Avalon joined him. The grilled cheese tasted wonderful and she nibbled on that with a sip or two of the soup to go with it. “Is everything going well today?”
“It is. I’ll have to put off the rest of the fence repairs for now. I need to do some work in the fields.” He paused, his eyes roving the room. “You’ve been busy this morning.”
She smiled, a sense of satisfaction settling in her chest. “It’s coming together.”
Their conversation during lunch centered on the crops and as soon as he’d swallowed the last bite of his sandwich, he was on his feet again. “I’d better get back at it.”
“Do you have to leave right now?” She should have told him about the baby as soon as he sat down instead of letting him fill his belly first. Now she was kicking herself, a sense of urgency bubbling up in her chest.
He leveled his gaze on the clock over the stove. “I’ve got the crew waiting on me.” When he looked at her, his expression was hard. “I have no idea what time I’ll be home tonight, either.”
She held up a hand. “I wasn’t trying to push. Honest.” I just wanted to tell you we’re having a baby and I’m a nervous wreck. If she’d considered making him wait to leave to tell him before, the frown on his face certainly changed her mind now. “Please, don’t be upset.”
“I’m not. I’ve got to go, Avalon. Thanks for lunch.” His words sounded forced and he clenched his hands briefly before relaxing them again.
With that, he left the room. As soon as the ATV motor faded, Avalon let herself collapse back onto the chair. She laid a hand on her stomach. “Oh, little one. Your mommy and daddy are going to do their best not to be such a mess when you come into the world.”
She couldn’t stop the worry that, once Duke learned about the baby, he would be convinced it was the only reason why she’d returned. Her imagination started to travel down paths she had no desire to visit and she shut that train of thought down.
Since every attempt she’d made to tell Duke about the baby hadn’t worked out, maybe she should wait. She could prove to him that she came back for them and wasn’t going to leave again.
Duke wanted them to take a month and try to get to know each other. That’s what she would do. Focus on repairing their marriage. And then she would tell him about the baby and pray holding the news back for a few weeks didn’t damage their new-found trust. Either way, the unknown consequences threatened to drive her insane.
Avalon flipped the music back on and cleaned up the lunch mess, moving on to the rest of the first floor when she finished. Keeping her mind busy was the best way to handle things at the moment.
The next few days were similar as they settled into a rhythm and conversations remained superficial. If there was one thing Avalon discovered as the days passed, it was that she didn’t plan on staying in the house all the time.
Her fifth day there, she did the housework she needed to get done as quickly as possible that morning. A roast with potatoes, onions, and carrots simmered in the slow cooker.
It was nearly eleven. Avalon put lunch together, placed it in a cooler along with two bottles of lemonade, and headed outside.
After strapping the cooler onto the back of the ATV, Avalon took off toward the edge of the property. Duke mentioned that morning he needed to get back to the fence repairs. She found him easily enough.
“Is everything okay?” Duke’s concern warmed her as she climbed off the ATV. He’d stopped working to meet her.
“Everything’s fine.” She removed the cooler and held it out. “I thought I would bring lunch so you didn’t have to take the time to come to the house.”
His eyebrows rose and he reached to take it from her. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Avalon shrugged. “I didn’t mind. I packed enough for both of us.”
She could tell that had surprised him. He hesitated, watched her face for a moment, and turned to lead the way to a patch of shade.
Avalon nodded toward the fence. “It seems you’ve made a lot of progress.”
“I’d hoped to have it finished by now, but it may take me into next week. A stretch of fencing took a lot longer this morning than I had expected.”
Duke looked like he wasn’t sure whether to sit or not. Avalon took the initiative. She lowered herself to a patch of scraggly grass and crossed her legs. The hairband around the button on her pants stretched and she was glad she’d chosen to use it. Inhaling slowly, she appreciated the smell of fall. This was her favorite time of the year.
Once she got settled, Duke joined her, positioned to where his knee was two or three inches from hers. He opened the cooler and pulled items out.
“Oh, these look amazing.” He handed her one of the two sub sandwiches she’d put together. They had always eaten them the same way — with lettuce and mayo and cheese. No tomato. Neither of them liked how the tomatoes made their bread soggy. There were two bags of chips and the lemonade.
Avalon also included a bag of chocolate chip cookies.
She watched as Duke took a big bite of his sandwich, giving her a nod of appreciation. She smiled before taking a bite of her own. It hit the spot if she said so herself.
They ate in silence for a short while. Avalon thought about what she wanted to say. “I’ve been thinking. I could stay out here and help for a while this afternoon. That way, we could get the fencing done like you were hoping.”
Duke was taking a swig of his lemonade. He studied her down the length of the plastic bottle. “It’s exhausting work, Avalon. No need for you to do that.”
“I want to.”
His eyebrows drew together. He lowered the bottle, held it between both hands, and slowly rolled it back and forth. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t want to be at the house alone all day, Duke.” She thought he would argue but he said nothing. “We were at our best when we worked together teaching classes and things like that.” Those had been fun times. They hadn’t lasted long once they got married and settled into a routine there at the farm. “Working together can only help us. Plus, I want to learn more about the farm and how it’s run. It’s important to you and that makes it important to me, too.”
