Chapter 5
5
Pulling into the dirt road of Sugar Mountain Farm, I do the same thing I always do. I take a deep breath. Every time, it feels like the weight of the world lifts a little when I re-enter paradise.
Of course it isn’t paradise at all, just a sprawling four hundred acre farm with a scenic lake, rolling hills and a small river winding through it, miles from town. And it comes with all the problems that go along with the day-in-day-out hard work it takes to make a buck out of it.
The scent of the gritty road dust through my rolled-down window is as familiar to me as the rhythm of my own heartbeat.
It’s not long before the farmhouse comes into view in the distance. We recently painted it and the place looks more inviting than ever, its windows glowing with the soft, warm light of home.
I have my own house now, which I built myself. It’s further along the dirt road from the main house, perched on its own hill with trees surrounding it and a nice view out over the river. It’s always been my favorite place on the farm.
Jed and I designed the house together. Once Daisy came along and Jed and Laney bought their own property, he got busy fixing up his own house and I worked away on mine, but we’d often help each other out. It took me almost three years from start to finish, but even I can admit it turned out better than I imagined it.
I was glad I’d worked so hard on it, every spare minute I had. The month after I put the finishing touches on the house, it became Daisy’s as well as mine.
With Luke and Leo’s help, I boxed up most of Jed and Laney’s stuff, put it in one of our storage sheds, and rented out the house. When Daisy’s older, she can decide what she wants to do with it.
I brought home all the stuff I thought she might want close to her. Her toys, all the photos we could find, and a few keepsakes of her parents’ I thought might make her feel like their memories were still very much with us.
In the six months since then, we’ve made the front guest room Daisy’s own. Ma and Dakota and Tobias helped decorate and they didn’t hold back. They told me what to do and I built it, painted it and put it together .
Daisy’s got pink walls, a pink four-poster bed, a hand-built two-story princess’s castle, a tent full of pillows and blankets, along with stars and photos that hang from its pitched roof, two comfortable pink velvet reading chairs in a reading corner next to the window, a built-in pink bookshelf, a stocked closet full of (you guessed it, pink) princess and cowgirl outfits, and a window seat that catches the sun and looks out over the view.
For all that pink, it could be gaudy as fuck, but Dakota and Tobias know how to decorate. It’s tastefully done, like something out of a decorating magazine.
When she’s a little older and has had more time to process everything, I’ll show her the details of our house that were her dad’s ideas. And there were plenty of them.
If only it hadn’t been raining that night. If only they hadn’t been in such a rush to get home and see their little girl. If only I’d kept him busy just a little longer, and they’d canceled their date night, like they so often did because of all the work that always needed doing.
None of the regrets will bring them back.
The driveway of the farmhouse is, as usual, full of pick-up trucks.
I pull up alongside Luke’s and kill the engine.
The sound of laughter and the clinking of dishes drifts out the screen door and the open windows and, for a moment, I allow myself the simple pleasure of being back where things make sense.
There’s another truck parked next to Leo’s that gets my attention .
It’s Kade’s old truck. Aqua and white. It still has that old pair of horns he stuck on the grille back when we were lean, sun-bronzed kids.
The exact same truck he gave to his little sister the day she turned sixteen.
Before I can even think about this too hard, the door bursts open and Daisy bursts out, all strawberry blond curls and boundless energy, charging toward me like I’m the finish line of her favorite race. “Uncle Nate!”
I crouch down just as she leaps into my arms, her tiny body full of a warmth and trust I’m not sure I’ll ever deserve.
“Hey, Daze,” I murmur. She smells of sun and home and the apple pie she must have been tasting as she helped bake it. “Did you miss me?”
“Uh-huh,” she nods. “Uncle Nate, look .” She’s unusually animated tonight. Daisy points to her lips, which are barely painted with a dab of pink lipstick. “It’s called Pink Kisses. My new friend let me wear some. And she let me wear this. ” It’s a tiny gold butterfly necklace.
“Your new friend, huh.” Let me guess. Just thinking of her being here feels like a jolt directly to the heart. We haven’t seen each other in years. I’ve seen her once since that day…almost eight years ago now.
“Did you have your meeting in the city?”
“Sure did,” I reply, straightening up with her in my arms and walking us toward the house. “But the whole time, I was counting the minutes ‘til I could get back to my favorite girl.”
I carry Daisy up the wide front steps I helped my dad build when I was around Daisy’s age and I pull open the screen door. With Daisy’s arms wrapped around my neck, I take in the scene—Ma serving up fried chicken and homemade cornbread, Luke and Leo in from the hayfields arguing and drinking beer, Dakota and Tobias setting the food on the table.
And there she is.
Sitting at the far end, sipping a glass of white wine.
Roxie Tucker.
