Firefighter Christmas Complete Series Box Set (A Firefighter Holiday Romance Love Story)

by Nella Tyler

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I was trying to get up the energy to heat something up to eat first, but then you knocked at the door.”

  “Well, you’re going to take something after you eat this fine soup,” Autumn told me. “You have to keep your fluids up if you’ve got the flu.”

  “I’m sure I’ve heard that,” I said as she set the tray down on the coffee table. She looked around the living room for a moment, and I gestured to the chair next to the couch. “Have a seat—that is, if you’re interested in visiting for a little bit.”

  “I can sit for a spell,” she said. She perched in the chair and pointed at the tray. “Eat!”

  It wasn’t hard to eat the whole bowl of rich, delicious soup; even with my nose stopped up and my taste buds off, after the first bite I knew it was exactly what I needed. “Are these homemade noodles?” Autumn nodded.

  “It’s nothing really,” she said, blushing slightly. “It’s easier to make up egg noodles when we need them then to buy them and have them take up cupboard space forever.”

  “They’re delicious,” I told her, taking more bites of the soup. It warmed me up and I could feel the pressure in my head starting to relax, my sinuses starting to ease up on me. It made my throat feel better, too; the heat, saltiness, and the chunks of chicken were just exactly what I needed.

  “There’s more in the jar—I left it out, but if you’re going to wait to eat the rest of it you’ll probably want to put it in the fridge so it doesn’t spoil.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said, nodding as I set the bowl aside and picked up the glass of Gatorade. “And, thanks for coming out all this way to bring it.”

  Autumn shrugged, blushing again. “I just thought… I didn’t know if you’d have anyone else to bring you soup or anything, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “You really don’t have to hang around if you don’t want to,” I told her. “I mean, I’m not asking you to leave or anything, but I’m sure you’ve got important things to do around the house, and of course Adelyn probably isn’t used to you being away from her for very long.” Autumn smiled.

  “She’s in very good hands with my mom. And, dinner at home isn’t for another few hours, so it’s not like anyone will miss me for a bit.” She gave me a quick, almost stern look. “Take the medicine before you finish off that Gatorade.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I said, almost laughing at her sternness. I poured myself a shot of the medicine in the little cup that came with the bottle and knocked it back, chasing it with the last of the Gatorade in my glass like chasing a shot of whiskey with a slug of beer.

  Autumn stood and gathered up the tray, taking it back into the kitchen, and I heard her rinse the bowl out in the sink. She came back into the living room and sat down. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just stick around until you start feeling sleepy,” she suggested.

  “I don’t mind at all,” I said, nodding. Autumn had brought the bottle of Gatorade with her and handed it to me.

  “You might as well drink some more of it while you’re still awake,” she pointed out. I poured myself another installment of the drink and sipped it, sitting back on the couch. I pulled the afghan my mom had made sometime years before around me.

  “You know, maybe it’s forward of me, and if you don’t want to answer, I’ll back off,” I said, “but what’s the story with you and Adelyn?” Autumn laughed—a little bitterly, I thought.

  “You mean, why am I a single mom?”

  I shrugged and half-nodded. “Not that I’m passing judgment or anything. I was just curious how a beautiful woman like you ended up taking care of a baby all on your own.” Autumn smiled sadly.

  “I was engaged when I got pregnant with her,” she began. “And for the record—I didn’t get engaged because I got pregnant, I got pregnant because Adelyn’s father and I had stopped being careful after we got engaged.”

  “Sounds normal.” I could feel the medicine starting to work—not just drying me up, but making me a little drowsy, a little dopey. It wasn’t so bad that I’d tell Autumn to leave, but it was making my tongue a little looser than usual. “So what happened?” She looked down at her hands and sighed.

  “Titan was his name,” she said, meeting my gaze once more. “He—I guess—found someone online. I guess he was technically cheating on me just about the whole time, though it feels weird to say it since he never…”

  She shook her head. “Anyway, a few months into my pregnancy with Addie, he told me that he wanted to move out East because he’d found someone online who lived out there. New York maybe, or somewhere like that.”

  “What a pissant,” I said, frowning. I couldn’t imagine exchanging messages with another woman when the woman I was engaged to—the woman I loved—was carrying my child. But then, I knew from some of my friends that there were plenty of men out there who were only ever interested in the hunt. “That’s no kind of man.” Autumn lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.

  “Anyway,” she said, sighing again, “he decided he wanted to try things out with her, and I didn’t think there was any real reason to try and convince him to stay—not for me, anyway. As soon as I found out that he was cheating on me, it was like…” She shook her head. “I can’t say my heart broke, exactly, but any feeling I really had for him just evaporated.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. I was relieved to hear that she had had the sense to sever ties with a man who’d mistreated her and enough command of her emotions to keep from wanting to salvage something with a man who obviously didn’t respect her.

  “It’s a shame in a certain respect,” she said. “He’s never even seen his own daughter. I don’t want him in my life anymore, but you’d think he’d at least put a token effort into his own daughter, wouldn’t you?”

  I smiled back at her sadly, hoping she knew just how sympathetic I felt.