~
Duke downed the rest of his lemonade in three gulps. Avalon didn’t want to stay at the house by herself. Was she afraid she’d be tempted to run again?
What if she really did just want to spend more time together? He had to admit he’d felt closest to her when they spent their days teaching classes and hanging out as well. Weeks of strain in their relationship had put up a barrier that was only apparent after she’d left.
Now they were here and she wanted to stay and work with him. Part of him wanted to take a step back. After all, if they got close again, it would be that much harder if she decided to leave. The other part of him longed for their relationship to go back to the way it used to be.
Trust.
The word came from nowhere and settled in his chest.
Trust her? How was he supposed to do that after she ran away when things got tough?
Then trust Me.
The words whispered in his soul and spread through his body, leaving a sense of peace in their wake.
He wanted to trust God to handle everything. But not knowing what direction things were going made it difficult. Still, he’d been handling things on his own for a while and look where they were now.
Avalon’s eyelids fell, those long lashes hiding her pretty blues. Her shoulders sagged a little as she started packing up the cooler, leaving the cookies out. “I’ll let you get back to it.”
He hadn’t jumped at her idea of working together and it hurt her feelings. He couldn’t blame her. It’d taken courage on her part to take that first step.
She moved toward the four-wheeler. Duke couldn’t let her leave like this. He rushed forward, touching her elbow and halting her progress. The contact sent a surge of warmth straight to his chest. “I want you to stay.”
She paused but didn’t turn around. “I don’t want
to bother you, Duke.”
“You’re not going to bother me. I could use the help. We need to finish up this fencing as soon as possible.” Maybe a goal like this was exactly what they needed. It would give them something to focus on together.
Avalon gave a single nod. She finished tying the cooler to the ATV, offered a chocolate chip cookie to him, and put those away, too.
He polished the cookie off in two bites, dusted his hands off on his pants, and tipped his head toward the fence. “Shall we?”
Duke explained where he was with the repairs. They got into a rhythm as he wrangled the boards in place, holding them steady, while she added the nails for extra stability.
He had to admit, it was a lot easier with two of them. He watched her as she hammered. Avalon’s jaw clenched as she contacted the nails using precise hits. She’d been focused on her job and when she noticed his attention, pink dusted her cheeks. A nail she’d been holding fell to the ground to rest, half buried, in the dust at her feet.
Avalon bent to retrieve it. When she stood again, Duke voiced the question that’d been going through his mind since she’d returned. “Where did you go for eighteen days?”
Her gaze snapped to his. The hammer stalled in midair. He guessed she was trying to gauge whether to tell him. She inhaled and rested the hammer on the top rail of the fence. “I stayed at a hotel in Yuma for a while. I thought being away from the farm would help and maybe it would give me some clarity.”
“Did it work?”
A frown brought the corners of her lips down. “The longer I stayed there, the more confused I became.” She used both hands to pull her hair into a makeshift ponytail, letting it go again to cascade around her shoulders. “I never intended to be gone that long. The longer I was away, the harder it was to come back home.”
Duke wanted to ask her why. But instead, he bit his tongue. She was opening up to him and he wanted her to continue to do so. He waited for her to go on.
“I didn’t know what to do. I went to Kitner to see Lance.”
His eyebrows raised. He hadn’t realized she’d gone all the way to Texas. “You drove?”
She shrugged. “I had nothing else to do.”
Wow. He praised God for keeping her safe on the road and bringing her back unharmed. He couldn’t help but cringe at what her family must think of him. For the hundredth time, he wished he’d insisted she talked to them before they got married. Or even called it off until she had. “Did seeing your brother help?”
“It did. I stayed there for a couple of days, Yuma again for two more, and then came back here.” She glanced at him, took a small step backwards, and reached for the hammer again.
“Did you tell your family about us while you were in Kitner?”
“Yeah.”
That was a relief. With only his dysfunctional family life for comparison, he tried to imagine how her parents took the news. If roles were reversed, his mother would have been livid. She might disown her own child. “Do they hate me?”
Avalon’s eyes grew wide and her brows knit together. “No.”
“As far as they’re concerned, I took you from them. I should have insisted you tell them about the wedding and given them a chance to be a part of it. They probably picture me as a big brute who dragged you off away from your family.” He’d gone about their whole marriage the wrong way. They both had. Yet here they were and there wasn’t a thing he could do to fix the past.
“They don’t think that way.” Avalon set the hammer down again and leaned against the fence, crossing her arms to rest on the top rail. “I was as much responsible. Maybe even more. I told them that. Mom was devastated, though we were okay after spending some time talking. Dad’s concerned. Lance is the one you would have to worry about. He’s an ex-cop, you know.”
“I remember.” Yeah, something told him he wouldn’t want Lance on his bad side. “I’m half surprised he didn’t come back with you.”
