by Nella Tyler
“I promise you, I am committed to making sure you don’t regret hiring me,” I told Bob. “If it’ll set your mind at ease, I’ll work harder not to spend quite as much time with Autumn, at least until harvest-time. Is that okay?”
He considered the suggestion and nodded. “It’s not that I don’t want to see her happy, you understand,” he told me. I nodded back to him. “I just want what’s best for everyone. I got no real complaints with your actual work, and as long as everything goes the way that it’s supposed to, I’d be happy to hire you back next year.”
That was a relief; I didn’t want to ruin my chances at a more steady income through my foolishness. “As long as you’re honoring your promise to me, there aren’t any problems between us.”
“I appreciate it, Mr. Nelson,” I said, setting my cup aside. “I’ll get back to work, since that’s what you’re paying me to do. That is—assuming there isn’t anything else you wanted to discuss?”
He pressed his lips together and took another sip of water. “Don’t worry too hard about Tuck,” he told me. “My son is sometimes not as polite as he should be, but he’s got a good heart at the end of the day. This has been tough for him, since he isn’t used to sharing the responsibility with anyone but his sister. But I want you to know that as long as you’re doing the work—and following up on your promise—we’re on good terms.”
“Thanks, Mr. Nelson,” I said, starting back towards the rows. “Thank you for talking to me about it, instead of rushing to a conclusion.”
“No effort at all,” he said with a shrug. “You’re a good employee. I’d like to keep you.”
I smiled to myself and stepped back onto the row. “I’d like you to keep me, too,” I told my boss, before getting back to the work he had for me. It was going to be difficult to stay away from Autumn, but I was determined not to give Bob, or Tuck, and reason to doubt my word.
Chapter Twenty-One
Autumn
I saw Cade heading back towards the house just as I was leaving it. I had decided to take Mom’s advice about making sure that I took time for myself, and I’d made plans with a few of my friends to just spend a little time in town.
“Hey, Cade!” He looked up and smiled at me, and I felt my heart beating faster in my chest, the way that it always did whenever he looked at me, whenever I saw him smile. “Knocking off for the day?”
He nodded. “Work is just about done, so your dad said that I could call it. You look nice. Heading into town?”
I felt my face heating up as the blood rushed into my cheeks and I shrugged. “Just going to meet up with some friends,” I told him. “Mom agreed to take care of Addie for a few hours, so I could get away and pretend to be a grownup for a while.”
Cade laughed, coming to a stop a few feet away from me, at the edge of the porch. “It’s important to remember you’re an adult,” he said, nodding. “I think even married parents end up forgetting that if they’re not careful.”
“Mostly, Mom doesn’t want me to get burned out and have a nervous breakdown, I think,” I admitted. “Also, while it’s not like they exactly blame me for being a single mom, they’d…” I licked my lips, forgetting the lipstick I’d applied to them only a few minutes before walking out of the door. “They’d probably like it if I eventually found someone to help share the burden, you know?”
Cade nodded again. “It makes sense,” he told me. “I mean, they see how hard you work, how much you do every day. I’m sure if I were your parents, I’d like to see you with someone who could help you—who could take over some of the stresses.”
“For now, I just have them,” I said, smiling. “And they’re amazing—I’m not in any hurry.” I looked down at my feet. “After everything that went down with Titan, I mean…” I took a quick, deep breath. “I guess I’m sort of gun-shy.” I finally worked up the nerve to meet Cade’s gaze.
“I can get where you’re coming from on that,” he said. He gave me another quick little smile. “Who are you meeting up with? And, what’s on the agenda?” My heart stuttered slightly in my chest, and I couldn’t quite resist the little spurt of hope I felt.
“I’m meeting with Callie Havers, and Katie Jersik,” I explained. “I think they might have invited Alexa and Paige Mason, too, but I’m not sure.” I brushed nonexistent lint off of my skirt.
“We were going to check out the new shops in the mall, maybe grab something to eat and get our nails done.” I gave him a playful little grin. “You know with as much as you work with your hands, you could probably use a manicure.”
Cade chuckled. “Can you imagine how much crap your brother would give me if I showed up tomorrow with manicured hands?”
I giggled. “Yeah, but your skin would be nice and smooth. That’s the real secret to picking up a lady, you know: nice hands.”
Cade laughed out loud, shaking his head. “Thanks for inviting me,” he said. He put his stained hand into his pocket and took his keys out. “I think I’m going to have to pass, though. I’ve got errands of my own to run.”
I swallowed against the tight feeling that rose up in my throat at that rejection. It was the third time in about a month that I’d invited Cade to go with me somewhere that he’d put me off. The first couple of times it hadn’t been anything terribly social. I’d just asked if he wanted to come with me to the grocery store or to get something from the pharmacy for Mom. But it stung nonetheless.
“Maybe next time I make plans I’ll come up with something a little more man-friendly,” I said, trying to keep a brave face. Cade returned my smile and nodded.
“If you give me a heads up, maybe I can plan around it,” he suggested.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I told him, wagging my finger. “You can’t keep standing me up like this, you know.”
