Dandelions for Dinner (A Farm Fresh Romance Book 4)

by Valerie Comer

  Finnley pushed through the crack. “Come with you.”

  Brent’s heart seized. “No. You have to stay with Auntie Allison, okay? Give her a hug.”

  The boy’s face fell.

  “Back inside with you. I’ll hurry.”

  Finnley’s lip quivered as he nodded and allowed Brent to nudge him through the doorway. The door closed.

  He looked at the open window. “Allison? I love you.”

  She did not reply.

  Brent stumbled to his truck and drove up the hill.

  * * *

  “Auntie Allison?” Finnley patted her knee. “Okay?”

  How many times had he seen Lori crying? How much did one little kid need to go through?

  “Brent come back.”

  It would be better if he didn’t. She couldn’t get to the other side of this, no matter what he said. How fervently he apologized. How much she longed to lose herself in those deep brown eyes, feel his arms around her… Stop. She had to pull herself together for Finnley’s sake.

  She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her gray hoodie and met Finnley’s worried gaze. “Sorry, buddy.” She took a deep breath, trying to gain control of her emotions. Like she could, ever again.

  “You sad?”

  “Yes, I’m sad.” If that’s how she could sum up a broken heart. She reached out to tug the boy closer, but he shifted out of reach. Right. Anger flashed through her. He leaned into Brent, but not her. Brent, the — no. She was not going to think about that man.

  “Brent make better.”

  “Finnley, no. Brent cannot make this better. Okay? You need to stay away from him. Let him do his work and finish our house. Then he’ll go away again and never come back.”

  Tears filled the little guy’s eyes. “Never come back?”

  Allison scrubbed at her face. How had this bond formed? How had she allowed it? But she hadn’t. Not really. It had just happened. Did something in their genetics call each other? “It’ll be okay, Finnley. You and I are a family now. I’ll take care of you.”

  The tears dribbled down his cheeks.

  Oh, man. If only she could pack the boy up and go to Portland for a month or two. Her parents’ house was for sale, but she and Finnley could live in a corner of it in the meantime. Of course, she was needed to make decisions here. With the windows in over the next week or so, Brent and his guys would start the drywalling and soon be on to the finishing touches.

  She was going to have to see a lot of Brent. This meant Finnley would be exposed to him, too.

  His father. Was it right to keep them apart?

  Wasn’t it worse to encourage them? Brent had more right to Finnley than she did. What if he wanted custody? She could lose her nephew, just when she’d found him. Rescued him. How many times could she survive her heart being torn out and stomped on?

  Brent was Finnley’s father. Brent had been Lori’s lover. As much as Allison’s mind tried to avoid that fact, she had to face it. How long had he known? He’d bolted from the birthday party. What had been said to disrupt the peace?

  She had no clue. It didn’t matter anymore.

  “Want Brent…”

  That made only one of them. Allison surged to her feet. “Come on, buddy. We’re going to the beach, okay? Go get your swim trunks on and get your toys.”

  His little jaw set.

  “Finnley, do it.”

  He turned away as she sagged against the counter. Disappearing for the day was only a temporary solution, but she needed time to come up with something more permanent. All she knew for sure was that she needed to be gone before the window-delivery truck left and not come back until she was certain Brent was gone for the day.

  She’d agreed to talk to him this evening, but there really wasn’t any way he could still expect that to happen. Could he?

  Chapter 27

  Her car was gone. Had been gone all day, since before the window truck had left. Probably right after Brent had gone up the hill to help unload it.

  Brent knocked on her door again. Not that it would do any good. She wouldn’t have loaned her car to anyone.

  “Looking for Allison?” The curly-haired woman approached. Chelsea.

  “Uh, yeah. Have you seen her since this morning?”

  Chelsea shook her head. “No, I haven’t. We were going to hang out this afternoon, as we were friends in Portland. But she hasn’t been around and didn’t let me know she had other plans.”

  If she’d stood up her presumably nonthreatening friend, she wouldn’t think twice about avoiding Brent.

