Chapter Thirty-One
I STEPPED OUT onto the porch to catch some air while Briar stole Lark away to show her the dogs, cats, chickens, or whatever she was fussin’ over today. The sunshine hit my shoulders warm, the kind of heat that sank right through a man.
The barn door stood open, same as always, so I headed that way out of habit. Daddy was already inside, bent over the old tractor engine he’d been “about to fix” for three damn years. I leaned against the doorway, watching him wipe grease from his hands.
The place smelled like hay, oil, and dust, the scent of my whole damn childhood. Daddy didn’t look up, jaw working in that slow, thoughtful grind.
I stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind me.
“You’re lurkin’,” he said.
“I’m not lurkin’.”
“You’re standin’ there like a man with too many thoughts and not enough courage to say ’em out loud. That’s lurkin’ in my book.”
I huffed something close to a laugh and crouched beside him as he nudged a wrench my way. “You need help with this bolt?”
“Nope,” he said. “But you can help anyway.”
His way of sayin’: sit your ass down so we can talk without makin’ a show of it.
We worked in that easy quiet, metal clinking, birds outside, wind slipping through the slats. Felt like bein’ fifteen again, helpin’ him patch up whatever needed fixin’.
After a minute, Daddy wiped his hands on a rag and said, “She’s a good one.”
My chest tightened. “Yeah,” I said, careful as I could. “She is.”
“Good ones are rare. Hard to come by. Harder to keep.”
I kept my eyes on the engine, jaw tight. “Didn’t say I was tryin’ to keep anything.”
“Boy,” he said, turning toward me, “I’ve watched you chase half the women in this damn state, and not once have you brought one here. Not once have you sat at that kitchen table lookin’ like someone knocked the wind outta you with just a smile.”
Heat crept up the back of my neck. “I’m not—”
“Don’t lie. I rode with the club before you were born. I know the look of a man who’s been livin’ fast and suddenly realizes he wants somethin’ different.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“No,” he snorted. “It damn sure ain’t.”
He sat back on his heels, eyes sharp with the kind of knowledge you only get from doin’ life wrong before you do it right. “This is more than fatherly advice, son. This is me talkin’ as someone who’s been where you’re standin’.”
I didn’t move.
“You used to run wild,” he said. “Women in and out, no attachments, no thought past the next night. I get it. I lived that life before your ma finally stole my dumb ass from the fire.”
That one surprised me, he never talked about the women before Ma.
“Club life’ll make it easy to lose yourself,” he went on. “You keep busy, keep beddin’ whoever crosses your path, and tell yourself you’re free. But really, you’re just avoidin’ anything real. Anything that might ask you to stay put.”
Something heavy settled under my ribs.
He nudged my knee with his grease-stained hand. “You serious about this girl?”
The answer shot out before I could think. “Yeah. I am.”
“Then you better act like it.”
I looked away. “She told me to take it slow.”
“That’s smart. She’s smart.” Daddy took the wrench back, nodding to himself. “You got a lot of old habits. The kind that’ll make a woman like her run the hell toward the hills.”
I bristled. “I’m not gonna hurt her.”
“I know that,” he said. “But she don’t.”
Truth. Plain and hard.
“You want her?” he asked. “Really want her?”
I nodded once.
“Then stay away from the sweet butts,” he said. “All of ’em. No flirtin’, no lookin’, no old ways slippin’ in when temptation gets loud. You don’t get to be half in and half out with a woman like Lark.”
My jaw clenched. “I haven’t touched anyone since—” I cut myself off.
Daddy’s mouth curved. “Since her? Yeah. I figured.”
He leaned against the tractor and shook his head. “Women talk. Club women talk louder. If you so much as breathe wrong near one, word’ll get back to Lark before you get your helmet off.”
“I’m not like that anymore.”
He nodded—approving, but still wary. “She carries herself like someone who ain’t been treated right for most of her life. Makes a man want to stand a little more solid around her.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“She’s tougher than she looks,” I said.
“Never said she wasn’t.” His voice softened. “But tough don’t mean untouched. And it sure as hell don’t mean she don’t need gentleness from time to time.”
A muscle in my jaw ticked. “Gentle isn’t exactly my nature.”
“Funny,” he said, smirking, “’cause your Ma and I been watchin’ you with that girl, and all we’ve seen is gentle.”
I looked away. “It’s not that simple.”
“Don’t reckon it is,” he said. “But maybe simple ain’t what either of you need.”
Silence stretched—heavier this time, full of things we weren’t sayin'.
Daddy took a long drink from the water bottle he kept on the shelf, then pointed at me. “She feels safe here.”
I swallowed the weight of that. “I know.”
“She trust you?”
I thought of her hand in mine in the truck. The way she didn’t flinch when I touched her waist. The way she looked at me last night like she saw something worth believin’.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I think she does.”
He nodded like it confirmed a theory. “Then don’t go rushin’ it. Girls like her… they’re still learnin’ the world ain’t made of all sharp edges. Takes time.”
I looked down at my hands—scarred, rough, strong. “I’m not used to waitin’.”
“You’re too damn much like your old man,” Daddy snorted.
I laughed. “That a compliment?”
“Hell yes.”
We worked a little longer, pretendin’ we hadn’t just had a conversation deep enough to make any other man run for the hills. Wrenches turned. Bolts loosened. Silence settled back in.
Eventually, he pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. “Briar likes her.”
I blinked. “Already?”
“Kid knows good people fast. Always has.”
“And Ma?”
He shot me a look that said I was the dumbest smart man alive. “Your Ma’s already pickin’ out recipes she thinks Lark’ll like.”
Heat crawled up my neck again. “What? Why?”
“Because she wants her to come back, you fool.”
I didn’t have words for that. I just wiped my hands and stared out the barn doors toward the pasture.
Somewhere out there, Lark laughed—light, warm, unguarded.
Daddy clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Son,” he said, his voice low, steady, and sure, “some things… you don’t wanna outrun.”
Then he headed for the house, leaving me standin’ in the barn with my pulse thudding deep and slow.
And for the first time in a long damn while, I feel like I could have the same life my parent’s had, and I left the barn with a smile.