for had dried up on him.
“And now I’ve screwed everything up with Cade, and Titan’s an ass, and I’m never going to find anyone to be a good father to Addie, and I’m-I’m a terrible mom,” I finished, burying my face in one of Mom’s throw pillows to cry. Tuck let me get it all out of my system, jostling Addie on his knee, keeping her calm.
“Do you really love him?” I looked up, wiping at my face.
“What?” Tuck held my gaze and gave me a cracked, crooked kind of smile.
“Do you really love him, and do you really want to be with him?” I nodded.
“I’ve known that for months,” I told my brother. “And, I’ve gone and screwed it up because I wanted to do the right thing, but didn’t know how.” Tuck took a deep breath.
“Here,” he said. “Take her back.” I frowned in confusion but did as I was told, gathering Adelyn to my body and cuddling her close. I watched as my brother stood and found his phone, plugged in next to the TV. He unlocked the screen and I wondered what it was he was doing. Who he was calling. Maybe Dad?
I dried my face off and tried to get Addie to smile at me, and tried not to feel hopeless at what a mess I had made of things. I looked up when I heard Tuck beginning to talk again.
“Hey, Cade. Listen, there’s been an emergency in the fields and Dad’s not here to help me contain it. I need you to come by and help me out.” Tuck paused and I felt my heart pounding in my chest in a mixture of hope, excitement, and dread. “Yeah, yeah, it’s not a fire or anything, but I definitely need your help.” There was another pause. “See you in fifteen, then.” Tuck ended the call and looked at me. “Go wash your face and get you composure back,” he said with a wry little smile.
Chapter Forty
Cade
The last thing I’d expected, halfway into my drive back to town, was to get a call from Tuck. At first, I’d thought that he was going to chew me out for something—maybe for hurting his sister, even if I
was pretty sure I was justified in just walking away after seeing her with Titan—but instead as soon as he’d told me there was an emergency, that he needed me to help out, I’d taken an illegal U-turn and headed back to the farm.
Since Tuck had told me that there wasn’t a fire, I’d assumed it was an issue maybe of animals getting into the grain silo or something like that—something I could help him with while Bob was away.
I hauled ass back to the farm I’d only just left, and the only thing I had in mind was making sure that I didn’t have to see Autumn and Addie in the process. If Tuck had found out about the situation that had happened between me and his sister, I hoped that he’d just keep his mouth shut about it; it was obvious to me that she’d made her choice, and that it wasn’t me.
I told myself that I couldn’t completely blame her for choosing Titan. He was the father of her child, and they had that in common, something that I couldn’t, for the moment at least, put any claim of my own on. But the fact that she’d lied to me about it, that she’d apparently wanted to keep me on the hook while she explored things with her ex, had hurt me. I’d realized as soon as I’d driven up and seen both of them together and realized that it was Titan that he was the reason that she’d been jumpy so much, that it must have been a text message from him that had made her so distracted during our last date together.
I got to the farm and parked in front of the Nelson house, looking around to make sure that Autumn wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I hopped out of my truck and called out for Tuck, wondering where the emergency was happening.
“Cade! Good to see you, man,” Tuck said, emerging from the sheds and walking towards me. “There’s something out in the fields I need your help with— one of the irrigator pipes blew and it’s flooding.” It was an emergency, but since we’d just about finished the harvest, it wasn’t the sort of thing that would ruin a whole lot. But all the water I could picture in my head spewing into the field would be a problem, both from the perspective of flooding the ground and the issue of the cost of wasting so much water.