by Helm, Nicole
Sadie rolled her eyes. “Okay, but it’s complicated. Not just on your end. Those boys have a whole lot of complicated on their end.”
“If Dad doesn’t have a problem with you and Colt, how could he have a problem with me and Ethan?” Which was putting the cart before the horse considering Ethan was currently the one with the problem.
“That’s what I’m saying. Ethan could have a million reasons not to kiss you even if he is interested. Maybe he made a promise to Mom. Maybe his childhood stuff warped him more than he lets on. There are a lot of reasons people hold back from what or who they might want. Colt has a whole legion of issues. Why wouldn’t Ethan? Their families both sucked.”
Pen looked for Ethan again, but he wasn’t there anymore. Ethan always seemed so…solid and dependable. Not the kind of guy with issues. He didn’t hide behind anything like Colt had hidden behind his jovial nature.
But she supposed people thought that about her too. Except she’d had a bunch of outward tragedies so people kind of expected her to be a mess. When she wasn’t, they attributed it to being so strong or something.
But it was a lot of acting. Did Ethan have that kind of acting in him?
It’d be easier to think he just wasn’t interested. It’d sting her pride some, but it wouldn’t…hurt. The idea Ethan might have some awful or ‘warped’ reason for not wanting to kiss her made her sad for him.
“I think this belongs to you.”
Pen turned toward Ethan’s voice. Her mouth dropped at the fact he was leading Addie toward her. Addie had a mutinous expression on her face. “You aren’t with Grandpa?”
“I believe she was trying to hitch a ride back to the farm.”
“Adelaide Wakefield, have you lost your mind?” Pen demanded. Hitch a ride? Even though Pen knew most people in Last Stand, her daughter didn’t. What a dangerous, stupid prank.
“I told you I didn’t want to go to the stupid market!” Addie said. “And you won’t even let me have a phone.”
Pen didn’t know what one had to do with the other, but it was better not to try and understand twelve-year-old logic.
“That does not give you the right to run away from your grandfather, to try and hitch a ride. My God what would your father think?”
“Nothing because he’s dead,” Addie spat. “I hate Christmas and you and everything!” She jerked away from Ethan’s hand on her shoulder and darted into the crowd.
Pen was frozen for a moment. She thought Addie had been settling in. Oh, she was still moody, but it hadn’t been as bad when they’d first moved and now…
“I could go talk to her,” Ethan offered, as if nudging Pen to act.
“No, I should…” Pen let out a long breath. She was supposed to accept help, and if she talked to Addie right now she would most definitely lose her temper. “All right.”
She noted his surprise, but he nodded and moved through the crowd in the direction Addie had gone.
“What was that all about?” Sadie asked gently.
“I don’t even know.” Exhausted didn’t even begin to describe what Pen felt. “Watch these two. I better go tell Dad Ethan’s got her.”
*
Ethan had no idea why he’d offered to talk to Addie. He didn’t know anything about dealing with angry girls.
But it had seemed better than sticking around while Pen looked both angry and hurt over her daughter, knowing he’d either have to comfort her or talk about last night. Knowing Pen, probably both.
The fuming pre-teen running through the crowd seemed a better choice all in all. Though she was running and he was walking, he closed the distance pretty easily—her blonde mop of hair a beacon to follow especially as she got farther away from the parade.
She headed straight for the playground and then plopped herself onto a swing. Ethan slowed his pace, giving her a few minutes to sit there and sulk. When he finally approached she glared at him.
The same glare Pen had given him last night.
“What do you want, tattletale?” she demanded.
Ethan stood there. He didn’t even have to give her a censoring look before she wilted.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“That’s okay. I did tattle.”
She looked at him, considering. When he pointed to the swing next to her she shrugged. He positioned himself on the seat. It had been a long time since he’d been on a swing. It was not comfortable, but he worked to act casual.
“It wasn’t a very nice thing to do, to scare your grandpa like that.”
Tears filled her eyes but she screwed her face into an angry expression as if she could fight it away. She reminded him of Sadie and Mack and not of Pen at all, but he supposed Pen had that somewhere inside of her too. She just kept it locked down in a different way than her sisters.
Because she’d felt responsible. She’d had to be the one in control, and he knew that feeling all too well.
Maybe that’s what Addie was struggling with. She was the oldest, after all.
“It’s okay not to like things, but we all have to do things we don’t like.”
“No shit.”
When Ethan raised both eyebrows, her cheeks went a shade of red. “Uncle Colt says it.”
“I don’t think that excuse would fly with your mama.”
“She doesn’t care about me.”
“I’ll let you get away with saying a lot, but not that. Because we both know that isn’t true.”
“I didn’t want to move here! She said I would learn to like it and I don’t. I hate it. I hate my class. I hate my teacher. I hate all these stupid Christmas things. I’m never going to like it. Ever.”
How hard was it to validate her feelings while also validating Pen’s? “I know you feel that way. And you have every right to. But I know your mom pretty well, and I know even if it doesn’t feel like it, she’s doing what she thinks will be the best for you.”