“I don’t stand you up,” he countered, his smile half-falling from his face, and I felt a cold kind of dread in my spine. “You just never tell me about what you’re off to do until right before you leave.”
I wanted to point out that the first few times we’d hung out together, it had been the same thing, but he’d been able to spend time with me then. That changed a little while after you slept together. That’s the reason. I pushed the thought out of my head.
“In any case, you owe me a little bit of time,” I said, turning away from him and towards my car. “I’ll give you a shout the next time I’m making plans.”
I walked away from Cade before I could make myself more upset and got into my car, backing up and then turning around on the driveway to head to the dirt-and-gravel path leading up to the road.
I could see Cade walking to his truck in my rear view mirror and part of me wanted to turn around and demand an explanation—a real one—for why he’d become so much chillier to me than he had been before. But I knew that would just put him on the defensive, and besides, it was none of my business, really.
The entire time I made my way into town, though, I couldn’t help but think about Cade. It didn’t make any sense to me, how he’d gone from being playful and flirtatious to being almost coldly polite to me, almost overnight.
I was sure that he was interested in me—really, truly interested—even above and beyond a quick one-night stand. I’d been sure for a while after we’d had our tryst that he was more than willing for more, as soon as we could both get the excuse to be alone.
I hadn’t managed to convince myself of anything stupid like that he would end up being Addie’s step-father, but I had thought at least that we’d had something good going together, something that would at least last a season.
I tried to keep the fact that it had happened so soon after we’d hooked up out of my mind. No matter how I tried, though, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that now that Cade had gotten a pretty easy lay out of me, he had lost interest—and that that was why. I didn’t want to believe that he was the kind of person who would flirt with a girl and have an interest in her right up until she put out, but I knew that there
were plenty of guys in the world who were exactly like that.
My mind turned to Titan, and I felt a rush of brittle, bitter anger at the fact that he’d run out on me right before I’d had his child, when we’d been engaged.
My parents had never tried to rush me into finding another man or even suggested that I should be looking for a replacement for Titan, but I knew that they wanted me settled eventually. Mom had commented more than once that it would at least be easier on me to have someone I could depend on, who loved me.
I felt guilty often, if only for the fact that my parents had done so much for me, and I sometimes thought that if I had someone to depend on, Tuck wouldn’t be quite as aggressive or so pushy about his future ownership of the farm.
I had thought that Cade was different from Titan, and I had to admit to myself that at least Cade had never proposed to me, never actually gave me a reason to think that he was serious about me. But the possibility that he had only been interested in a one-night stand, before moving onto his next target, was hard for me to bear.
I hadn’t really thought much to the future when we’d slept together, but afterwards, I had at least hoped that there was a possibility of dating. I had thought we’d have at least a little more than one little tryst together.
I was so lost in thought about the situation with Cade and my feelings of rejection that I nearly missed the turn into the mall. Stop letting yourself get down about this, I told myself as I pulled into the parking lot and started looking for a space.
I had more to be thankful for than I had to complain about: my daughter was healthy, my parents were more than happy to support me, I had a roof over my head and even my own space, and I had friends who were willing to spend time with me.
Just because I didn’t have a husband, or anyone to be the father figure my child needed—yet—didn’t mean that I was wrong, or that my life was wrong. There were plenty of women in the world who raised their kids alone. I shouldn’t jump on the first man to show me a little interest, and I shouldn’t blame myself if he didn’t follow through beyond our first time in bed together.
By the time I found my parking spot and got out of the car to walk to the mall entrance, I was halfway to believing that I could—and would—just shake Cade off, that I would be fine, and I’d forget about him completely.
If he wasn’t interested in me anymore, then I would just pretend like he barely existed. I’d still bring food out for my dad and my brother, but I wasn’t about to sweat the details, wondering what Cade would like or want. I would make what I felt like making.
I went into the mall and started to find my way to the food court where I was going to meet with my friends. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help replaying the night I’d spent with Cade. I tried to remember something that I could hold out in my mind as evidence that it would never work out between us, something that would give me the freedom to tell myself that he wasn’t even that good in bed, that in the long run it was better that he’d moved on so fast because I’d just get bored or be unsatisfied.
But it was impossible. Cade had been so much better than Titan—and better, in fact, than the couple of guys I’d been with before Titan—that there was almost no basis for comparison. He’d been so good that in the weeks since we’d slept together, I’d had to find ways to get some time alone—not an easy thing with an infant.
I forced Cade out of my mind as best as I could when I spotted my friends at the meeting place we’d chosen. I was determined to have a good time with them, not obsess over the fact that Cade seemed to have decided he’d gotten what he wanted from me and didn’t want anymore.
If Cade wasn’t interested in me, then I told myself I would find someone else. I would get my revenge by finding someone who was interested in me as more than a one-night stand, and I’d be happy long before he found someone to settle down with.
I called out to my friends and thought only about the fun we were going to have while I could be away from the house, instead of thinking anything at all about how much more fun it would be with Cade. I hugged my girls and we set off, and I finally succeeded in no longer thinking about the farmhand at all.
