“You know what I loved most about your mama?”
“Absolutely. Her pot roast. Everyone knows that.”
He cracks a smile, but stays focused. “What I loved the most was that she let me … evolve. Try new things. Remember the time I had that ponytail?”
“Those pictures will never be shown to your some-day grandkids,” I say, making a face. “That was horrible!”
“It wasn’t the best,” he laughs. “But your mother didn’t say a word. She let me pick mushrooms when I really should’ve been mowing the lawn and she didn’t say a peep when I wanted to switch careers from the railroad to truck driving. Then I got hurt and that was over before it started,” he notes. “But the fact of the matter is, she let me grow.”
“So what you’re saying is, I should just let Ford do what he wants because I’m the girl?”
“Hell, no,” he laughs. “The rest of my speech goes a little something like this: she let me evolve, yes, but I always listened to her. I always heard her feelings out and we compromised. I didn’t always get what I wanted, but I got the chance to be heard. Marriage is a delicate balance, Ellie Dawn.”
“Whoa,” I say, holding my hands out. “Let’s not start talking about the m-word.”
He flicks the mute button on the television and pushes the remote a little off to the side. “Do you have an inkling that you want to see someone else?”
I don’t. Not a bit. But the look on his face, the severity of his features, keeps me from replying.
“There’s nothing guaranteed in this life, pumpkin. I’ve lived a long one, seen a lot of stuff. There’s not a thing you can say for sure you’ll have in the morning. Not even another breath. That can be paralyzing when you think about it.”
“That’s true,” I say softly. “It’s a weakness of mine, actually. I get to thinking about what tomorrow will be like and I just get scared. I’m afraid to make the wrong choices. I’m afraid of being hurt.” I look at the table, cuts from knives and dinners and burns from pots and pans over the years scuffing the surface. “I fear regret.”
“You can’t do that. You can’t let fear of the unknown make you stop living.” He begins to blink rapidly as a wet sheen sweeps across his eyes. “Don’t turn into me, Ellie.”
“That wouldn’t be a terrible thing,” I say over the lump in my throat.
“If you do one thing for me in your whole life, I want you to do everything. All the things you’re scared of, all the things I wish I did.”
“Like date four men at once?” I tease.
He chuckles. “No, like not getting stuck at a nine-to-five. Take vacations. Get sunshine … and get your mail.” His voice cracks and I fight tears but they come anyway. I have no idea what’s sparked this from him, this sort of life manifesto or whatever it is, but it’s killing me to see him in this way.
I reach to pull him into a hug but he bats my hand away. “What I’m saying is for you to figure out what puts a smile on your face and give that a try. Try new things. Let Ford try them too. If it’s a mistake, then you’ll know and you don’t have to wonder. Besides, life is entirely too short to live with so much caution you’re frozen.”
Considering his words, the truth literally hurts. It stings my chest, makes tears well up in my eyes. “I think Ford does that, Daddy. He puts a smile on my face.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he whispers. He moves the cloth from his arm and I see that it’s stopped bleeding.
“Let’s go to dinner,” I offer. “Let’s do something outside of this house.”
“Thank you, pumpkin, but I’ll stay here.”
“But you just said …”
“Go on,” he grins. “Have a good dinner and tell that boy I said hi.”
“You’re more than welcome to come,” I insist. “We can go get a barbecue sandwich at Porter’s.”
“I’m tired. My back is starting to hurt a little bit so I’m going to go to bed.”
I stand and kiss him on the head. “I’ll come check on you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be fine,” he sighs.
“Behave and I might even bring you a sandwich tomorrow,” I wink before heading to the door. Before I push it open, I hear him say my name.
“Ellie?”
“Yeah, Daddy?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Twenty-Eight
Ellie
I could probably pry myself off this couch and do something productive. I’m sure I could, actually. I don’t feel too bad physically, besides a little iffy in my stomach from anxiety.
It’s mental exhaustion that has me down for the count. If not, lying on this couch for the past three hours should’ve revived me.
Closing my eyes feels good for about five seconds, just long enough to quiet everything in my brain. All that does is allow everything to kind of reboot and start from scratch, and I have to work my way back through it from the beginning.
Besides Ford, I now have my dad to worry about. He promised this morning when I called to check on him that he was okay. There’s something in his tone that worries me. He’s too calm, too sure he’s going to be fine.
My stomach twists and churns. I lay a hand on top of my belly button and listen to it actually gurgle. It’s gross.
Deciding to try to force myself to take a nap, my eyelids don’t touch before a knock sounds on the door.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter, throwing off the fleece blanket and getting to my feet. Stumbling to the entryway, I call out, “Who is it?”
“It’s Ford.”
It doesn’t go unnoticed that my nerves quell just a little as I unlatch the lock. He hears it and opens it himself.
Stepping inside, he does a quick once-over.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, tugging my t-shirt down.
“Just checking on you. You haven’t called me back from this morning.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you,” I say as he bends and kisses my cheek. “I got busy and I haven’t felt good today. I came home early and couched it.”
