Chapter 19
nineteen
On the day before Alexei Lebedev and Ben Caravalho’s celebration of love took over Short King Farms, Daisy made a request.
“Da-dee,” she said over her scrambled eggs at breakfast, “I want to go to the BEACH.”
Emerson’s fork paused mid-air.
Sometimes, Emerson forgot he lived a ten minute drive from the ocean. He likely would have forgotten altogether, if he didn’t have a Daisy to remind him.
She always asked in this same way, always pronounced the word beach with both extra emphasis and declarative authority: not an exclamation point, but all caps.
The requests always came randomly, on the whims of a four-year-old, but Emerson was taken especially off guard this morning.
Not just because of the timing with the wedding festivities, but because it had been so long since she’d asked.
She normally demanded BEACH much more frequently, especially during the summer.
Emerson turned his gaze to Luca, who sat across from him, next to Daisy, in his regular spot. He seemed to be keeping his expression purposefully neutral, looking back at Emerson with only the slightest raise of an eyebrow.
Maybe Daisy, like Emerson, hadn’t needed the ocean as much lately because she’d been so preoccupied, this last month, with having a new friend.
“Daisy,” Emerson said carefully, “You know we have a big event coming up this weekend.”
“I knowww,” Daisy said dramatically, rolling her eyes and her head all around her neck for extra effect. “That’s why we should go. Fun”—she stretched her arms flat across the table, leaning forward so her chest fell into her scrambled eggs—“before work.”
Emerson stared at his now-messy daughter for a long second.
And then he gave in to laughter.
“Daisy,” he said, holding his head in his hands, “when did you get so wise?”
Daisy leaned back, a satisfied look on her face.
“Always been,” she said as Luca leaned over with a napkin to attempt to clean the eggs from her shirt.
“Okay,” Emerson said, laughter still fluttering helplessly around his chest. “Let’s go.”
“BEACH!” Daisy screeched, clapping her hands.
“Really?” Luca looked over at him, gross napkin still in hand.
“Yeah,” Emerson said. “You should come with us.”
“Loo-kah!” Daisy yelled, more jazzed by the second. “Loo-kah come to BEACH!”
“What’s this about the beach?” Jansel asked as he stepped through the door.
“We’re taking a beach day,” Emerson said, still staring at Luca, who was still staring back. “Luca’s coming with us. You’re on your own today, Jansel. Sorry to leave you high and dry.”
“Please,” Jansel scoffed. “Not that I won’t miss you or anything. But me and this old farm’ll be just fine.”
“Leave any time you want,” Emerson added. “Take the day off. Go wild.”
“Oookay, Mr. King.” Jansel raised his eyebrows and tapped a dry-erase marker against the whiteboard and all of the day’s tasks listed there. “I didn’t realize this was a my-boss-has-lost-his-mind situation.”
“Kind of,” Emerson replied. “Might be.”
Luca still hadn’t said a thing. He finally broke his and Emerson’s stare to turn to Daisy and say, “Gotta finish your breakfast before beach day.”
“Ho-kay!” Daisy declared happily, and picked up her fork.
They drove down together in Emerson’s truck.
Emerson had chosen this farm on the coast for a few reasons.
Being close to the sea meant he hardly ever had to deal with deep frosts.
The land carried more moisture all year round than those in the valley and beyond, even if more moisture carried its own risks, too: more rot, more pests, more oversaturated soils.
Perhaps, being from arid Eastern Oregon, something inside him wanted to be as far as possible in the opposite direction as he could get.
Perhaps it was simply the first attainable listing in the state that he and Jay stumbled upon.
Whatever the reason, he couldn’t imagine, now, being anywhere else.
He could do, almost all year, with more sun. He could do, all the time, with less wind.
But getting to have his farm, while also being a ten minute drive from the ocean, sometimes felt like more luck than a single person had any right to have.
It was a Thursday morning, so the beach he and Daisy most liked to go to was still relatively quiet. The summer tourists were back at school and at work; the weekend tourists would drive down tomorrow. Those would include, this weekend, Ben and Alexei and a hundred of their loved ones.
While the wedding wasn’t until Saturday, the flurry of activity started tomorrow: rehearsal in the wildflower field in the afternoon; setup of tables and decorations in the barn; delivery of the fancy portable toilets Ben and Lex had rented.
And then, at night, a rehearsal dinner that both Emerson and Luca had been invited to.
Which was a completely unnecessary invitation; Ben and Lex shouldn’t have been wasting more money on them.
