“Son, as much as I would like to say it, I can’t.” His throat was closing as the emotion he was trying to handle choked him. He wasn’t afraid of showing his son emotions, because grown men did cry, regardless of what one wanted to believe. He had cried for days, and still cried to this day after losing April. There was no shame in crying. “I’m sure they’ll stick around for as long as they’re able to. By the grace of God, we’ll be a family for however long we’re on this earth.”
Tyler nodded, showing a fair understanding of what Adam was trying to tell him. It had been difficult, over the years, to depend on his faith to guide them through this tragedy, especially when the first thing a person wanted to do was blame the power above them for allowing such an awful thing to happen. In order to provide a patient understanding with Tyler, he’d had to free himself of all negativity and lean on his faith to carry him through the last ten years of his life, and he was now more than thankful for having a higher power to believe in.
“Let’s get things done here so we can go home,” Adam said, patting his son on the shoulder. “I’ll race ya to it.”
Giving his son a two second lead over him, he watched Tyler sprint ahead before taking off after him.
Out of breath and bending over, Adam stopped short of the open bay doors. Tyler was a helluva runner. He needed to get in better shape if he was going to keep up with him.
“Nice try, Dad,” Tyler teased, patting him on the shoulder. “An A for your effort.”
“What happened? You beat your old man?” Liam asked, coming around the corner of the building. Liam didn’t hesitate to slap Adam on the back. “Getting too old to be running like that, Champ.”
“Look who’s talkin’!” Adam hollered after him.
Liam turned before getting into his truck. Offering up a mocking smirk, he said, “I’m not the one racing against a kid. I know better.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Adam said, waving him off. There was a good chance that he should probably get back to running every morning. It had been a while since he had last seen the sun rise over the mountains in Cedar Valley.
Folding tables and carrying them upstairs to the loft above the station, Adam thought about getting back to his morning runs. He was sure that Tyler would enjoy it, and Rachel wouldn’t mind.
“What are you thinking about, old man?”
Coming down the stairs to find Liam and his brother Conner at the landing looking up, he said, “Nothing, why?”
“I think you’re thinking about getting home to the hottie that’s waiting for you,” Conner said, wiggling his eyebrows, looking like an idiot.
Giving his arm a brotherly shove, Adam said, “That’s not how you should talk about women. Someday you’ll understand.”
Liam laughed. “Someday will never come for him. That’s wishful thinking there.”
“Shut it,” Conner said, sticking out his bottom lip. The kid still had growing up to do. Being in his twenties didn’t mean anything when it came to maturity. Boys didn’t mature until their late twenties, early thirties. Adam would pray for the woman who got stuck with Conner.
Rounding up the last of the chairs, Adam called out for Tyler to follow him out. There was nothing left to do, everyone had cleaned up the place and it looked good.
“We’ll see ya this weekend, won’t we?” Adam’s mother asked, hugging them. “I didn’t get a chance to say bye to Rachel and Ava. I hope they come with you guys this weekend.”
“We’ll be there, Mom,” Adam said, wondering how he could have forgotten their plans of going to his parent’s house. Sunday dinners were a weekly necessity in his family—a tradition he hoped to continue on with his own kids. “I’m sure Rachel would love to come.”
5
A loud rumble was heard coming down the gravel road, and it slowed near the driveway. Rachel opened the front door and watched as Liam’s truck came to a sudden stop, allowing Adam and Tyler to jump out. Leah sat in the front seat, with her hand waving out the window in Rachel’s direction.
Rachel walked out onto the front porch, trying not to be too loud because Ava was still sleeping. “Hey, Lee!”
“We’d stay and visit, but I need to go home and take a nap,” Leah said. “I’ll call you later or tomorrow, though.”
Waving until they took off down the road, Rachel stood on the porch long after Tyler had gone inside. “I’ve missed that girl.”
Leaning into his kiss, she smiled. It was good to finally have a place where she belonged. She felt it deep within her heart. She finally had what Leah had told her about. “Well, I missed you,” he said, pressing his lips against hers, she could smell the scent of his cologne—a mix she wouldn’t get tired of.
“It’s only been a couple of hours,” she said, playing with the button on his shirt.
“Two hours too long,” he replied, kissing her with passion as he pushed her up against the railing.
Laughing, she gently pushed him back. “Get out of here and find something else to do.”
“Rejected once again,” he pouted, walking up the rest of the stairs to the porch. “I see how it is.”
“I haven’t rejected you once,” Rachel said, trailing behind him. “Do you even know what rejection is?”
Turning, his eyes met hers, and in that moment she saw the desire that yearned for her attention. In that same exact moment, if there hadn’t been any kids in the house, she would have allowed him to have his way with her. Cursing those eyes of his, along with his sweet charm, she followed him into the house.
“Do you want to help me bake some cookies?” she asked Tyler, who was antsy and looking for something to do.
“Only if we make my favorite kind.”