  “Well, if he doesn’t want to know his own daughter, then she’s better off without him, right?” I shifted on the couch; my head was starting to feel heavy again—but not in the clogged-up way. I yawned and shook my head to try and keep the sleepiness from taking over.

  “The medicine is starting to kick in,” Autumn observed. “I should leave.”

  “You’re a good mom,” I told her, feeling sleepy and comfortable and content for the first time all day. “You’re a good mom, and you’re a much better woman than Titan could ever deserve—so it’s good you’re not with him anymore, anyway.” She snickered. My eyelids were so heavy.

  “I’m going to put this on the coffee table for you,” she said, and I felt her hand on mind, felt the glass of Gatorade sliding free of my fingers. “Get some sleep and feel better in the morning, okay?”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll call in if I’m not better…but I hope I am…” The medicine started to kick in more strongly and I wasn’t even sure if I said goodbye to Autumn; all I knew was that I was warm, my head wasn’t full of snot, and I was too sleepy to even think about staying awake. I hoped she’d understand.

  Chapter Nine

  Autumn

  About a week after I visited Cade’s house to check up on him and bring him soup, everything was back to normal at the farm. I had somehow managed not to come down with the bug—whatever it was—that Cade had had, and none of the members of my family had gotten it either, which was a blessing.

  I never told Tuck or even Dad about taking the soup to Cade; in the case of Dad, I was sure he’d think it was inappropriate, and Tuck would have teased me for the rest of my life about it. As far as I knew, Cade hadn’t mentioned it, either.

  “Let’s get some work done, baby girl,” I told Addie as I stepped out of the house with her in my arms.

  It wasn’t quite as hot as it had been the previous week, but it was still pretty warm out—and, of course, Adelyn’s baby skin needed protecting from the sun even if it wasn’t all that hot. I had set her playpen outside before I grabbed her, and I pulled it over to a shady spot underneath a tree so that she coul
d enjoy the nice weather while I worked, and so I could keep an eye on her.

  Mom was inside, working on the accounts, and the guys were out in the field. I had to water the kitchen garden, do a little weeding, and clean the exterior windows. Mom and Dad always said that just because it was a farm house, that didn’t mean we could let it get to looking old or run-down. I’d probably have to take a few days later on in the season to paint—if I could get Tuck and maybe Cade to help me, it would be easier.

  I looked out at the fields and saw the shapes of the guys moving along the rows. It was still early in the growing season, but they were already putting down pesticides and fertilizer to give the soybeans and corn the best possible chance.

  For my own part, I had fertilized the vegetable garden a few days before. Things were starting to sprout, starting to show some progress, but it’d be another few weeks before I could even think of taking some early produce out—even the strawberries.

  I started walking around the garden, looking at everything, taking stock as Mom called it. By midsummer, it would be nearly impossible to keep up with everything; we’d be harvesting daily, pulling as much as we could, canning and preserving whatever we knew the family couldn’t eat in the week.

  I grabbed the hose and started watering everything down, careful not to flood any of the little plots with their sprouts reaching up towards the sky.

  Addie gurgled at something and I looked over to see a squirrel watching her intently, chattering at her. I would have intervened, but I didn’t see any sign that the squirrel was going to launch an attack. Addie lurched up in her playpen, reaching ineffectively out to grab at the distant squirrel, and I laughed to myself, shaking my head.

  I watered the garden and plucked a few obvious weeds, but so early on—and with such constant supervision—there weren’t many to pull. Mom stuck her head out the window right about the time I finished up. “Can you do me a favor and put the washing out on the clothesline? I was going to get it done this afternoon, but I can tell I’m going to be stuck in here all day,” she called out.

  “I can handle it,” I told her. I glanced at Addie; my baby would be safe for the few minutes it would take for me to go inside, grab the laundry, and carry it out. I hurried into the house and down the hall from the kitchen into the laundry room.

  The washing machine had obviously just finished up a few minutes before; the sheets and towels were still a little warm from the hot water Mom had used in the cycle. I pulled them out and dumped them into a basket, hefted it onto my hip and then hustled out of the house as quickly as I’d gone in.

  Addie was fine, of course; the squirrel had moved onto more important things like finding food, and my baby was playing with one of the toys my cousin had gotten her, babbling to herself in nonsense syllables.

  Everything had more or less gone back to normal after I’d visited Cade’s place to bring him soup, but something about the conversation we’d had continued to nag me ever since. I hadn’t minded telling him about Titan; he had to be one of the few people in the county who didn’t know the story, and honestly, it was better coming from me than from someone else.

  But it had brought the whole situation with my ex back to the forefront of my mind. I straightened a towel over the clothesline and reached automatically for the pins to hold it in place, thinking about the day that Titan had broken up with me.

  I’d noticed that he was pulling away, but I hadn’t really thought anything too serious was going on. After all: I had been pregnant with his child, we were engaged, and he had told me more than once that everything was fine between us. I’d come to the conclusion that it was just one of those things that happen—that Titan was pulling back because things were just getting intense.

