Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Autumn
Ezra pulls right up to my little green house. And while I may not admit it to the big lug who scooped me up against my will, I’m thankful I didn’t have to walk the rest of the way.
“I think I’ve got it from here,” I say, my words purposefully clipped. Because I’m not supposed to like him anymore. My heart can’t handle losing Ezra a second time.
Ezra doesn’t answer. He climbs off the four-wheeler, grabbing my boots from the cart on the back. I’m grateful he’s remembered those too—but I’m not telling him that.
“Hey, Miss Green!” calls a strange voice not all that far away.
Three teenage boys and one girl stand watching as I enter my house, no shoes, frizzy hair, and a blanket for my clothes.
Great , my hired help has arrived.
I clear my throat and throw on my best fabricated smile. Who cares that I’m in charge of these kids and this is the first time they’re seeing me since Dessie hired them? Not me. Not at all. I gulp down each and every one of those lies and bare all my teeth to seventeen-year-old Brady Hale.
“Hi, Brady.” My head circles, not really a nod or a shake. “Uh, hey everyone . Dessie and Don are at the south end of the farm, next to the supply shed. You can get instructions from them there.”
Tammy gives me a crooked grin—or maybe she's giving it to Ezra because the knucklehead is still following me. She lifts her hand in a half wave while the boy next to her starts to chuckle.
“Awesome,” I mutter under my breath. Yep, they’ll for sure respect and listen to me now. Boss of the year—that’s me.
Ezra steps up onto my small porch and I turn to face him.
“Why are you following me?” I growl out a whisper.
“I want to check out your foot.”
“My foot is fine,” I say, attempting to look fiercer than my five-foot-four self often allows. I set a hand to my hip, but that only creates a wide gap in my blanket dress, showing off my tank top, a strip of spotted undies, and one bare leg. Somehow the image isn’t all that fierce. So, I drop my arm to my side and glare—I’ve always been good at glaring.
“Polka dots?” Ezra says, referring to the glimpse he just got. He grins and raises one brow. One brow that I’ll be shaving off in the middle of the night.
“Shut up.” I reign in my urge to shove the man right off my porch step. I’ve never been violent—but all those old memories taunting me, reminding me what I’ve lost, what I’m not allowed to have, just make me want to hit something. Preferably someone … someone tall and dark, with an annoyingly sexy beard.
Most of our memories are pretty great—except for that time in tenth grade when Ezra thought I was going to prom with someone else, so he asked Emily Andrews to prom and I was left going stag. But that was all miscommunication by very stupid young people who kind of liked each other and only kind of knew it. Somehow the good memories hurt the most.
He moves toward my front door and I swat his shoulder with the back of my hand. Just a little swat. Nothing damaging. A completely deserved Emily-Andrews-had-a-date-to-prom-and-I-didn’t-because-of-you swat .
“You aren’t coming in here,” I tell him, standing my ground. I wish I had pants on. My attempt to be taken seriously and feared would be much more effective if pants were involved.
“I am,” he says. “Don’t make me pick you up in front of the help.”
I glance past him to the four high schoolers still watching us. Why are they lingering? Why aren’t they headed to the south end of the field yet? There’s work to do. Chop-chop!
I limp inside, caring more about escaping our audience than Ezra following me.
“Sit,” he tells me. “Put your foot up.”
I groan. But I’m home and all at once way too tired to argue.
I plop onto the couch and lift my foot to the coffee table. It really is killing me. That’s what I get for walking around rocks and pine trees without shoes. Not my brightest decision in life.
“Well, you’re filthy,” he says, lifting my foot by the ankle.
“Genius observation.”
He snickers, sets my foot down, and wanders into my kitchen. I hear him shuffling and I’m about to get up when he comes back with a clean, damp dish rag.
Sitting on the end of the table, he lifts my foot again, setting it in his lap. He washes off the dirt and needles clinging to the bottom. “Why are you so mad at me, Autumn? What did I do?”
You left and, somehow, I survived. But now you’re here—stirring up feelings—only to leave again.
I swallow and opt for a part-truth. “You shouldn’t have come back.”
He doesn’t look offended. No, he just gently rubs the dishcloth over the heel and pad of my foot. His chest fills, breathing in, heavy and thoughtful. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“What does that mean?” No one forced him to take this job. I know Dessie can be persuasive, but that’s no excuse.
“Well, I was jobless… and homeless. So, this sounded like a fairly decent alternative. ”
My gaze softens. That’s not what I expected. Jobless? Homeless? As in, nowhere to sleep at night?
I lick my lips and watch him. It’s so much easier to watch him while he’s studying my foot. “You never mentioned jobless and homeless before.”
“Yeah, well, when you’re trying to one-up the person who broke your heart, you don’t usually mention things that make you look like a big fat failure.”
“I didn’t break your heart,” I say, but my words are small. And untrue. Even as I say them, I don’t even believe them. The fact is, I broke both our hearts. In my effort to save him, I caused a lot of pain too. I’ve never wanted to acknowledge that before. I just told myself he’d gotten out of a terrible home. I’d made sure of it.
“You did,” he says, finally looking up at me. “And you know it. But it sounds like you didn’t have much of a choice.” He sets the rag down and holds my ankle higher, returning to inspecting my foot. “You could have always told the truth, of course.” His brows flick upward once—clearly, he thinks I chose wrong.
I clench my jaw. It wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t stay here.
“You’ve got a pine needle stuck in your foot. It’s pretty deep. But I can get it out.”
I wrinkle my nose. Stupid rain. Stupid shed. Stupid pine needles. Stupid, stupid Ezra Bennett.
His fingers slide over the heel of my foot as he pinches the needle. I cram my eyes shut with the sting, a low hiss slipping through my clenched teeth. He tugs, and pain stabs through my foot and up into my ankle, though it’s quickly followed by relief. Respite washes over my foot the minute the long needle is out and in Ezra’s grasp.
My mother would be annoyed with my ingratitude, but it’s knowing that my father would be saddened by my rudeness that makes me open my mouth. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” His warm hand slides over my ankle as he sets my foot back onto the table with care. “Autumn, I think you have this preconceived notion that I went away and found a perfect life. That’s not true.”
I swallow… okay, I may have had that notion.
He huffs out a laugh. “Perfect is pretty boring, anyway.”
I’m confused. So is his life great because it isn’t perfect? Or difficult because of hardships? Homeless and jobless sound pretty hard, pretty non-boring.
I don’t ask because as much as I want to know, I’m not sure either answer will help in the end.
Before he goes, he leaves me with a cup of hot apple cider—remembering my dislike for hot chocolate—and a bandage for my foot. How did he know where to find my band-aids?
I lick my lips and swallow, watching him move about my space. He reaches out with a bottle of antiseptic. "Every day, a couple of times a day," he says as I take the tube. Then without another word, Ezra walks out my front door. He leaves.
And once again, I’m left alone.