Box of Hearts (The Connor's Series Book 1)

by Nikki Ashton

  “But he promised,” Addy objected.

  “No, Addy,” Bonnie said sternly. “I understand why you were upset, but I will not tolerate screaming and shouting like that from you, so your punishment is no horse ride. Do I make myself clear?”

  Addy looked at Jesse who shook his head.

  “Yes, Granma.”

  “Okay. Jesse, your dinner is in the refrigerator, you’ll need to warm it up.”

  “Sure, Momma,” Jesse replied. “Addy, sit properly in your seat and tell me what you did today.”

  Bonnie and I moved out of the kitchen and came face to face with Garratt and Ted.

  “He came,” Garratt whispered.

  I nodded. “He had a cow caught in some fencing, he’s not even showered yet.”

  Ted let out a long exhale and smiled. “I think we should leave them to it,” he said. “I’ve lit the fire pit on the deck. Let’s go out there for a while.”

  Silently we all followed Ted and left Addy and Jesse to eat and talk about their day.

  Jesse

  As I listened to Addy chatter away about her day, I noticed how much like Garratt and me she was. She had the same blue eyes and face shape; she even wrinkled her brow like we did when we were thinking. She was definitely a Connor and the only part of Melody that I could see was her blonde, almost white, hair.

  “And Millie has so many pretty clothes, Daddy,” Addy chattered as she spooned pie into her mouth.

  “That’s great, Addy, but don’t speak with your mouth full.”

  She nodded and had so much to tell me that she chewed quickly and swallowed down what I guess was a big piece of pie, if the way she screwed up her face was any way to tell.

  “Yep, she says when I get bigger I can wear her dresses.”

  I felt myself stiffen. Millie wouldn’t be here when Addy was big enough to wear her clothes and I didn’t want Addy getting any high expectations.

  “Millie may not be here then, Addy,” I said.

  “Oh she will, Daddy,” Addy replied earnestly, nodding her head. “Millie loves it here. She loves me and I bet she loves you, too, when you’re not grumpy.”

  She looked at me from under her lashes and then burst into fits of laughter, holding her sides and rolling around in her chair.

  I smiled widely and noticed that my food had gone cold on my plate. It had been forgotten with my interest taken by the chatter of my little girl.

  Millie

  The day after Jesse had stopped by and had dinner with Addy, the hot weather broke and a thunderstorm hit. The skies turned black and thunder rumbled deep and angry and Addy was petrified.

  “Hey, come on, sweetie,” I soothed as I rocked her in my arms. “It’s just God moving the furniture, that’s all. It’s nothing to be scared of.”

  “I want my daddy,” she sobbed, clutching tightly to my t-shirt. “Please, Millie, I want Daddy.”

  I gave Bonnie a withering glance as she came in to the room with the house phone. She shook her head. “I can’t get through, it’s going straight to voicemail.”

  “What about the radio?” I asked.

  “Tried every frequency and can’t get neither him, Ted, nor Garratt. Can’t get anyone in fact. This storm is real bad, honey.”

  I sighed and pulled Addy closer to me. She was slowly getting hysterical, giving great hiccupping breaths.

  “Is she always like this?”

  “Never seen her this bad. But we haven’t had a storm like this for a long time.” Bonnie came and sat next to us and held her arms out. “Let me try for a while.”

  I passed Addy over to her grandmother, but knew it was pointless. We’d both tried to calm her down for the last hour, but it seemed Jesse was the only person she wanted.

  “Come on sugar,” Bonnie whispered. “Try to stop crying for Granma.”

  “D-d-d-daddy.”

  I went to the window and pulled back the curtains, staring into the blackness outside.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Bonnie said from behind me.

  I turned and shrugged. “What else can we do? She’s going to make herself ill.”

  At that moment, another huge clap of thunder sounded over our heads and Addy screamed.

  “I’ll have to go,” I said, rushing towards the kitchen. There was a mud room at the end of it where a selection of boots and wax coats were kept.

  “No, Millie, it’s too dangerous, and you have no idea where to go or even how to ride a horse to get there. Please, honey, she’ll be fine soon.”