“It isn’t best!”
“Sometimes…” He didn’t want to say all adults knew best since he knew that was a lie. “Sometimes what’s best doesn’t feel good in the moment, because change is really hard. And you’ve had to deal with a lot of unfair change, Addie. You don’t have to be happy about it.”
“Well, I’m not.”
Ethan blew out a breath. He’d known this wasn’t going to be easy but he didn’t know what to do. How to fix it.
He thought about Susannah, who’d been the only one in his childhood who’d ever tried to fix anything for him. “You know, I used to run away from home.”
Addie gave him a sideways glance, suddenly interested and trying desperately not to be.
“For different reasons, I didn’t like my home very much. When I was a little older than you I started trying to get in trouble, because I thought if I got in enough trouble I wouldn’t have to live at home anymore.”
Now he had her full attention, and he hoped to God she didn’t try to start getting into trouble like he had. If he had to admit to Pen he’d put that idea in her head, he was so screwed.
“One time, your grandma found me doing something bad.”
“What were you doing?”
“Uh-uh. I’m not giving you any ideas, girlie.”
She wrinkled her nose, but didn’t press, so he kept going.
“She let me off with a warning, so then I started calling her names. Because I thought she’d get mad and I wouldn’t have to go home. After a little while, she got real close. She looked me right in the eye, and she asked me why I didn’t want to go home.”
The memory made his throat tighten, but he cleared it and looked over at Addie. She wasn’t the picture-perfect image of Pen like Daisy was. She looked more like Henry all in all. But she was watching him with big hazel eyes that reminded him an awful lot of Susannah.
And Susannah was why he was here. “You know what I did when she asked me that?”
Addie shook her head.
“I started crying.”
Addie’s eyes widened. “You cried?
”
Ethan nodded. “Sure did. And boy was I embarrassed. But no one had ever asked me that before. I’d never expected anyone to listen. But she did and she helped me. Even though she didn’t know me or love me yet.”
Addie looked down at her feet.
“So, I know it’s hard. I know it’s hard to not want to be where you’re stuck, but so many people love you. That’s a really lucky thing to have. And maybe if you talked to them about it without being nasty, they might be able to help you find ways to like it.”
“I don’t want to like it,” she grumbled, kicking at the ground.
“That might be your first problem.”
She scowled, but when Ethan stood she slid off her swing and stood too.
“Ready to go back?”
She shrugged, which he took as a yes. He started walking back toward the parade, but before they got back into the crowd, Addie slid her hand into his.
He looked down at the small hand, dwarfed by his much larger one. She had chipped pink polish on her nails, and a bracelet made up of delicate plastic roses.
And she held his hand and walked with him back to her family.
Damn.
Chapter Eight
“Mom, you already put in the salt.”
Pen blinked down at Brynn who was standing on a chair helping her make sugar cookies, just like Pen had done when she was Brynn’s age.
Pen liked to think she’d listened a little better to her mother’s instructions than Brynn usually did, but who knew? Pen wasn’t listening very well right now because she kept looking out the window over the sink to see if she could catch a glimpse of Ethan’s headlights.
Pen was starting to wonder if sitting around waiting for Ethan to show up so she could talk to him was going to be her lot in life. It didn’t seem so bad. What did seem bad was the fact Addie had refused to tell her what she’d talked to Ethan about this morning before he’d brought her back to the parade.
Addie had still been sulky the rest of the market, but she hadn’t tried to bolt again.
Her little girl had tried to run away. Hitch a ride. It made all Pen’s silly fears about not making the right cookies and being a failure seem…actually silly.
Who cared about cookies or how much she was like her mother if her daughter was trying to escape?
Pen swallowed at the now-familiar panic in her throat. Once Ethan got home from work and told her what Addie had said she’d be able to chill. Once he told her… How. How?
“Mom?”
Pen forced herself to focus on Brynn and the cookies. One step at a time. That was how anyone got through life. “Okay, so we already did the salt. What else do we need to do?”
She worked with Brynn, trying to be more present and patient as they finished mixing the dough. They’d chill it overnight then spend Sunday morning cutting them out and decorating and…
Oh, damn it, where on earth was Ethan?
Pen looked down at Brynn who was trying to sneak some dough without Pen seeing. “Brynnie… Do you know what was wrong with Addie this morning?”
Brynn smiled brightly, a mischievous glint to her eye Pen swore she’d been born with. “She’s a butt?” Brynn said sweetly.
Pen sighed. “Not what I meant and you know it, young lady. I’ll put this in the fridge. Why don’t you go check on how Grandpa is doing with the tree?”
“He was swearing last time I checked.”
“Well, if he’s still swearing, I’ll go get Colt to help him with it.”
Brynn hopped off the chair, sticking a big wad of dough she’d ‘hidden’ in her hand into her mouth as she bounced out of the kitchen.
Oh, that girl was going to be the kind of teenage trouble Pen didn’t know how she’d weather.