  The sun touched the mountain on the west side of the valley. Allison wouldn’t keep Finnley out much longer, would she? It was past the little man’s bedtime already. Daylight lasted so long so far north at this time of year.

  “She was going to ask someone to sit with Finnley this evening so we could talk.”

  Chelsea shot him a glance, her eyes crinkling. “Oh, is there something interested friends should know?”

  Brent ran a hand through his hair and forced a laugh. “Not sure. I’d hoped so, but… well, it’s complicated.”

  “Isn’t it always? I mean, that’s why Facebook even has it as one of the relationship categories.”

  He looked at her blankly. “Huh?”

  “It’s complicated.” She looked at him expectantly then sighed. “Never mind.”

  “No, I mean this really is complicated.” Best not to tell a friend of Allison’s too much, though. But maybe… “How well do you know Gina?”

  “Gina Dalles? She’s married to my cousin Parker and they live in Boulder. I don’t know her all that well.” Chelsea eyed him thoughtfully. “She did come in this morning mentioning she’d run into an old friend outside. Said something about it being a small world… and an answer to prayer.”

  “Oh.” Brent scratched his head. “Is that all she said?”

  “More or less.”

  That was good. A relief. She hadn’t aired his dirty laundry in front of all Allison’s friends. Of course, she hadn’t needed to, because Allison heard it firsthand. She must’ve.

  “There must be something in the water around here.” Chelsea turned away.

  “The what?”

  “The water. Green Acres. Everyone who comes here seems to fall in love.” Her mouth twisted to one side. “I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I want to move here myself. It may seem like I’m coming just to meet a guy.”

  Brent gave his head a shake. “You’re moving here to get married?”

  “No, silly. I want to come because I’m an event planner, and I think this crew could use my talents. And because I like it here better than Portland.”

  “Then why…?”

  Chelsea shook her head. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you? When my sister bought this farm with Jo and Claire, they didn’t expect to get married. None of them. And look what happened. Ping. Ping. Ping. Like ducks in a row.”

  “Uh… yeah?”

  “I figured it was coincidence. Not that I have anything against marriage, mind you. Zach and Noel and Gabe are great guys. It’s all good. But I figured someone as hardened against men as Allison would be safe. Yet here you are, camped on her doorstep like a lost puppy. It must be the water.”

  Lost puppy? Was this woman for real? His guts had been removed from his body and trampled in the dirt, and she mocked him for saying it was complicated and blamed it on the water?

  Wait. Chelsea had known Allison before. He shouldn’t dismiss her as flighty and weird. He shifted to his other foot. “How long have you two known each other?” Childhood friends, maybe? He could hope.

  “We had a passing acquaintance in college, but lost touch until her parents died last year. She hired me to plan the funeral.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “She what?”

  Chelsea shrugged. “I plan events. She didn’t know what went into a funeral. Neither did I.” She grinned. “But I was less emotionally involved and had a good reason to learn. So I
did.”

  “That’s just… strange.”

  “People with money hire out a lot of things normal people just deal with themselves. And trust me, she has money.” She pointed at the school building. “But I’m guessing you know that. The estate left her pretty well set up.”

  Brent hadn’t stopped to wonder if the farm had taken a mortgage for the projects or not. It wasn’t any of his business how the contract was paid for, so long as it was. On the other hand, he knew exactly how much the bid had been for and what had been added to it since. To think anyone might simply write checks for that was beyond his comprehension.

  Maybe she thought he was only interested in her for her money. Or maybe she’d try to buy him out of Finnley’s life.

  No, surely she knew him better than that. Surely he knew her better.

  Daylight faded into twilight, and still she hadn’t returned. Was he supposed to simply accept she didn’t want to talk to him? She couldn’t avoid him forever, not while he was building her house and school. Maybe it wasn’t necessary to push her the first twenty-four hours he was back.

  It went right against his fix-it mentality to drive away now, but he couldn’t sit on her doorstep all night.