But with a bit of encouragement from Luca, Emerson had decided they would go.
Jayden was picking up Daisy early, so he would be free.
And despite the chaos that was about to ensue on his farm, despite all the million ways his farm still wasn’t one hundred percent ready for the biggest event it had ever seen—
Emerson suddenly only felt a bit excited.
There was still stress, yes, lurking in every bone in his body. But he wasn’t the wedding coordinator. He wasn’t Ben and Lex. He was just the farmer. He didn’t need to have every piece of the puzzle perfected. Maybe it would all work out. Maybe Daisy was right.
Maybe it was okay to have fun.
She ran ahead of them as soon as they navigated the haphazard stairs that led from the dunes to the beach. Emerson picked up the sandals she had thrown behind her. Her bare feet raced across the sand, her squeals meeting the roar of the wind and the surf.
“Beautiful day today,” Luca said beside him. “I think Daisy had the right idea.”
“Yeah.” Emerson didn’t want to say any more, to curse it for Ben and Alexei. Lord knew weather on the Oregon Coast could change on a dime; grey clouds could overtake the blue sky any second now. But the forecast for the rest of the weekend, like today, was tentatively good.
It was possible—just possible—that the wedding could be a perfect day.
While the sun shone overhead, the water of the ocean was still a churning blue-gray, as the Pacific often looked here, especially in the mornings.
Less sparkling and blue-green than he’d seen it look in other places in photographs.
Even with the sun, the wind from the water was enough to have both Emerson and Luca scrunching up their shoulders, huddling inside their sweatshirts as they walked side by side.
But the waves always looked just right to Emerson, abutted by cliffs, hulking rocks breaking up the watery horizon.
He knew there were other beaches, warmer and more tropical, around the world.
But none of those were his. In the quiet of the morning, barely anyone else around, this beach seemed to only belong to him and Daisy and Luca.
They meandered closer to the shoreline, rolled up their pants. Took off their shoes. Left them in a pile with Daisy’s sandals. “Daisy!” Emerson called before she could run too far into the waves. “You know you have to hold Dad’s hand.”
The waves, the undercurrent in their wake were so strong. She was still so small.
But she ran back without complaint, held on fast.
And then she grabbed Luca’s hand on her other side.
Together, the three walked into the ocean.
Luca and Emerson, in their wizened adulthood, merely sucked in a sharp breath at the bitter shock of the cold water hitting their toes. Daisy let out what they all held inside: an exuberantly high-pitched squeal, followed by a breathless giggle. She tugged on both of their hands.
“Swing!”
With the briefest glance at each other, Luca and Emerson complied, swinging their arms back and then forward, Daisy flying above the waves between them before her feet hit the ground, and they completed the motion again. Half walking, half dancing through the shallows.
Emerson hadn’t done this with anyone since Jayden.
But Daisy didn’t seem to have the smallest compunction about doing it with Luca, too.
“Okay, Daze,” Emerson eventually said. “Daddy’s feet are frozen.”
“Hokay!” Daisy dropped their hands and ran away from the shoreline, tiny feet kicking up sand as she went, until she dropped abruptly to her knees.
Emerson picked up his pace, chasing after her, concern etched in his heart until—
“Build!” She turned with a smile, brandishing a stick, just as he reached her. She dug it into the wet sand with gusto, churning up patterns only she could understand.
“Shoot,” Emerson said after a moment. “We forgot the pail in the truck.”
“I could get it.”
Emerson looked at Luca, who had just caught up with them.
“Sure you don’t mind?”
Luca shook his head, watching Daisy with a smile. Emerson tossed him his keys. He tried to find it not overly sexy when Luca caught them easily in his fist.
“There should be a beat-up beach pail and shovel somewhere in the back.”
“Got it.”
Emerson watched him go. Trying not to think about how domestic this all felt. How easy. Trying not to dwell on how the light shone on Luca’s dark hair, how it gilded his skin, how fluidly his body moved, hands in pockets, across the sand.
And then Emerson blinked back to the scene directly in front of him, and sank to his knees to build castles with his daughter.
Without the pail, though, they weren’t quite castles. They were more like—
“These are like the Indian burial mounds of the Indigenous peoples of North America,” he said.
Daisy looked at the mounds and then squinted up at him. She adjusted her glasses, which got sand all over her face.
“Hokay,” she said. And returned to her own pursuits with her stick, which involved less building and more crafting some type of complex map and/or irrigation system.