She heard the faint sound of an engine and lunged toward the window. Headlights. She assumed they were Ethan’s since if Colt or Sadie came over they’d use their farm utility vehicle or one of Colt’s new horses.
She grabbed her coat and wrapped it around her as she moved through the mudroom and out to the back porch.
Ethan was already stepping out of his truck. He’d changed out of his uniform, but he still wore his cowboy hat. When he noticed her on the porch he stopped on a dime, and looked back at his vehicle. Like he was considering getting back in and turning right around.
She almost found it amusing, but she needed to talk to him about Addie.
First, anyway.
“I want to talk to you about Addie,” she announced, since she figured he’d bolt if he thought she was going to bring up the kiss attempt.
“Okay,” he replied, finally moving forward.
“What did you two talk about this morning?”
“Why?”
Pen fisted her good hand on her hip. “What do you mean why? She’s my daughter.”
“She’s a person. I figure she should probably tell you herself.”
“Well, you figure wrong. She said you didn’t talk about anything, but she came back and didn’t try to run away again or fight with me. So, I want to know what you did.” How you reached that girl when I can’t seem to. “She should talk to me.” Pen hadn’t meant to say that last part since it sounded childish even to her, but there it was. Because it was so annoyingly easy to announce her flaws to Ethan.
“Shouldn’t she talk to anyone who will listen to her?”
Pen let herself sink onto the stair—exactly the same spot she’d been sitting last night. “Why are you being reasonable?” she asked miserably. Of course she wanted her daughter to talk to whomever she needed to talk to. Pen just didn’t know when it had turned into not being her.
He did not sit next to her, but he smiled down at her. “I figure someone has to be reasonable around here.”
She looked up at him. “Well, guess what? It’s not going to be the mom.”
He smiled, and it wasn’t the cop smile. No, this was warmer. Like he enjoyed her less reasonable, less controlled thoughts. It was the kind of smile that eased some of the pressure in her lungs.
“That’s fair enough,” he said quietly.
It was her first instinct to stop talking, even though she knew she needed to talk. To let it out. And being with Ethan in the dark made leaning into what she knew she needed to do a lot easier than if it had been Sadie or Dad. “I thought it was getting better for her. I thought…”
He heaved out a sigh then sat next to her. She knew he didn’t want to, because of last night, but he did it anyway.
It was…nice to have that. She might be learning to lean on the people she’d spent her whole life trying to protect and take care of, but it was nice to be able to do it with someone she’d never felt beholden to.
“It’s a hard change. I moved into this house when I was a little older than Addie. I hated where I came from. I never ever wanted to go back there. And still some days it’d hit me out of the blue… I didn’t want this place. I didn’t want your family. I wanted my own.”
Knowing what she knew about Ethan’s family she couldn’t understand why. “You really felt that way?”
“Never for long. And it stopped eventually. It wasn’t a rational feeling, but it was there. The thing is, the things that are good for you don’t always feel good. That’s basically what I told Addie this morning. And that you loved her and were just trying to do what was best.”
“I believed that when I made the decision to move home.”
He patted her hand. “You should keep believing it. There’s no better place to grow up than right here, with your father and the goats. Of that I’m sure.”
“Can you remind me of that every now and again?”
He patted her hand again. “You got it. We’ve got your back. And theirs.”
His hand rested over hers as if he’d forgotten all about last night.
But she hadn’t. Because one of the many things parenthood taught you was how to multitask dealing with your worries and concerns and the things you couldn’t make sense of no matter how hard yo
u tried.
She turned her hand under his, making them palm to palm. He stared at their hands like he didn’t understand what had happened. But he didn’t jump away. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his.
He was handsome, always had been, but the more she understood he was…complicated, the more she wanted to study it. The sharp jaw and firm mouth, and the way no matter how careful he was, certain emotions always popped up in his eyes.
His hand was warm and rough. He was a good man, no matter what complications he hid under all that quiet sturdiness. The kind of man who’d sit down next to her even when she made him uncomfortable.
If she was a good person, she’d probably stop trying to make him uncomfortable. Except, no. No. Discomfort wasn’t always bad. She didn’t enjoy that panic attack she’d had the other day, but it had unlocked some of the ways she’d been denying what she was really feeling.
Ethan definitely needed to unlock some things.
“You’ve got my back, but if I tried to kiss you again, you’d run right out of here.”
He removed his hand and immediately rose to his feet.
She looked up at his retreating back with the most regal expression she could muster. “You surprise me, Ethan.”
She got the reaction out of him that she wanted. He stopped walking away and looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
“Was I not clear enough last night?” he replied, and his voice was calm but his eyes were not, and wasn’t that fascinating. There was something here. Something that made her feel…
Like herself. Not the woman who had to keep everything under control and make everything okay. Just Penelope.
And nothing about the way Ethan was acting was clear. “No, sorry. Acting like a scared beaten puppy scrambling away from someone trying to pet him is not clear. You’ve surely faced scarier things than me trying to kiss you.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he muttered. Then he squared his shoulders, and held her gaze. “I’m not interested,” he said firmly, sharply even.