  He glanced at Chelsea. “Well, let her know I came by. I’m sure I’ll see her in the next day or two.”

  She smirked. “I’ll pass the message on.”

  * * *

  He’d sure worked late.

  Allison passed the white Timber Framing Plus pickup on her drive home from Galena Landing. She glanced at Finnley in her rearview mirror. “Did you have a good time at the beach, buddy?”

  He nodded against his car seat’s headrest, clutching the teddy bear she’d given him months ago.

  “And you made some new friends. Avery and Christopher.” Maybe made new friends was too strong a term. She’d seen the single dad with his two kids at church a few times. “You built sandcastles in the sand.”

  So much safer on the beach of an inland lake compared to the ocean, where tides or even rogue waves could wipe out the construction. Much like the rogue wave that had smashed her dreams of Brent this morning, leaving nothing but sand particles that would irritate everywhere.

  No. She wasn’t thinking about Brent. Ever again.

  “They have a daddy,” said Finnley’s quiet voice from the back.

  Allison’s heart twisted. “Yes, they do. But no mommy.”

  “I have no daddy. No mommy.” There was a slight pause. “Where is my mommy?”

  “Oh, buddy.” How did you tell a kid his mom was in prison? “She did some bad things. Some really bad things.” She glanced in the mirror in time to see his nod.

  Could she summon up any sympathy for her sister? Their upbringing hadn’t been the best, in either case. Lori had made her own decisions. Extremely stupid ones, it turned out.

  But she was still a human in need of love. God’s love. The reality slammed into Allison like another rogue wave. All she’d done was judge. It was hard not to, when she saw the shell this little boy was.

  “Time out?”

  Allison jerked her eyes to meet Finnley’s in the mirror. She summoned a chuckle. “Yes, buddy, your mommy is in time-out.” Not that Finnley had experienced that punishment for himself — the kid didn’t have the confidence to do anything bad — but he’d seen Maddie’s penalty a time or two. “Your mommy has a really long time-out. That’s why you came to live with Auntie Allison, because it was too long to wait for Mommy.”

  He stared thoughtfully at her in the mirror. Processing.

  “So you came to Green Acres. So you can play with Maddie and Jane Eyre and Danny Boy. And…” She’d been about to say the baby chicks, but remembered in time that the birds would be butchered for the freezer later this week. “And Keanan,” she added, needing to finish the sentence.

  “And Brent.” He sounded wistful.

  Her hands froze on the steering wheel as her mind fast-forwarded through the morning’s overheard revelations. Had Brent admitted to being Finnley’s father openly enough for the boy to catch on? No. Finnley couldn’t know.

  Allison turned on the signal light and turned into the farm driveway. “Buddy, Brent is a nice man.” It burned to say the words, but she couldn’t deny it in front of the boy. And a great kisser. He’d kissed her sister, too. And more. “But he’s here to build our house. Then he’ll go away again and never come back.”

  She parked the car in front of the duplex and unbuckled Finnley. She tried to hold his hand on the short walk to the door, but he pulled away from her. Right. He’d soak up all the male attention he could, but not hers. How could she get through to him? How could he come to realize that it was Auntie Allison who loved him and kept him safe, not Noel or Gabe or Zach or Keanan? Or Brent.

  Finnley ran into his room.

  Allison glanced in a moment later. The little guy sat on the floor in the corner of the bedroom. She frowned. He’d put himself in time-out?

  No. His little fingers traced the outline of the dog Brent had painted on his wall. Tears trickled down his cheek as he stared at the image with such longing it made Allison’s heart squeeze.

  Rover was back. Or was the longing for Brent?

  It was past his bedtime, but she couldn’t force him away from the mural. Not yet.

  * * *

  “He’s asleep?” Chelsea poked her head around the door of Allison’s duplex.

  Allison nodded. “Finally.” She’d heard sniffles from Finnley’s room long after he should have succumbed to dreams, especially after a long day of playing in the sand and water.

  Chelsea gave her a hug.