Chapter Twenty Two
Cade
When I’d told Autumn that I had errands to run, I’d been lying; and when I saw the way her face fell just for an instant, before she recovered and the way that she tried to play off her hurt feelings from my rejection, I’d felt terrible, but I knew I had to stick with my story.
I went straight home from the Nelson farm and took a shower to clean off the dirt, sweat, and fertilizer, and sat down in my living room, at a loss. I had the rest of the afternoon off, and I didn’t have to go by the farm the next day to work. By all rights, I should have taken Autumn up on her offer. After all: it was a harmless group outing, wasn’t it?
But I knew that Bob Nelson almost certainly wouldn’t see it that way. I’d promised him when he hired me that I wouldn’t fall in love with his daughter and that I wouldn’t let her distract me from my work.
In one sense, I’d honored that promise: I hadn’t gotten distracted from my work. But I had started to get feelings for her before we’d ever even slept together and having sex with Autumn had only made it worse.
I’d turned down her invitations to hang out a few times, and every time I’d felt lousy doing it, not only because I knew that she probably felt like shit for being rejected, but because I really and truly wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to get to know her better, and I definitely wanted to have sex with her again.
It was all too easy for me to remember what our first—and so far only—time had been like. Fuck. Autumn had felt so good, so right, wrapped around me. I wanted more, but I had promised not to get involved with her.
I gritted my teeth. I had told Bob Nelson that I would stay away from his daughter, since he’d gotten the red flag from the time I’d already spent with her. I needed to keep to that promise, or I’d be out of a job.
Worse than that, I could screw things up not just for me, but for Autumn, as well. I could make things more tense between her and Tuck, and I could end up making drama for her. It was best if I distracted myself as much as possible.
I scrubbed at my face with my hands, trying to decide what to do with myself. If I stayed home, I knew I’d spend the rest of the night thinking about what Autumn was doing, wishing I’d said yes to her invitation—Bob be damned.
I already wished I’d said yes to Autumn’s invitation, even if the outing wasn’t all that exciting. Going to the mall, hanging out with her friends, wasn’t a great outing, but it would at least have given me some time with Autumn away from her family.
And that was the danger. I wanted to spend time with her; I wanted to get to know her. I wanted to be with her. I was already too late in terms of having feelings for her, but I could at least keep myself from acting on them. I could keep myself out of trouble, keep her from having anything more than passing, regular attraction to me.
But I needed to find something to do with myself so I wouldn’t dwell. I thought about what I could do; I needed to get out of the house, but the idea of going out with any of my girl friends wasn’t exactly alluring. I knew I’d spend the entire time comparing any of them to Autumn.
“That just leaves one thing,” I said to myself. I found my phone plugged into the wall and took it off the charger.
I called up my friend Drake. “Hey, man,” I said, sitting back down on the couch. “You get paid this week?”
“Yeah, man, sure enough,” he said. “You got something in mind for me to blow my money on?”
I laughed. “A few beers, maybe catch a game somewhere?” I didn’t really like the idea, but it would be better than sitting at home, stewing about the girl I shouldn’t even have ever kissed, much less had sex with.
“I think they opened up that new laser tag place in town,” Drake told me. “We could check that out. Get a couple of the other guys from the crew.” He had worked with me on more
than one construction job; there was a group of us that tended to do the work on a regular basis, and we’d become friends over time.
“Sounds good, my man,” I said. “Let’s call up some of the guys and make a night of it: grab some burgers and beers, get our laser tag on, and all that.”
“I’ll call Joe and Skinny Pete, if you’ll get Harold and Max,” he told me.
“I can do that. Catch you at…” I checked the time. “Say six? Give us plenty of time to get our drink on a bit before we head over to the laser tag place.”
“I’m down,” Drake agreed.
I hung up and started the process of getting ready to go out. First, I called Harold and Max, let them know the idea that Drake and I had worked out; Harold had a girl he was going out with, but Max was down for a guys’ night out.
I had already taken a shower, but I changed out of my pajamas and into a clean pair of jeans and a button-down shirt—not something super nice, but something that I could wear out with my buddies without looking like a total scrub. I shaved and pulled my hair back out of my face, and tried not to think about how nice it would be to be getting ready to go somewhere with Autumn instead.
Stop thinking about that. You’re going to be hanging out with the guys.
I knew I’d have to make an effort to find a pretty girl to flirt with, not that there were that many in the town that I didn’t already know, but there was always a chance that I would find someone. Even if I did run into someone I knew already, I told myself I would make the effort.
I needed to do whatever it took to get Autumn out of my mind and to keep my promise to Bob Nelson.
Not to mention that Tuck clearly has issues with me spending any time with his sister. That was another reason not to let myself get involved with Autumn, and to push her away: Tuck had been getting increasingly aggressive ever since I’d started flirting with her. I needed to put some distance between myself and his beautiful sister if I wanted to be able to keep my job for the rest of the season.