“Three times.” My knees went weak and I sank down to the floor. “There’s no chance that it’s a false positive?”
“No. Unless you have something in your system that is seriously messing with you, you’re definitely pregnant.”
“Okay,” I whispered and closed my eyes as I brought my knees up to rest my head on them. “Thank you, April. I’ll be in touch.”
“No problem, Elsie. Let me know if you need anything. I’m here for you, okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered again. “Bye, April.”
I dropped my phone, not even sure if I’d disconnected the call before it clattered to the floor at my side. My breaths were coming in shallow pants and it felt like I had entered some parallel reality, like I’d detached from myself and was watching this happening to me without being me.
I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.
Meanwhile downstairs, the father of my baby and his family were gathering to have a meal together. A meal I was expected to be at as well.
What the fuck do I do now?
Chapter 36
Taydom
“Don’t worry about Dad,” Riley said as we took off our boots at the kitchen door. “I know he snapped at you earlier, but it’s not a big deal. He’ll see soon enough that you are here for the right reasons, so don’t worry about it.”
Guilt twisted my gut. “Yeah, maybe. Thanks, bro. I should go check on Elsie.”
I shoved the guilt down, but worry took its place. Elsie had begged out of lunch, claiming she wasn’t feeling well and that she needed to lie down for a bit.
She hadn’t even come down to tell me. I’d received a text from her when Riley and I had been on our way back to the house.
Mom told me they’d spoken about her mother that morning, though. She also said that maybe they shouldn’t have walked so far while Elsie was recovering from a cold.
I’d gone up to check on her, but there hadn’t been any answer to my knocks. While what my mom had said made sense, it just felt like there was more to it.
Elsie had looked fine this morning. One-hundred-percent healthy.
Mom had also told me that she’d received a call from school and that she hadn’t seen her since. Concern over Elsie, Dad, and the farm had turned the day into a blur for me, and I was glad it was nearly over.
If Dad woke me up before the crack of dawn again tomorrow, I was rolling over without even opening my eyes and going the fuck back to sleep. But first, I had to find Elsie and make sure she was okay.
I checked my old room first, but she wasn’t there. A few minutes later, I found her on the front porch. She was sitting in Mom’s old rocking chair, her hands folded over her lower belly as she stared off into the distance.
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t even notice me until I cleared my throat. “Hey, you okay?”
The chair rocked gently as she shifted to face me. There was something haunting in her usually bright green eyes. They were almost dull now, but she nodded. “I’m fine.”
Before I could say anything else, she blurted out the last question I had been expecting. “Taydom, why am I really here? Your mom seems to think it’s because I’m special to you.”
“You are special to me.” Absolutely true. “I wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise.”
She sighed, the sound so sad that it made my heart ache. “But that’s not the only reason, is it?”
“No, it’s not.” It was truth time. I’d been wondering when I was going to get the opportunity to tell her, and here it was. She had given it to me on a silver fucking platter and I wasn’t going to waste it.
I also didn’t want to have this conversation while standing all the way on the other side of the porch. Crossing it in a few strides, I tried to come up with the right words and then sank down to my haunches in front of her.
“I wanted to bring you with me for all the reasons I mentioned to you before. All of those were true, but there’s also something else.”
She cocked her head, but those eyes remained dull. There wasn’t so much as a spark of interest in them.
I brought my hands to her knees and rested them there. When she didn’t push me away, I dragged in a deep breath and prayed she would understand. “The farm is in trouble. Big trouble. I saw an article about how the entire industry had taken a hit, but I hadn’t known anything about it before that. My family didn’t tell me.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why not?”
“They don’t want my help. Well, not financially anyway. My father still resents me for not staying and helping on the farm. It wouldn’t have changed the current situation if I had, but he doesn’t see it that way.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
I dropped my chin and closed my eyes for a moment. “I needed a reason to come here other than wanting to offer them money. I told my mother there was someone I wanted to introduce her to.”
Her brows rose, but she didn’t respond immediately. After the pause, she licked her lips and nodded slowly. “Did you really want to introduce me to them?”
“Yes.” Maybe it hadn’t been about that when I’d first mentioned it, but things had changed. “There’s no one I would rather have had here with me, Elsie. I—”
“I need to tell you something,” she said suddenly, then swallowed a couple of times.
There was an urgency beneath the dull glaze in her eyes now, but my mother interrupted us before she could tell me whatever it was that was so important.
“Dinner’s ready, kids. Come and get it while it’s hot.” She stood at the door and peeked out at us as she clapped her hands. “Double time. Let’s go. It’s getting cold.”
“Can we have a minute?” I asked, but Elsie pushed my hands off her legs and stood up.
“It’s fine,” she said quietly. “We can talk later.”
Without looking back, she disappeared into the house. My mother planted her hands on her hips and gave me a questioning look. When I shook my head, she sighed and went after my supposed girlfriend.