  “I had riding lessons when I was a kid,” I protested.

  “No, honey.” Bonnie stroked Addy’s head as she pleaded with me. “Why don’t you try his cell again?”

  With a sigh, I picked the phone up from the chair where Bonnie had thrown it. “What’s his number?”

  “Oh, just press the redial, he was the last number I called.”

  I pushed at the button and held the phone to my ear, not expecting it to be answered, but after a few rings, Jesse’s voice boomed down the line.

  “Mom,” he shouted over the background noise of the storm. “Everything okay?”

  I moved out of the lounge area towards the dining room, not wanting Addy to hear that I’d got through to Jesse. I didn’t want her to be disappointed when he couldn’t or wouldn’t come back to the house.

  “Jesse, it’s Millie.”

  “Millie, what’s wrong…hang on a second…Derek,” I heard him shout. “Brandon just radioed through, he’s got four pairs but said there’s another three pairs heading west towards the dry creek bed…sorry Millie, what’s going on?”

  “It’s Addy…” I began.

  “What’s happened? Is she okay?”

  I paused for a second as I heard more horse’s hooves and someone shout Jesse’s name; it sounded like Ted.

  “One minute, Dad,” Jesse called. “Millie tell me what the fuck’s wrong. I’ve got cattle running everywhere, spooked by this damn storm.”

  He didn’t need this, the cattle and the men needed him out there and Addy wasn’t in any real danger.

  “She’s fine, she just wanted to be sure that you were okay, and wants to know if you’ll stop by later.” I closed my eyes and hoped that Addy would forgive me for not getting Jesse to her.

  Jesse gave what I think was a sigh of relief down the line. “Yeah, Millie, tell her I’m fine and I’ll come over later. She’s okay, though?”

  “Yeah,” I said shakily. “She’s fine. I’ll let you go.”

  “Okay, tell Addy that…”

  The line went dead.

  I went back in to the lounge area to see that Addy now had her hands over her ears and was crying louder than before. Bonnie looked at me expectantly, but I shook my head. Thank goodness, Addy’s crying had masked the noise of my voice on the phone.

  “I got through, but he couldn’t hear me,” I lied.

  “Oh well, we’ll just sit it out and hope she tires herself out.”

  “I’ll make use some coffee,” I said, turning away before Bonnie could see the guilt on my face as another rumble of thunder and a crack of lightning caused Addy to scream.

  After almost an hour and twenty minutes, Addy finally fell asleep. The storm had subsided about thirty minutes into our nightmare, but Addy had worked herself up so much that she couldn’t settle or regulate her breathing properly. We didn’t dare give her any medicine in case she choked, because she was taking in great gulps of air and her breathing was so irregular, so I got her to breath into a paper bag. After a while, Bonnie made her some warm milk with a couple of child’s ibuprofen dissolved into it. After putting the milk into one of Addy’s old Sippy cups, we finally got her to drink it and within ten minutes, she was starting to calm down.

  As she slept in Bonnie’s arms, I felt I ought to come clean about my call to Jesse.

  “Bonnie, I need to tell you something,” I said tentatively.

  “What’s that, honey?” she asked as she stroked Addy’s hair from her face. />
  “I was actually able to talk with Jesse.” I winced as Bonnie’s head shot up; light grey eyes staring at me intensely.

  “Please don’t tell me he refused to come.”

  I shook my head. “God no, nothing like that. I didn’t tell him.”

  “What? What do you mean you didn’t tell him?” Thankfully she didn’t look angry, just confused.

  “It sounded like hell out there, Bonnie. He said that there was cattle running everywhere and he sounded so stressed. I just thought we would be able to handle it, eventually.”

  Bonnie looked down at Addy and dropped a kiss to her forehead that was covered in a sheen of perspiration.

  “Good call, honey. It’s dangerous enough out there when the cattle are spooked, he didn’t need to be worrying about Addy, too.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re not angry?”

  “No, honey, you did right.”

  I was just about to the get up and make us some more coffee when the front door burst open, and a soaking wet Jesse barged in. Water dripped from his hat onto his wax rancher coat, and then travelled down the length of it to puddle on the wooden floor.