It hadn’t taken her long to figure out that Ty loved baking as much as he loved playing football. The last weekend she had spent with him and Adam, she had prepared supper for them and had settled in the kitchen to bake their dessert. It hadn’t taken long before Ty was in there with her, asking if he could help out. In spite of all of the gender roles society places on kids, she had seen nothing wrong with a boy learning how to cook or bake.
“Hmm... I can’t remember what your favorite is,” she teased, tousling his hair with a playful hand. His hair was light brown, with natural highlights from the bright and warm summer sun. She adored his eyes, the color of a warm sky, much like his father’s.
“Chocolate chip! How can you not remember?” Tyler asked, sliding into position near the mixer on the counter.
“The question is... how could I ever forget?” She smiled at his puzzled expression as he tried to figure out whether she had forgotten or not. “What do you say we bake extra for church on Sunday?”
She had never been a church goer, but Adam’s faith had guided her in a new direction. Meeting Adam and Ty, moving to Cedar Valley, going to church on Sundays—it was all a new beginning for her, and she was enjoying every minute of it.
“How many dozens will we have to make?”
Chuckling at the s he added to dozen, she said, “I’m thinking we’ll make two double batches.”
She watched as he tried counting the number of cookies that would be on his fingers. He was a math whiz in school, according to his grades—all A’s and B’s—which had earned him a few dollars from his father.
“If you’re trying to figure out how many cookies that will be, let’s take a look at how many the recipe says one batch will provide,” she offered, pulling the recipe card from the box and handing it to him. “Can you find where it says how many one batch offers?”
“Twenty-four?” Tyler said, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.
“Sounds about right,” she said, tying an apron around her waist when she felt two steady hands take hold of the strings for her.
“I’m going to run to Levy’s for a bit,” Adam said, tying her apron as he snuck in a few kisses on the back of her neck. “Since it looks like you’ve got everything under control here.”
“Of course,” she said, leaning in
to his hold as his warm lips pressed against the side of her neck, sending goosebumps along her skin.
Tyler scrunched his face and made gagging noises. “Get a room!”
Adam tousled his son’s hair before grabbing him in for a one arm hug as he planted a kiss on the top of his head. Rachel knew one day soon, Tyler would be too grown for his father to kiss him and love on him. “I’ll see you two after a while. Don’t have too much fun while I’m gone,” Adam said, offering a quick wave and a wink before he headed out the back door. Peeking his head back into the kitchen, he said, “And save me some.”
Rachel watched out the window as he climbed into his truck and headed for the end of the drive. Levy’s had picked up plenty of business since it had been rebuilt after the fire. It had become the main spot in town for gatherings and parties. Everyone loved Liam and Leah, and they most certainly loved Levy’s just as much.
Allowing Tyler to pour the ingredients into the mixing bowl, she prepared the cookie sheets and preheated the oven. She had to help him with the measurements, but other than that, he was doing fine by himself. “Keep that up, you’re going to make a woman happy someday,” she teased, pulling oven mitts from the drawer next to him as she nudged him.
His scrunched nose and overly dramatic reaction to her teasing had made it fun for her. Adam had told her that he was at the stage of being curious about other girls, crushing on them, but at the same time thinking they all had cooties.
She recalled her childhood of having cooties and the whole “circle circle dot dot, now I have my cootie shot” anthem that they had sung out loud at recess every day any time a boy had tried to touch them.
“I think I want to be a baker when I grow up,” Tyler said, breaking the silence with these surprising words.
“Really?” Rachel asked, unsure of how to direct this conversation. Wiping her hands on her apron, she pulled out a couple of eggs for him to crack; she decided to just see where the conversation would journey off to.
“Yeah,” Tyler shrugged, and Rachel could see the hesitation furrow his eyebrows. “I know that most boys don’t bake or even cook, but one day I’d like to own a bakery and offer the best pancakes in town.”
The boy had quite the imagination. She was certainly impressed that being only ten, he was coming up with ideas for his future. Whether or not they would endure and actually happen, she knew that was yet too far away to see.
“First off, there are plenty of men who bake and cook,” Rachel said, locking the mixer in place before allowing him to hit the power. “And second of all, you’d better decide on another tasty treat, because I’m sure your dad wouldn’t like you competing against the fire department’s pancakes.”
Laughing, he hit the power and watched the mixer beat the dough. Rachel stood at the ready with a spatula in hand. She was proud of this moment with Tyler, even more so that he wanted to go out on a limb and do something that wasn’t the society’s norm for a boy to do. Football and baking—a cheerleader might fall for that.
Shutting the mixer down, she went to stir the dough. “Um, Ty, guess what we forgot.”
Peeking over the side of the bowl, Tyler looked up at her and stifled a laugh with his hand. “The chocolate chips!”
Their laughter echoed throughout the kitchen as she reached into the cupboard for the container of chocolate chips. “What’s a chocolate chip cookie without the chocolate chips?”
“Chipless?” Tyler answered, with a grin that was missing a few teeth.
Surprised that he had answered a question she hadn’t thought had an answer, she couldn’t help but laugh harder as she handed him the container of their missing chocolate. “You might want to think about becoming a comedian, too, while you’re at it.”