She smiled a little then, a sparkle in her eyes. “He probably would have. But his girlfriend just finished up cancer treatments and he didn’t want to leave her right now.”
He sounded like a stand-up guy. Duke had a lot of respect for that. “Is she going to be okay?”
“Lexi’s strong. The doctors think she’ll be fine.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
Avalon rested her chin on her arm as she stared off into the distance. It gave Duke an opportunity to study her and admire how her eyes were the same color as the blue sky above them. Light, barely perceptible freckles sprinkled across her nose and below her eyes. He remembered the first time he’d pressed kisses to those freckles.
As hard as it was to admit, he was grateful she’d had a place to go to when she’d left. She had a whole family support system back home. It bothered him because, even though his family was local, he never could have expected the same kind of help. During one of the most difficult times in his life, he’d gotten real tired of hearing his mom tell him he’d made a mistake and would be better off without Avalon.
When Avalon’s eyes shifted from the distance to bring him into focus, he cleared his throat. “We’d better get back to work.”
She nodded and he thought she appeared as relieved as he was to be turning their attention to the fence again.
Duke realized it would be easy to let her back into his life. He wanted to. But if he did and she left again, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to recover a second time.
Words whispered in his soul.
One day at a time.
That he could probably do.
Chapter Five
“I think we’re making progress,” Avalon said to Marian over the phone. “We haven’t had a full-blown argument and that’s big considering how things were before I left.”
“It sounds like a step forward.”
Marian was Avalon’s oldest sibling. Two years after her divorce, Marian met her now-husband, Jason. They had three kids and were expecting their fourth in a few months.
Once Avalon went to see Lance, she’d hesitated to talk to any other members of the family. The last thing she needed to hear was how she was following in her sister’s footsteps when she should have learned from her early mistakes.
Even with a happy ending, Marian’s experience was the one all of her younger siblings kept in mind when it came time to date and look for their future husband or wife.
The idea of telling her family about Duke and their troubled marriage made Avalon feel sick. But Lance convinced her to seek the advice of women in the family who might help.
Marian’s voice came over the phone. “You guys are trying. Both of you. That counts for a lot.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“It was never that way in my first marriage. It was doomed from the moment it began. Keep in mind that this is a marathon, not a sprint. You’re in it for the long haul and you need to treat it like that. A real relationship builds over time and you need to allow yourselves the chance to do that.”
“I’ll take lunch out again today and stay to help like I did yesterday. I think it’s making a difference. We talked for a while but things still seem really weird.”
“Spending time together like that can’t hurt. It doesn’t sound like you gave each other much of a chance to get to know one another the first time.”
Avalon smiled as she listened to a young voice speaking in the background. One of her nieces, no doubt. A pang of sadness struck her when she realized she hadn’t seen them in over a year. She needed to visit her family more often.
Avalon wanted to tell Marian about the baby but Duke needed to be the first to know. Everyone else would have to wait. “You’re right, we didn’t. Although, I’m more worried about how things will go once his parents get involved.”
The sisters continued to chat for a few more minutes before Avalon hung up. She needed to get some things done around the house, put dinner in the slow cooker again, and make lunch in the next hour.
She finished
packing the cooler when the sound of an ATV approaching outside caught her attention. Avalon went to stand on the porch and watched as Duke pulled up in front of the house and turned the vehicle off.
“I planned on bringing lunch out to you,” she said. What was he doing home?
Duke walked up the steps to the porch, a genuine smile on his face. “I know. I needed a breather and decided to come pick you up.”
Avalon’s eyes widened as she moved, allowing him to enter the house ahead of her. He spotted the cooler, carried it out, and tethered it to the ATV. When he finished, he turned. “Is there anything else that needs to go?”
“Um… No. That’s it.”
“Okay. Let’s head out.”
Duke led the way, settling onto the vehicle. Avalon climbed on behind him. She needed to hold onto something and put her arms around him. Her hands rested on his ribcage as he took off for the fence line.
Avalon would be lying if she said being this close to Duke had no effect on her. His muscles rippled as he turned, the ridges of his ribs shifting beneath her hands. It made her realize how much she missed the closeness they’d experienced at the beginning of their relationship. She wanted that back. She wanted them back.
In that moment, the need to be held by her husband crashed over her and she closed her eyes, concentrating on the warmth of him against her arms.
For what felt like the hundredth time that day, she went over her decision not to tell him about the pregnancy just yet. No matter which way she looked at it, there was no winning. The weight of that thought nearly crushed her.
She had to keep her secret for now. All she could do was pray and trust that God knew what He was doing. Goodness knows she sure didn’t. Please, Jesus, let this work. I need this to work. I can’t lose him.
They reached their destination. Avalon jumped down from the four-wheeler and waited as Duke unloaded their lunch and found a spot to set it down. She hadn’t realized she’d been staring until he regarded her, his brows creased. “Is something wrong?”
Avalon snapped out of her daze and shook her head. “No, I’m fine, just lost in thought. Let’s eat.”
Finding Courage (Love's Compass Book 3) Page 4