  “How is she?” he gasped, pulling his hat off and throwing it on the floor.

  “Jesse, honey.” Bonnie’s eyes lit up at the sight of her son.

  Jesse grabbed at the poppers on the full-length coat and shrugged it off before rushing over to Bonnie. He looked down at Addy and bent at the waist, put his arms under her body and pulled her to his chest. Cradling her in his arms, Jesse sat down on the recliner, placed one hand behind her head and dropped tender kisses on to her forehead.

  Bonnie gasped and slapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes shining brightly with tears of happiness. I swallowed back a huge ball of emotion as I watched Jesse gently rub his cheek against his daughter’s tiny button nose.

  “I knew,” he whispered. “I knew that there was something wrong; my instinct told me that my baby needed me. I came straight away, straight after the line went dead, but I came across a calf stuck in the mud and the mother was getting distressed watching her baby sinking. I had to pull it out. I couldn’t let it die, Mom.”

  “Honey, it’s fine. You were on your way here, that’s the main thing.”

  “She’s real hot, Momma. Is she okay?”

  Bonnie got up to feel Addy’s brow. “She’s been upset, got herself into a state, I think it’s just that. I’ll put her in bed with me and she can sleep in her underwear. Your dad can sleep in Addy’s bed.”

  Jesse shook his head. “No, I’ll sleep with her.”

  Bonnie and I both stared at him wide eyed. He’d definitely been making progress with Addy over the last few weeks, but this was a major step forward.

  “You’ll be cramped in Addy’s bed,” Bonnie said. “Your bed is made up.”

  Jesse’s face blanched and I saw his grip on Addy relax, the hand on her back dropping to his knee. Then Addy stirred in his arms. He looked down and put his hands back on her, pulling Addy closer to him.

  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll take her up.”

  In one swift move, Jesse was on his feet and carrying Addy towards the stairs. As his foot landed on the first tread, he stopped and turned to me.

  “Thanks for what you did tonight, Millie, but you could have told me.”

  “Millie did the right thing, honey. She realized that you had enough to deal with out there.”

  “Maybe, or maybe she thought I wouldn’t come, but I guess that’s not surprising since I’ve been a total idiot for the longest time.”

  “Jesse…” I was about to say it was purely his stress that stopped me, but Jesse shook his head.

  “It’s fine, Millie. I’ll see you in the morning. Dad and Garratt won’t be too long. Dad radioed me just as I got back, they’re on their way back in.”

  Bonnie nodded. “Okay, I’ll get some supper ready. Do you want some?”

  “No thanks, I’m beat. Goodnight.”

  Bonnie and I watched him carry his precious cargo up the stairs and we both swiped away a tear.

  “That boy,” Bonnie whispered.

  I flopped back into the cushions on the sofa and thought about ‘that boy’. He was strong, brave, handsome, and grumpy as hell. He’d been nothing but rude to me, apart from when he was making me feel as though I was flying just from the use of his fingers, and he had more issues than Prime Minister’s Question Time, but when he took his daughter in his arms, that boy took my heart, too. I knew then that I was falling in love with Jesse Connor.

  Jesse

  As I sat in the chair next to the bed, I watched Addy sleep, willing my own to come, but even the rhythmic rise and fall of Addy’s chest wasn’t helping. I felt exhausted, but my eyes wouldn’t close, and I knew it was because the last time I’d slept in that bed it had been with my wife. Just four hours later she was dead, her gorgeous face ripped to shreds when she went through the windshield of her car on her way to a few days away with her old High School cheerleader friends.

  Why the fuck she wasn’t wearing a seat belt I have no idea. There is also no clue why she crashed. No other cars were involved, it was a clear stretch of road, she hadn’t had a blow out, but she had veered off the road and gone into a ditch, hit a tree, and gone through the windshield. The Sheriff told me that they were putting it down to driver error, and though I hated myself for it, I had to agree with him.