Once I was alone, I released a low groan and braced my hands against the wooden railing around the porch as I hung my head. Christ. This trip is becoming a damn shit show.
As it turned out, it only got worse from there.
When I walked into the kitchen, Elsie had already been introduced to my father and was conversing politely with him. He seemed okay while talking to her, but as soon as he saw me, his expression soured.
“You’re still here?”
“Obviously.” I was done backing down from him. I’d had the rest of the day to think about it after our confrontation earlier, and the polite approach wasn’t getting me anywhere.
Whether he liked it or not, this was my family’s farm as well. I had just as much right as anyone else to do whatever it took to keep it in business. “You don’t have to be pissed that I’m here, Dad. Contrary to what you think, I really do want to help.”
He dropped his fork on his plate with a loud clatter and banged his elbows down on the table as he glowered at me. “Why don’t you start by owning up to why you are really here? As lovely as this young lady seems, you and I both know it’s not about her.”
“Fine,” I exploded, throwing my arms out to my sides. “You want to know why I’m really here? I’m here to give you money. I came here because I want to help you save the farm. Is that really so bad?”
“We don’t need your money.” He pushed back from the table and stood up with so much force that his chair fell over. “I’ve told you time and time again, if you wanted to help, you could have stayed. You gave up your right to have any say over what happens with this damn farm the day you walked away from us.”
“Jesus, Dad. I never walked away from you. I moved out and made a life for myself. You know, like kids usually do when they’re all grown up. What I did wasn’t a crime. It was the natural progression of life.”
“Not when you’re a farmer,” he grunted. “That’s not how it works ar
ound here.”
Grabbing his plate off the table, he gave me one final glower and marched away. Again. It was all the man seemed to be able to do these days. Yell at me, then walk away. Like I didn’t deserve a fucking minute of his time.
Riley sat back in his chair, sighing as he met my eyes. “I asked one fucking thing of you, Tay. One thing.”
He didn’t take off, but he didn’t seem interested in speaking to me either. Elsie had watched the scene unfold with wide eyes, but she seemed surprised more than anything else.
My mother, however, looked like I’d just ripped her heart out with my bare hands. There was so much hurt in her expression that seeing it felt like a punch to the nads.
“So Elsie isn’t your girlfriend?” she asked slowly, her gaze darting from mine to Elsie’s and back again. “Are you even in any kind of relationship?”
“No,” I said without thinking. She wasn’t my girlfriend, but it was only when I saw the look that suddenly settled on Elsie’s face that I realized how that had sounded. “I mean—”
“I think I’ve heard enough.” My mother pushed her chair back with much more grace than my father had. She left her plate behind and went off toward their bedroom after him.
“Fuck, dude.” Riley shook his head at me. “I warned you about this. I fucking knew you were going to fuck things up even further. Mom was— never mind. You don’t even deserve to fucking know.”
“You trying to set a new record for how many times a person can say fuck in one sentence?” I arched a brow, knowing I was being a dick but unable to stop myself.
They were all being ridiculous, acting like I’d committed some kind of heinous crime when in reality, all I’d done was move out and get a job of my own. It was something parents of freeloaders all over the world wished for, yet when I’d done it, my entire family had turned against me.
As if to prove my point, Riley flipped me off and went his own way as well.
Elsie slumped in her chair and I let out a sigh, shaking my head. “Can you believe them?”
“I’m tired,” she said, standing up from the table. “I’m going to bed, Taydom. Good night.”
“Elsie. Wait.” I still had to fix things with her, to explain that I hadn’t meant my denial of our relationship in the way it had come out.
She shook her head, yanking her arm up when I tried to reach for her hand. “No, I’m not waiting. I’m tired and going to bed. Good night, Taydom.”
Chapter 37
Elsie
What the hell was that?
I was still reeling when I collapsed in the middle of Taydom’s double bed. Flipping onto my back, I folded my hands over my stomach and stared at the beams in the ceiling.
That showdown had shocked the living daylights out of me. One minute, everything was fine, and the next, it was like someone had lit a match and tossed it into a gas tank.
Crazy shit.
Crazy shit that I had been embarrassed to be in the middle of. Taydom’s family seemed like nice people. I had genuinely gotten along with his mother today, and now she would think I was some kind of liar who had been in on a plot to deceive her.
I wasn’t a liar. I didn’t play games or distort the truth. Well, not usually anyway.
With the secret I was keeping, I supposed I couldn’t get up on too high of a horse. The difference was that I’d only been sure for a few hours that there was a secret I had been keeping.
Taydom had planned to lie to his parents. He’d invited me here intending to use me to deceive them, to give him an excuse to come here.
I could understand that he wanted to help them and that he was in an impossible situation of being able to help but not being allowed to. What I couldn’t understand was why he hadn’t just told me from the start.