Ava’s cry sounded over the baby monitor sitting across from them on the table. Grabbing it, she looked back at Tyler, “Think you can manage without me for a few minutes, Baker Tyler?”
His smile—full of charm and confidence—told her he would be able to handle anything, much like his father.
6
“Do you think she’ll say yes?” he asked, opening the small black box in his hand, as he showed it off to the guys surrounding the counter.
The guys had planned to meet up here at Levy’s today to shoot the shit. Wes and Edward were at the end of the counter, shooting back their own concoction. His grandfather and Wes had become good friends back in 1976, or so they say, when Cedar Valley had become Cedar Valley. Adam could recite their story word for word, from all the times he’d had to hear it.
“That’s the million dollar question, man,” Liam said, popping the top of his beer. “Do you think she’ll say yes?”
If Adam had to bet everything he owned, he would like to venture the answer would be yes. More so, he would love for her to say yes. Buying a ring and preparing for this moment had taken him years, and he wasn’t sure how he’d react to an answer different than yes.
“She’d better,” Adam said, laughing as he threw back the last swallow of his beer.
Setting down the empty bottle, which was soon collected by Megan, Rosie’s granddaughter and one of the best paramedics Cedar Valley had, Adam thanked her and requested another.
“You know what they say,” Liam said, nudging Adam in the arm. “Wait too long, the answer will be no.”
Megan brought his beer back to him. “Sorry to interrupt whatever you two are talking about, but do you know when Conner will be back in town?”
Conner had ventured back this way from northern Colorado this weekend in time for the pancake breakfast, but had left no sooner than he arrived. “I’m not sure,” Adam said, taking a long drink from the bottle. He had always had his suspicion that there was something between those two—Megan and Conner. In his opinion, Conner was still too young to understand a woman, let alone treat her right. He was focused on making enough money to booze it up on the weekends—the only time made for women was in between the sheets at parties. Adam wasn’t going to tell Megan that. She was smart enough to know.
As if she realized she might have offered too much of something going on, she said, “I only ask because he mentioned he might be moving back.”
“That’s news to me,” Adam said, twisting the lid off his beer. He would only have a couple before venturing back home. This weekend was his only weekend off call, and it had been a while since he’d had a few drinks. “What’s his plan when he gets back here?”
Megan shrugged, and he watched her walk back to the other end of the counter. Turning to Liam, he asked, “Have you heard anything about that?”
Liam held his hands up in defense. “Nope, not a single thing.”
He and Conner were almost a decade apart in age. Conner had been a ‘whoops’ made by their parents, but had been welcomed regardless. Adam had made a promise to protect him throughout the years of growing up, which he had kept. They weren’t as close now as they had been, but that was only because Conner had decided to move to Colorado to fight fires instead of sticking around Cedar Valley. It was always like his brother to want something bigger and better, more exciting, and that’s what he got out in Colorado—the same view of the mountains and fresh air, but more fires to fight.
“Hey, man, don’t think too much on what she said,” Liam said, nudging Adam back to reality. “You know how guys are. Conner was probably just fluffing her pillow.”
“Yeah,” Adam said, tipping back the bottle and gulping the last of his beer. The thought of Conner coming home to stay would be on his mind from now until the day he decided to actually go through with it.
“Besides, you have bigger things to figure out and plan for,” Liam offered, slapping him on the back. “Like, how you’re going to get Rachel to say yes.”
He wasn’t as worried about Rachel saying no, as he was his brother moving back to Cedar Valley. Their father had retired from the department more than six months ago, and though Conner had denied it to be the reason he had moved to Colorado, Adam knew their father had been
the reason Conner hadn’t signed on with their department. Conner had a rough bond with their father, and Adam could bet their father’s retirement had been the invite back to Cedar Valley that Conner had been waiting for.
7
Four batches of cookies later, two naps for Ava, and a football game on television, Rachel was now sitting with her little family in the living room, waiting for Adam to come home.
It hadn’t bothered her that he had gone into town, because she knew this was his only weekend off this month. Lately, the shifts had been left open and needed to be filled, leaving Adam no choice but to take call. She knew he enjoyed it, otherwise he wouldn’t do it, but she prayed that they would find more volunteers so the ones they had wouldn’t get burned out.
The sound of gravel crunching alerted them to Adam’s arrival home. She couldn’t wait for him to walk into the house as she hurried out onto the back porch to greet him with a quick hug and kiss. She was determined to get used to this, and he made it so easy.
Turning her head to the side as he buried his nose into her collar bone, she said, “I’ve missed you.”
“Mmm, I can smell those cookies on you,” he said, pressing firm kisses along her neck. “You smell so sweet, I could almost eat you.”
Laughter escaped as he spun her around and gave her a love tap. The kids waited by the back door as he walked in. Ava raised her arms in the air, screeching for him to pick her up. He swooped down and cradled her against his chest. With a free arm, he squeezed Tyler into his side. “Hey Bud, how’d baking go?”
Everything She Needed (Cedar Valley Novel Book 2) Page 3