Young Buck: A Slow Burn Small Town Romance (Green Valley Heroes Book 5)

Chapter 31

Buck returned to the hotel room just as the sun began to rise. The click of the door closing behind him woke me up. Against my will, I’d drifted off to sleep. We locked eyes and I saw that he was broken. I wanted to pull him into my arms and settle us down on the bed. I wanted him to pour out everything he was feeling and let me tell him it would be alright.

“I was afraid I’d wake you up.” His voice was dry and hoarse.

My questions could wait. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”

“You okay to drive?” he asked and I nodded. “Then I’d like to get back to Green Valley. I—” He cut himself off before continuing. “I got what I needed here.”

Thirty minutes later, we were back on the road. This time, we took the interstate. He didn’t offer much on the drive and I didn’t ask. Right after he finished the bacon and egg sandwich we’d picked up in the hotel lobby, he bagged the wrapper and squeezed my arm. Then, he leaned his temple on the window and fell asleep.

Hours later, outside of Knoxville, his hand sliding over to where mine rested on the gearshift was my first clue he’d come awake. I turned just in time to see him lift my hand and press a gentle kiss to the tops of my fingers. He looked as groggy as I’d ever seen him. It did something to me to know that his instinct to kiss me pierced through his haze.

“I wish you’d have woken me up. I could’ve driven some. You couldn’t have slept well in that bed.”

“I’ll sleep well tonight,” I reassured him. “We’re not that far from home.”

Buck didn’t return my hand to the gearshift. He let my palm rest upon his leg and kept his own hand covered over mine. I expected us to settle into an easy silence, to take in the scenery to the soundtrack of the engine’s soothing hum. Just as I was settling back in, Buck began to speak.

“He was the son they gave up.” Buck repeated the one fact I already knew. “When Adam came of age, he went looking for information but mostly came to dead ends. He got a hit for Tim’s brother on one of those genetic testing sites. From there, all the dominoes started to fall. Tim’s brother told him about Adam. Tim took his own test through that site. When it came up as a father-son match, Tim agreed they should meet. Adam had questions about our mother.”

Buck tripped over the word “our.” I imagined it would take getting used to. I hated platitudes, but I wanted to say something. Buck had gotten a triple whammy—not only a mother with a secret son, but a father who wanted to keep it a secret, and now, a new brother with expectations of his own.

Pulling back onto our street, up onto the driveway that separated our houses, I remained at a loss. Buck climbed out after we stopped and got to work cleaning my car of food wrappers and hauling my equipment inside, the perfect gentleman, even now.

After he was done, he pulled me into a long, cozy hug, tucking me tight into his broad-shouldered embrace. I could only hope that this offered him some modicum of comfort.

“What’ll you do now?” I asked when we pulled apart.

“First order of business is sleep,” he reasoned. “Then I need to get back to work. I’ve traded a lot of shifts and burned a lot of vacation days for this.”

I nodded, not wanting to think about the finality implied in his words. The investigation was over. We’d reached the turning point that would send him picking up the pieces of his life.

I steered most clients I’d worked with toward Cheated On-Onymous to find support. But Buck wasn’t most clients. He hadn’t been cheated on and his family was in the public eye.

“Give yourself time,” I instructed gently with words that still felt inadequate. “You’re the only one in this equation who hasn’t had time to get used to all of this.”

When Monday came,I had to find my own sense of normal. I’d neglected my own affairs while I’d worked Buck’s case. My responsibilities had shifted weeks ago, but my official start date as a full-timer was looming. I’d hired an attorney and an accountant to help me transfer ownership of Sniffing Around.

The company had been valued at an astounding $290,000. It had taken an hour of explanation and a week of sinking in to come to terms with the enormity of what I’d built. It wasn’t just spy gadgets and camera equipment, or computers and drives that were worth something. The community I’d built and my good reputation would mean instant income and stability for Clarine.

Circumstance had forced us to make peace with the accelerated timeline. She would go from apprentice to owner in under two months. It made me nervous until I remembered how little I’d known going in. The build-as-you-go, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach I’d taken did not need to be repeated. Since there was no way Clarine could afford to buy it outright—and no way I would ever charge her—I’d sold her the business for $1,000 and taken a large final paycheck. I’d make more money on it next year when I reported a substantial loss and got a big break on my taxes.

I knew how important transitions were—saying goodbye to the old and making room for the new, grieving what I would miss and inviting in what would be better. Reorganizing my space was a necessary feat. Two of my three bedrooms had become an equipment room and an office. Everything but my desk and my laptop would go to Clarine’s.

“You know what you should do in here...,” Clarine said offhandedly, disassembling a storage rack from its spot on my floor. “You should have your windows redone. The placement is perfect for a crib, but it’ll be drafty.”

I stood next to said window, disassembling an identical storage rack that I would pile into Buck’s pickup, drive to Clarine’s house, and help her reassemble in her garage.

“You don’t think the office would make a better nursery?”

Over the years, I’d thought about it a lot—what this place would be like with a baby.

“You don’t want the baby’s room to be right next to yours,” Clarine opined confidently. “That’s why you have a monitor. So the baby can be as far away as possible.”

I blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“Sex,” she replied with emphasis. “My sister complains about it all the time. How they have to be very quiet if they don’t want to wake up the baby.”

“How about I have a baby first and think about my sex life second?”

“How’s all that going, by the way?”

“My sex life or having a baby?”

Clarine waggled her eyebrows. “Both.”

She knew all about my broken willpower and how I’d practically jumped Buck after the calendar shoot. What she didn’t know was how my new job was the least of the reasons why I’d seen less of the girls lately. Since that night, I’d spent languorous hours shacked up with Buck.

“Better than expected on all fronts,” I said a bit slyly.

“So your boy’s got skills?”

Modesty was futile. I told her what I’d been congratulating myself over for weeks.

“The man can lay it down.”

Clarine gave a laugh and an enthusiastic “yes, girl.” Not a year ago, she and I had sat on this floor, talking and laughing as we’d reorganized the shelves we were now disassembling. It dawned on me how much I would miss her.

“The baby stuff...,” I continued, before I could get maudlin, “is out of my control. There’s a six-month wait for the clinic.”

“A six-month wait to pick up sperm? Is there a statewide semen shortage?” Clarine halted her screwdriver long enough to balk.

I replied with put-on airs. “The Need for Seed Cryobank is the premier sperm bank of the tri-states.”

“So how will it work? You know...the insemination? How long will the procedure take?”

I shook my head. “No procedure, not at first. The first step is to try it the easy way.”

She gave me a questioning look and I smiled again. “A turkey baster.” It sent us into more fits of giggles.

When our laughter subsided, the smile that remained on Clarine’s face was sentimental.

“We couldn’t be happier for you, you know. Me and the girls...we’ve been planning your graduation for weeks.”

The COOs were the first people I’d told of my intention to accept my new job. I would still drop in, but I could no longer commit to running meetings.

“My graduation,” I repeated. Of course it made sense, though I hadn’t thought about it even once. I’d been fully focused on transitioning the business to Clarine.

“Have you thought about a date?” Clarine asked gently.

I shook my head. It would be harder if I had to count days. Before she could ask me to pin something down, I made a decision.

“I don’t want to know when. Make it a surprise.”