  Addy stirred slightly and flopped an arm out of the covers, her tiny little fingers curling inwards. I pulled the chair closer to the bed, took her hand in mine, and rested my head next to hers and waited for the peace.

  Millie

  By the time I went down for breakfast, the morning after the storm, Bonnie was already clearing away dishes.

  “Morning,” I said on a yawn. “Have the guys gone out already?”

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “They needed to check the fences. Ted said he thinks all the cattle are okay; the boys managed to locate them all and get them to the run in shed that’s out there on slightly higher ground.”

  “Well, that’s something,” I replied, pouring myself some cereal. “How was Jesse this morning?”

  Bonnie shrugged. “No idea, he’d already gone by the time we got up this morning, and Ted and Garratt were gone by five.”

  “But they didn’t get in until midnight last night.”

  “The life of a rancher, honey. Anyway, it won’t hurt Garratt to be busy from morning ‘til night; will keep him out of trouble,” she said with a chuckle.

  “And Addy?”

  “Still sleeping. She looks so tiny in that big bed of Jesse’s.” Bonnie’s brow furrowed and she suddenly looked lost in thought.

  “What’s wrong, what’s worrying you?”

  She startled and then sat down in the chair opposite to me. “It struck me the bed only looked slept in on one side, but there was a blanket thrown over the chair in there.”

  “You think Jesse slept in the chair?”

  “Yes, honey, I do. Which means that he’s still hurting.” Bonnie leaned her elbows on the table. “He hasn’t slept in that bed since Melody passed.”

  My heart lurched. Somewhere in the back of my stupid mind I thought that maybe he had feelings for me; after what we’d done. Evidently, I was nothing more to him than Angie. If he still couldn’t face sleeping in his marital bed then I wasn’t the one to help him forget. But why should he have feelings for me? Aside from giving me an orgasm, basically to shut me up, he’d barely had a pleasant word to say to me. There was no doubt that he thought that I was attractive, his hard on had been evidence of that, and the fact that he thought Dean was an idiot for dumping me, but there was nothing more to it. I had to accept that and get over this stupid infatuation.

  “They were high school sweethearts weren’t they?” I asked.

  “Yes they were. Although, I always thought that Melody would move away; never saw her as a rancher’s wife, what she’d do I had no idea seeing as she didn’t go to college. But, she worked
here with me and then she got pregnant. Jesse was adamant that they get married. Ted and I didn’t care whether they were married or not, times have changed from when we were youngsters, but it was what they wanted. Well in hindsight, I think it was what Jesse wanted. Not so sure about Melody.”

  Bonnie was the second person to talk about Melody in less than glowing terms. Maybe she wasn’t as perfect as Jesse evidently thought she was. A burning sensation needled in my chest and I almost gasped with shock; I was jealous of a dead woman.

  “She changed after she had Addy,” Bonnie continued, bringing me back to the conversation.

  “Garratt said.”

  Bonnie laughed. “That’s not surprising. She and Garratt didn’t get along, that was another thing that changed after she had Addy. Before that they’d been thick as thieves, but as soon as she started spending time away from the ranch, from Jesse and Addy, Garratt took a disliking to her.”

  “Do you think he had a crush on her?” I asked, it suddenly occurring to me.

  “Garratt? No, honey. He loved his brother, that’s what Garratt’s problem was. Don’t get me wrong, when Garratt was a lot younger and Melody first started dating Jesse I think Garratt thought she was cute, but nothing more.”

  “Was she a good mother?” I asked, looking down at the table and tracing the chequered pattern of the cloth with my finger.

  Questions were running around in my head and I just couldn’t help but vocalise them. I needed to know about the woman that still had Jesse’s heart.

  “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but she wasn’t the best, honey, no. Jesse was the one who did everything when he was home. Melody would say it was so he got to bond with the baby, too, but that didn’t explain why I was the one caring for her when Jesse wasn’t around. Let’s just say Melody wasn’t the most hardworking of girls, when she worked with me she was more of a hindrance at times.”

  I let out a long, slow breath, a sense of relief settling on me because Melody definitely wasn’t as perfect as Jesse thought.

  “Yet Jesse worshipped her,” I said aloud.