Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
GIA
Four Sundays later…
I leaned back against the kitchen counter and let the chaos wash over me. Vinny and Sofia tore through the house with NERF blasters, shrieking with laughter while Lisa followed behind them, threatening bodily harm if another dart hit her centerpiece.
“Outside!” she yelled.
“It ricocheted!” Vinny defended.
“That’s not how ricochets work!” she shot back.
Across the room, Timothy, Josh, and Mark crowded around the television with beers in hand and a baseball game on loud enough to compete with the children. A hitter had flipped his bat after a home run, and somehow it had become a full courtroom trial.
“It’s disrespectful,” Josh argued. “Somebody’s going to end up wearing that bat.”
Timothy pointed at the screen. “The man just took a ninety-eight mile-an-hour fastball into the next county. Let him have his moment.”
Mark laughed. “You only like it because you’d do worse.”
“Absolutely.”
Their voices tangled together with the clatter of dishes, the squeak of sneakers on hardwood, Buck barking at flying foam darts… It was loud. Messy. Alive.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t standing outside of it looking in. I belonged in it.
We’d buried Mama and Misty beneath the old oak at the property line where the shade stretched longest in the evenings. It felt right having them there together, somewhere peaceful at last. My father… I’d handed his ashes over to his second family and walked away clean. I didn’t want him near us.
The McClary land still sat heavy on my shoulders. Mark had taken over transitioning the day-to-day beef operation to another manager, which helped more than I expected. I hoped to demolish the house. Nothing but bad memories remained in the place.
Lisa had also helped me accept a generous offer on the Tennessee property—enough money, she said, to keep my groceries paid well into retirement.
That eased some of the pressure. Maybe it even meant I didn’t have to drive myself quite so hard at work anymore, though stepping into the role of medical director for farm animal medicine had brought far more responsibility than anticipated.
I slipped out onto the front porch for air.
Mason rocked quietly at one end. Buck followed me out and curled beside his boots.
“Can I join you?” I asked softly.
“Course.” He tipped his beer toward the empty rocker beside him.
I sat and let the chair creak beneath me. For a minute we just rocked in silence, listening to muffled laughter spill through the screen door.
Then I asked, “Can I get some advice?”
“Always.”
I stared out toward the fence line separating Hurst land from McClary land. One side familiar. One side haunted.
“What do you recommend I do with the McClary farm?”
Mason let out a slow breath. “Did you ask Timothy what he thinks?”
“He’s got plenty of opinions.” I smiled faintly. “I wanted yours. Do I keep it separate? Let y’all incorporate it? Sell part of it? I don’t have the time or interest to manage it.”
Mason looked out over the pasture, dark and endless beneath the moonlight.
“This land here?” He motioned around us.
“This is Hurst legacy. Always will be.” Then he nodded toward the far side of the fence.
“That over there is McClary legacy. Your people may’ve mishandled it, but the land itself ain’t done anything wrong. ”
I swallowed hard at that.
“What do you want?” he asked.
The answer came easier than I expected. “I want to stop running beef. I’m not a cattle person.”
He nodded once, like that mattered more than anything else I’d said. “Good. That’s honest.”
“I don’t want the place wasted either.” My voice quieted. “But I can’t bear the thought of carving it up or leasing it out to strangers.”
Mason took a long pull from his beer before speaking again. “Then maybe you let Timothy take it over for now.” His mouth tipped into a small smile. “The boy may have fought this life tooth and nail, but he’s turned this place profitable. He’s good at this. His ideas work. Maybe trust him.”
I looked back through the screen door. “I do trust him.”
Timothy was in the middle of some dramatic reenactment of the bat flip now, arms flying while everyone yelled over him. Sofia was laughing so hard she could barely reload her NERF blaster.
Something inside me loosened. Not just because there was an answer, but for the first time, the future didn’t feel like something I had to survive alone.
I grinned at Mason, emotion thick in my throat. “Thank you.”
“Time to eat!” Lisa cried out. “TV off, boys.”
There were a lot of groans.
Lisa said. “You can pause it and resume it later. It’s called modern technology.”
Once everyone settled around the table, an odd hush fell over the room. It didn’t make sense with this crowd. Sundays at the Hurst farm usually sounded like war—chairs scraping, people talking over each other, somebody already halfway through a second helping before grace was finished.