“You should’ve called,” he says, taking my hand in his. “I would’ve brought you some soup or something and couched it with you.”
“I’ll be fine. Just tired, I think.”
He leads me to the living room and sits. Before I can take a spot next to him, he pulls me on his lap. I don’t argue. Instead, I curl up against his chest and listen to his heartbeat, steady and strong.
My body relaxes, my shoulders softening, and I sink deeper into him. He wraps his arms around me and holds me tight.
“I was going to make you get all dressed up and take you dinner,” he whispers. “I wanted to show you off.”
I grin against his shirt. “Not tonight.”
“I’m okay with sitting with you like this all night. No complaints from me.”
We sit quietly, the only sound coming from a talk show on the television.
“I talked to Danielle today,” he says. “She loved the idea of partnering up with Halcyon on a back-to-school fundraiser in the fall.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He kisses the top of my head. “I told her all about you and she can’t wait to meet you.”
Fisting his shirt in my hands, I squeeze my eyes closed. “Do you really think that’s a good idea, Ford?”
“What? You meeting Danielle? Yeah. You’ll get along great.”
I pull away and scoot off his lap. “I’m sure she’s fabulous. And thank you for mentioning Halcyon to her. That means a lot to me.”
He pulls his brows together and takes me in. “What are you getting at?”
“I just … I think we’ve been going a little too fast.”
I flinch when he laughs. It’s not what I’m expecting. Not at all.
“Fast? Are you kidding me right now?” he asks. “Hell, I’ve been doing everything I can to slow this down.”
“I didn’t realize you didn’t want—”
H
is index finger lies against my lips, silencing me. “If I had my way, you’d be moved in with me already, beautiful.”
I beg my heart to behave and not start swooning. I can’t. Not this time. This time, I have to be an adult and think.
“Ellie? What’s wrong?”
“I, um, I just think we need to take a step back.”
“Why in the hell would we do that?”
“We’re just barreling along here, being complete hedonists, and not thinking about the ramifications later,” I say, the words spilling out quicker than I can keep up. “We are on such different pages in our lives and there’s no sense in keeping this up when we can see if we’d just look that we can’t—”
His mouth is pressed against mine, his hand palming the back of my head. The words are scooped up with his tongue as I sigh the rest of them in his mouth.
Not having a choice to kiss him or not is a relief. I’d have said no, but maybe I wouldn’t have meant it.
This is where I’m happy. This is where I want to be, wrapped up in his arms, breathing him in. It just doesn’t mean it’s the best place for me.
He breaks the kisses, tapping one on my nose, before pulling away. “Let’s try this again. This time, without a hundred-word ramble,” he grins.
I clear my throat, my lips still stinging from his delicious assault. “Okay. What I was trying to say is that I think we need to not press this thing between us any farther than it already is. Not right now.”
“And … why would we do that?”
“We want different things, for one,” I sigh, standing up. Making my way to the mantle, I figure it’s far enough away from him to think. “You want … I don’t even know what you want,” I admit. “That’s a problem.”
“I want you. How hard is that to wrap your head around?”
“You say that, but then you tell me you want to get married, have kids, get a dog …”
“I have a dog and she’s epic. If I tried to replace her, it would hurt her feelings.”
“You know what I mean,” I say, rolling my eyes. “You want this cookie-cutter life, and I just don’t know that I want that.”
“Why not?” He scoots to the edge of the sofa, resting his elbows on his knees. “You love me. I love you. Maybe we haven’t said those things yet, but it’s as fact as the day is long.”
A soft smile tickles my lips and I sit on the edge of the fireplace stoop to stop the shakiness in my legs. “You say that, and then you say you’re going to go trekking all over the country. That’s not really conducive to a family lifestyle, Ford.”
“I said I might do that,” he groans. “Might, as in maybe. Possibly. Not definitely.”
“I can tell you I definitely don’t want to live that way. I want to live here, with my father, my business, my roots. I don’t want a long-distance relationship. I have no interest. Zero.” I pick up a magazine and roll it in my hands. “But I know you have to go with your brother.”
“I don’t have to do jack shit.”
“But you will. Because that’s who you are. Because that’s the man I adore.”
He leans back against the cushions and puts his hands on his face. “Why do I feel like you’ve just shoved a mile away from me?”
When I don’t answer, he finally looks at me. There’s fear etched on his face. I see it, too, when he forces a swallow.
“Ellie, baby, don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I promise. “I just … I’m between a rock and a hard place here.”
“Why do you think that? I don’t get it.”
“If I give in to you and just go with the flow, follow my heart …”
“You don’t trust me.” It’s more of a question than a statement, a phrase uttered with disbelief. “You don’t, don’t you?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just … what happens if in a year from now, I’m sitting here alone with a baby and you’re off God knows where doing God knows what? Then what, Ford? Do you think that’s the life I want?”