  For once, Allison felt like she could return one of those. Whether it was the emotional upheaval of the day, Finnley’s rejection of her, or just that she finally considered Chelsea a real friend, she didn’t know. But it felt good to let someone in, if only for a moment.

  She put a kettle on for tea. “Sorry for bailing out on you today. I should’ve texted you and invited you to the beach with Finnley and me.”

  “Oh, is that where you were? Yeah, I’d totally have come. I see my relatives often enough.”

  Her relatives? Her blank look must’ve shown, because Chelsea laughed.

  “Everyone who came for Sierra and Gabe’s wedding. Most of them cleared out today.”

  That meant Gina was gone. Not that it mattered. She’d left her bombshell behind.

  “Then I hung out with Jo and Claire in the afternoon and helped put things back in order.”

  Guilt descended. Allison should have done that. Instead, she’d run like a toddler having a tantrum. She’d make it up to them tomorrow.

  Chelsea tilted her head. “They wondered where you were. We all did.”

  Allison reached into the cupboard for two mugs. “I should have texted sooner.” Or, at least, responded to the ones she’d received.

  “What happened?”

  “I told you. I took Finnley to the beach.”

  Chelsea rolled her eyes. “Uh huh. But why? No one knew that was your plan for the day.”

  It hadn’t been. Until Gina. Allison opened a drawer full of tea. “What kind do you want?”

  “Is that for real?” Chelsea pointed at a small tin with a dandelion on the lid.

  “Yes. Roasted, ground, dandelion root. They say it tastes like coffee, but those of us who mainline java can tell the difference.”

  “Caffeine-free?” Chelsea picked up the tin and examined it. “I’ll try it. I’ll try anything once. Well, almost anything.”

  Allison finished prepping the two cups and they settled into chairs in the living room.

  Chelsea eyed her over the rim of her mug. “You didn’t answer my question, by the way.”

  Was it time to open up to a friend? Chelsea might be the safest bet. After all, she was leaving Green Acres in a day or two, and likely wouldn’t be back before Brent had finished his work and was gone. “Blame Brent.”

  Her friend’s eyes twinkled. “Do tell all.”


  Allison shrugged. “There’s not that much to tell. He seemed like a nice enough guy. Funny. Sweet.”

  Chelsea held up a hand. “Just a sec. Are you really Allison Hart? Because the Allison Hart I know would never have called a man nice, sweet, or funny. She had no use for men.”

  “And Brent proves my point.”

  “Sorry?” Chelsea took a sip.

  “Okay, I’ll give you the short version.” The long version would require too much time and would mention kissing. Not going there. “Men are not trustworthy. Even men who seem nice, funny, and sweet. Brent is no different.”

  Chelsea waited, her eyes fixed on Allison’s.

  “He used to sleep with different women. How many, I don’t know. But your cousin Gina for one.” She bit her lip and closed her eyes. “And my sister Lori for another.”

  “He’s Finnley’s father?” Chelsea’s voice rose in a squeak.

  “Shh.” Allison glanced at Finnley’s bedroom door. Closed. Surely her nephew was sound asleep and hadn’t heard that. “Short answer. Yes.”

  “Whoa. I’d never have guessed. I mean, there’s the whole Asian thing, but other than that. But ewww.”

  That about summed it up. Her gut quaked. “Yeah, I know.”

  “So when did you find out?”

  Allison held Chelsea’s gaze. “This morning.”

  “This morning?” Chelsea frowned. “But you guys looked like you were having a cozy conversation when I went by.”

  “We had been.” And to think she’d even agreed to go out. To talk to him. That wasn’t going to happen now. She did not want to hear the sordid details. Him and Lori. No way.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Gina recognized him and came over to talk to him. She said she’d been praying for him for years and that she wanted him to know she’d forgiven him for…” Allison took a deep breath. “For getting her pregnant.”

  Chelsea’s eyes bulged. “Pregnant? But—”

  “A few years ago. She had an abortion.”