But now?
Nobody touched the food. Nobody even reached for a biscuit.
Vinny kept smirking into his sweet tea. Lisa looked seconds away from crying.
Erika rocked the baby who had conked out on her shoulder.
Mason studied his plate like it held the secrets of the universe.
Josh sent Timothy a weird look. Even Sofia sat unusually still beside me, practically vibrating in her seat.
A nervous flutter started low in my stomach.
Then Mark elbowed Timothy hard enough to make him grunt.
“Do it before you puke,” Mark muttered.
Timothy shot to his feet so abruptly his chair nearly tipped over. I realized nobody would look directly at me.
My pulse stumbled. “Timothy?”
He swallowed hard and walked around the table toward me. I’d seen this man furious, laughing, naked, covered in mud, and standing toe-to-toe with danger without blinking once. I had never seen him nervous like this.
“Gia…” His voice cracked slightly before he cleared his throat. “Hell.”
A few quiet chuckles broke around the table.
Then he dropped to one knee. The entire world narrowed to this single moment. I stopped breathing. Actually stopped.
My hands flew to my mouth as every sound around me faded into a dull roar in my ears.
Timothy looked up at me with those steady eyes. “I know we should probably give it time,” he said softly. “But I feel like I’ve already wasted too much of that already.” A crooked smile touched his mouth. “And apparently, according to my dad, I ain’t built with patience.”
The table laughed quietly, but I could barely hear it over the pounding of my heart.
“I love you, Gia. I want a life with you full of mess. I love waking up beside you and hearing you boss me around.” His voice thickened. “I don’t want another day where you don’t know you’re mine and I’m yours.” His eyes glistened. “Will you marry me?”
I looked down just as Sofia scooted closer and leaned against my arm. Her little face tipped up toward mine, hopeful and glowing. “He said I could call you Mommy now.”
That hit me so hard it physically hurt. Every broken thing inside me seemed to seal together at once into a healing tangle of grief and love. A sob escaped before I could stop it.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Timothy’s face broke apart in relief.
“Yes,” I cried louder, laughing through tears. “I’ll marry you. Down by our tree. But…”
The whole room seemed to inhale at once.
I smirked at him. “I’m not doing some six-month engagement. I want it right away. You’re right. We’ve wasted far too much time.”
A giant exhale seemed to happen.
The room erupted. Chairs scraped. Somebody whooped. Lisa outright started crying. Mark smacked the table hard enough to rattle dishes.
Timothy slid the ring onto my finger with shaking hands before holding it up proudly for me to admire.
The diamond was enormous. I looked up at him in disbelief through watery eyes.
And there it was—that cocky, self-satisfied grin that said he’d been waiting all night for this exact reaction. That ain’t no Walmart ring.
Vinny vacated the chair next to me and pushed Timothy into it.
Lisa stood as if ready to serve, but Josh stood up and cleared his throat. He took Erika’s hand. “We have something to tell everyone.”
Everyone seemed to pause mid-action reaching for food.
Lisa fell back into her chair. “Lordy, son. You’re pregnant again? The baby is barely three months old.”
“No.” Josh shook his head, his face flushing. “I…uh…” He glanced down at Erika. Then he swallowed hard. “I didn’t want to ruin Timothy’s moment.” He nodded at his brother. “But…”
“Spit it out,” Timothy ordered.
“I got called up.” He compressed his lips. “White Sox. Chicago. The bigs.”
The table erupted.
Timothy pulled him into a hug. “So proud of you.”
Mason was on his feet and hugging him too.
Lisa demanded, “How exactly does this work with you having a job a day’s drive away, owning a clinic, and having a baby with his eyes barely working?”
Josh swallowed hard. “I told them I had to ask my wife and family first. We have to work through logistics. They seem to have big plans to market me, which is a bit terrifying. It’ll put the spotlight on all of us.”
Erika stood. “We got this. All of us…we got this. There’s no reason anyone only has to have one dream in this household. I kicked him out to do this minor league nightmare for this moment. I knew he was made to be in the big show.” She smiled at Josh.
Josh leaned in and kissed her.
Mason stood at the head of the table. “We’re still having Sunday dinners. Here. How about we get this one started?”
Timothy pulled me into his arms and kissed me. I laughed so hard I cried harder. I’d finally come home.