  But then, one day, he’d sat me down in the living room of our apartment. “I have to tell you something, Autumn,” Titan had said, looking both shamefaced and cocky somehow.

  When we’d started dating, I’d thought he was one of the most gorgeous men I had ever met; and even though I didn’t have feelings for him anymore, I couldn’t be too upset at the fact that Addie had half Titan’s genes. She would grow up to be a beautiful woman one day, and that was partially because of Titan’s dark hair and bone structure.

  “What’s going on?” I’d felt my heart beating faster in my chest, and some part of me had to have known—but I couldn’t bring it to the forefront of my mind, form words to describe what I’d been suspecting for weeks.

  “I’ve met someone,” he had said. “I didn’t mean to—I loved you—but things just sort of...happened.”

  “What do you mean, things happened?” I could remember the way my hand had gone down to my abdomen, to where Addie was growing inside of me.

  “We started chatting, and we have a lot in common…we fell in love, Autumn. I’m sorry—I wish it was different—but I can’t stay with you when I’m in love with someone else.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and then took a deep breath. Titan breaking up with me hadn’t exactly broken my heart—at least, not in the way that other breakups, with other guys, had done. I’d felt strange, almost free but at the same time trapped. I’d been angry, and I’d told Titan that I didn’t give a fuck whether he was sorry. I’d told him that he could move to the East Coast as far as I cared, and I wouldn’t even bother saying goodbye to him.

  My feelings had softened a little bit after Titan had gone, but not in any way that made me want to get involved with him again. The fact that I was carrying a child, that I was going to give birth to Titan’s baby, was the important thing—the only thing—that connected me to him.

  He’s been a dad for almost a year, and he’s never once seen her, I thought, glancing at my daughter. It wasn’t fair to Addie. She doesn’t know anything about having a father, I pointed out to myself. She doesn’t ever even have to know anything about it.

  But that didn’t seem entirely fair. If Titan wanted to be part of his daughter’s life, then I wouldn’t feel right keeping her away from him. It wasn’t likely to come up, but if it did, I had to be ready to let Titan have a part in his daughter’s world.

  Then, too, she’s eventually going to realize that there’s such a thing as fathers, and that most of her friends at school have dads… Technically, all her friends at school would have fathers, but they wouldn’t necessarily all know them. Addie would be one of the kids who was pitied because she had no “real” family—just me, my parents, and her uncle.

  I shook my head to try and clear it and went about the next chore on my list. I needed to power-wash the windows and the siding on the house. After that, I would be heating up some leftover casserole for lunch.

  I went into the shed after checking on Addie again and found the pressure-washer. As I came back out and moved to the first of the windows I needed to work on, I glanced at the fields. I could just barely make out the shapes of the three guys working out there, and I wasn’t entirely sure that I could distinguish Cade from my brother and Dad, but I smiled to myself at the sight of the three of them all out working.

  “Never going to happen, so don’t even think about it,” I told myself, before I’d even fully let myself think about the idea of asking Cade out or of him asking me out. Cade wasn’t someone I could date—in fact, with Addie still so young, I probably shouldn’t be dating anyone at all. I should be focusing on taking care of my daughter, saving money that I earned from the farm, and getting my life heading in the right direction.

  It wasn’t fair, I thought to myself as I moved from one window to the next. It wasn’t fair to Addie that because her father had decided to be a selfish, cheating ass, she would have to deal with the insecurity of not knowing him or what he was really like. Even if she did meet Titan at some point in the future, I couldn’t guarantee her—or even, realistically, expect for her—to have a smooth relationship with a man who had abandoned her before she was even born.

  I needed someone to serve as Addie’s father, but I couldn’t exactly go around and te
ll people that I was looking for a candidate for her dad. Almost against my will, my thoughts went to Cade, out in the fields, working hard.

  But I reminded myself once more that I couldn’t even really look at Cade that way. He was my father’s employee, and he was someone I shouldn’t even think about getting involved with.

  I should just focus on my daughter and on my role working the farm, and hope that God would provide me with someone. Maybe I could meet someone at the church, or maybe once Addie was a little older I could go to speed dating or something like that, meet people who might be willing to entertain the possibility of a relationship with me.

  My prospects—at least the romantic ones—seemed bleak indeed as I finished up the pressure washing and put the big, clunky machine away to spend a few minutes playing with my daughter.

  I wasn’t exactly thrilled at what was in front of me. I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for my daughter that Titan might never lay eyes on her, that the man who was her biological father wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a lineup—and that he might not ever be able to.

  Chapter Ten

  Cade

  It wasn’t quite heading into dark when Bob Nelson called the cue to shut everything down for the day. It was the end of the workday—and the end of the workweek, at least for me—and I was grateful for the chance to go home, get cleaned up, and relax a bit. I’d declined, as politely as possible, the offer for dinner. I wanted to just rest up and catch up a bit on my sleep, maybe have a beer.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to stay for dinner, Cade? We’d be glad to have you,” Bob said to me as we walked back towards the house.

  “All I want is a nice steak, a beer, a shower, and my bed,” I told the older man. “I thought I was in good shape before…phew. This farm working is tougher than I remembered.”