His jaw hangs open as he exhales, narrowing his eyes like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. I just sit on the stone fireplace and watch him.
“You know it’s not. After all, isn’t that one of the reasons you claim to have left me the first time? You wanted the freedom to do things and felt like it wasn’t fair to make me wait on you or follow you around?”
He runs a hand through his hair, tugging briefly before letting go. “For fuck’s sake, Ellie. What do I have to do?”
“I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m just saying that until we figure out where our paths are going, maybe we shouldn’t be getting too involved.”
He springs off the couch, his body vibrating with irritation. “We shouldn’t be getting too involved? You really just fucking said that?”
“You know what I mean.”
“You know what? I don’t. I don’t get a word of this bullshit.”
“Think about it,” I say, standing up so I don’t feel so vulnerable. “Taking a step back gives us some breathing room.”
He’s across the room and inches from me before I can take any precautions otherwise. His chest rises and falls so hard, I think it’s going to slam into mine.
“What if I don’t want breathing room?” he asks.
“I do.”
He nods, a look of skepticism on his face. “Tell you what—you can have some breathing room if that’s what you want.”
Even though it’s what I said I wanted, my heart crashes anyway. He’s still standing in front of me, and I could call this off with one little word, yet I already miss him. I already ache for him. I already crave him and feel the void he’s instantly carved in my life.
Tears fill my eyes, but I blink them back. This is what I wanted. I have to remind myself.
That’s easier said than done when I see the emotions he’s wearing on his shirtsleeve.
“This doesn’t change anything,” he warns me. “This doesn’t change how I feel or what I want.”
I can’t blink fast enough. A solitary tear trickles down my cheek.
“I love you,” he whispers, his eyes shining with emotion. “I love the hell out of you.”
My words barely come out over the lump in my throat. “I love you too.”
“Then don’t you see how stupid this is?”
“It feels stupid,” I admit. “But I just want to be careful.”
A kiss comes quick and soft, his hands cupping the sides of my face. “I’ll call Violet and have her bring you some soup,” he says.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I told you this doesn’t change anything for me.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment, and then, with a hefty sigh, he drops his hands. He may as well have dropped my heart as he walks out the front door.
Twenty-Nine
Ford
“Are you hungry?”
I step to the side to allow Sienna to make her way in. She holds up two greasy paper bags. “I brought dinner.”
“It’s amazing you don’t weigh seven hundred pounds with all the fast food you eat,” I laugh.
“So you don’t want it? I even got you a double-double with bacon and extra pickles.”
“How can I resist that?”
She grins. “Kitchen or living room?”
“Living room,” I say, heading that direction. “I’m not Graham.”
“You can say that again,” she scoffs. “I accidentally set a glass of water on his coffee table once. He got me a set of coasters for Christmas.”
She heads in front of me, dressed in a pair of jeans and a black shirt with some kind of sparkles on the shoulders. On her feet are a pair of heels that make me wonder how in the hell she’s even walking in them.
I plop down on the couch and watch her place one bag in front of me.
“One time he insisted I stay at his place when I was home on leave. It was around the holidays, I think,” I say, opening the container. The
scent of deep friend goodness hits me in the nose. “I took a shower, right? And hung the towel on the side of the shower to dry, thinking I’d re-use it later. I mean, I was clean when I used it.”
“I do the same thing,” she says with a mouthful of French fries.
Shaking my head, I laugh. “Sometimes it’s amazing you are our mother’s child.”
“What?” she giggles, shoving in another fry.
“Anyway, when I went in to shower that night, the towel was gone and a piece of paper was taped to the door that the towels go in the hamper.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
The burger oozes condiments as I lift it to my mouth. “This is so good,” I say, searching the bag for a napkin. Before I can wipe my mouth, I take another bite.
“And I was afraid you wouldn’t be hungry,” she laughs. “You don’t normally eat so late, do you?”
“No,” I say through a mouthful of burger. I swallow and take a drink before continuing. “I don’t want to call it a fight, but Ellie and I had …”
“A tiff?”
“What the hell is that?”
“I don’t know. That’s what Mom calls it,” she laughs. “So what happened?”
“The S-word,” I groan.
“Syphillis?”
I burst out laughing. “No! Space. She wants space.”
“Oh,” she says, choking on her drink. “That sucks but it’s better than a venereal disease.” She gets herself under control. “So what are you going to do? How do you play this?”
“Short from kidnapping her?”
“Kinda illegal, bud. But I know people, and Cam definitely knows people …”
“What the fuck?”
“A joke,” she says, her eyes going wide like she’s been caught in the cookie jar. “It was a joke.”
“It better be a joke.”
“Can we focus on the problem at hand?” she sighs. “What are you doing with Ellie?”
I give her a final glare to warn her about her idea of a joke. “I’m giving her space. That’s what she wants, that’s what she’ll get.” Tossing my sister a napkin, I lean back on the sofa. “I’m going to make her miss me.”
The Landry Family Series: Part Two Page 16