Because then you wouldn’t have come, a nagging voice said in the back of my mind. I shut it up fast. Maybe I wouldn’t have agreed to come if I’d known, but maybe I would have. If Taydom had been honest with me about what was going on, I liked to think I would have still agreed to come. If only so I could help him out for a change.
Arguing hypotheticals with myself would not get me anywhere, though. I had real problems to solve.
It had become abundantly clear to me downstairs that I shouldn’t be here. Taydom might have been honest when he’d told me he’d wanted to introduce me to his family anyway, but I highly doubted that they wanted me around after that.
Moreover, he had to focus on his family while I had to focus on mine. My fingers twitched on my stomach. Somewhere below the spot where my hand kept absently going on my belly, there was a little human growing.
A little human who was counting on me and for whom I was wholly responsible. The shock of that revelation hadn’t worn off yet, but after my initial meltdown, I had decided to take it one step at a time.
I had thought the first step would be telling Taydom about the life we had created, and I had been about to when his mother had interrupted us. Now it felt like step one might be something different.
Regardless of what happened here, Taydom and I would eventually go back to Dallas. Hopefully, he would only return after he sorted out what was happening with his family. But I wasn’t convinced that hanging around for the rest of the week was a good idea.
For one, I would be a constant reminder of his deception. Every time they saw me, they would think about the lie he had told.
Maybe it would be for the best if I left. His family might be pissed at him, but maybe after a few days alone and with space to think and breathe, they would calm down enough to let him explain himself.
Unfortunately, going back to Dallas by myself wasn’t without its own challenges. Especially since I was ninety-nine percent sure that if I left, Taydom would insist on coming with me.
I couldn’t let him do that.
But staying wasn’t something I felt like I could do either. For his good, for their good, and for my own. Giving everyone some space right now felt like the best thing to do.
How to do it would be tricky to figure out but not impossible. Rolling to my side, I snatched my phone up and opened a ride share app. I wasn’t entirely certain if they had those kinds of services around here, but the app opened and informed me that there was, in fact, a car available.
It was thirty minutes away, but it was good to know that I had the option. The second thing I had to do was see if there were any flights available to take me home.
A quick check online informed me that getting a flight wouldn’t be a problem either. Booking at the last minute was a little pricey, but this was an emergency. Plus, it wasn’t so pricey that it would leave an unrecoverable dent in my savings. Thank God his parents live in Illinois.
If they had lived farther away, well, going home early might not have been an option. Satisfied that it was a viable option if that was what I decided on doing, I closed my browser and the ride share app and just stared at my phone for a minute.
It should have been easy to order the ride, book my flight, and just leave this mess behind, but it wasn’t. While I was convinced it was for the best for me to leave, I just couldn’t seem to get myself to pull the trigger.
There was a layer to this whole thing they didn’t know about yet. The baby. I had to consider what effect my sudden disappearance would have on how they felt about the baby going forward.
Sure, it was up to Taydom whether he or his family would play any role in this baby’s life, but I couldn’t discount the fact that my actions now could have consequences for him or her in the future.
Blowing out a breath, I opened my contacts and scrolled to Beth’s number. I wouldn’t tell her or anyone else about the pregnancy before I told Taydom, but I needed her advice.
She answered on the first ring. “Hey, I was just about to call you. How did your first whole day of farm life go?”
“Not so good.” I sighed and rolled to my back, watching clouds drift lazily in front of the crescent moon. It wasn’t completely dark out yet, but the mo
on had risen, and the sky was slowly darkening. “It turns out that Taydom had ulterior motives when he brought me here.”
“What the hell?” she asked, her voice tense. “What ulterior motives? What did he do?”
I quickly explained the highlights to her. “Long story short, he used me as an excuse to come home. The farm is in trouble, and he wants to help them, but they don’t want to be helped.”
“He used you?” She was fuming now, and for a second, I was glad there were so many miles between her and Taydom. “Why did he need you as an excuse to visit his own family?”
“It’s complicated, and I don’t want to betray his trust by saying too much, but he needed a reason to come, and he told them we were in a relationship.”
“Aren’t you?” she asked after pausing for a beat. “I know you keep saying you’re just friends and all that, but it seems to have gone well past that point.”
“It has,” I admitted, my voice small. “We haven’t talked about it outright or anything like that, but I also feel like things have changed. I guess we’ll have to tackle that once he’s done here. I don’t want to add more to his plate right now.”
“It’s that bad?”
I nodded, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “It is. They had a huge fight about it around the dinner table, and everyone stalked off and went their own ways.”
“Wow.” She whistled under her breath. “They’ve had dinner already? Isn’t it way too early for that?”
I laughed, glad that she’d found a way to lighten the mood a little. “That’s hardly the issue, but yes, we have had dinner. Everything happens much earlier here.”
“I’ve heard farmers get up early,” she said, then hesitated again. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m calling you. I was hoping you had some advice for me.” I froze when I heard a creak outside the door.
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