Our eyes meet, and there’s that jolt again, but a thousand times stronger now that she’s actually here . In the very same room. Breathing the same air and filling it with that special brand of electricity she always seemed to carry around with her.
How’d she get so fucking beautiful?
She’s always been beautiful, but Holy Mother . She’s bloomed into a full-blown goddess, sophisticated and citified but still with that country girl edge.
My little sister’s best friend, and my childhood best friend’s little sister, who hasn’t been back since before her brothers’ career went into overdrive. Or at least not when I was around.
Dakota never mentioned Roxie was coming for a visit. Kade never mentioned it either, even though I talked to him around a week ago. We talk once a month or so. He told me he had the time, now that their tour is over, to catch up for a beer sometime soon.
I place Daisy down on the chair next to Roxie’s and make a point of not staring, even though it takes everything I have not to. Roxie Tucker is no longer the gangly teenager running wild that I remember. No, the woman in front of me is all grown up…and holy hell . My addled brain can hardly handle the extent of how fucking gorgeous she is, sitting here all almost-innocently like she isn’t detonating a bomb in the middle of my chest right now.
Her dark hair still hangs as long as it always did, but it’s thicker now, cut in a fancier style, falling in shiny waves that catch all the golden light of the antique pendant lights hanging over the kitchen island.
Those same vivid blue eyes that used to spark with mischief now hold a depth that’s downright intoxicating. The years peel away and I’m nineteen again, battling with myself for not being able to resist kissing my best friends’ little sister.
She was a kid then. She caught me off guard once and I allowed it. More than allowed it. I was fucking destroyed by it, in the best possible way. But it was a mistake. Of course it was. She was only fifteen.
She’s not fifteen anymore.
My family is doing their usual thing of joking and chattering like it’s going out of style, but I barely hear any of it.
“Roxie Tucker,” I drawl, trying like hell not to be transfixed by the shape of her mouth and the way she’s filling out that cowgirl shirt.
Damn it. I force myself not to react to her the way my body wants to. There are children present. And younger brothers who would love nothing more than to turn an old, speculated-about spark into tonight’s entertainment.
“Nate Boone,” she says, almost sassily, maybe tuning in to the fact that my greeting isn’t so much a greeting as it is a long-built system of defense. There’s not a single day that’s gone by that I haven’t at least once lingered over that memory of our long-ago kiss.
Damn, that kiss was sweet. The sweetest I ever had.
Our eyes are locked as we both deal with the shock of seeing each other again. Her smile is slow, her eyes full of all those old memories of our childhoods together, and also the ones just the two of us share. I can practically feel the air crackle with her wildfire effect.
Keep it together, Boone.
Daisy tugs on my hand, a reminder that I’m not just Nate Boone, I'm Uncle Nate, and there’s comfort and an anchor in that. The rest of my life might be a blur of problems to be solved, but I’m solid as a rock when I’m Uncle Nate.
“Uncle Nate, this is my new friend,” Daisy informs me, as if I’m not already acutely aware of the woman who’s suddenly filling the room with a whole different kind of light. “Her name is Miss Roxie and she’s so beautiful.”
She sure the hell is .
“Can I get some pink cowgirl boots, Uncle Nate? To wear when I’m riding my new pony?”
“Of course you can,” I hear myself say.
“Look at Miss Roxie’s. They have pink on them!”
I’ve spent ten years trampling all my emotions down into some deep reservoir inside myself, where they can’t affect me too much. I’ve had too much work to do and too much tragedy to cope with and too many people to take care of to let any of it rise up enough to actually feel .
I do it again now. She’s here for the weekend and only the weekend. Then she’ll be back on the road, her life full of traveling the world.
I’m a father now, or close enough, with commitments that take all my time and focus.
I almost don’t do it.
I don’t know if I can control myself enough not to give away all those deep-rooted feelings I’ve had for Roxie Tucker my whole life, right here in front of my very observant family.
So I steel myself. I lean in and kiss her cheek, keeping my tone as light as I’m capable of. “Hey, Rox. Good to see you again.”
The scent of her, of hothouse flowers, warm sunshine and all my best memories makes me almost dizzy.
“Good to see you too, Nate. You look…good. A little more buttoned up than the country boy I used to know, but I like it.” More of the sass, but she’s gentle about it, like she kn ows I’m only wearing these city clothes because I was forced to by circumstance.
I pull off my tie and take off my jacket. “I might as well be wearing a noose and a straitjacket. And those stiffs from Seattle weren’t worth dressing up for.”
Our gazes hold even though I’m trying not to drink in the sight of her like I’ve been wandering across a desert for the past eight years and suddenly come face to face with a lush, gorgeous oasis. Fuck, she’s pretty.
“How’d the meeting with the developers go?” Luke asks, and I’m relieved by the distraction.
“About as well as I expected it would. It was a ridiculous plan which I’ll be making sure never happens.” Leo hands me a beer and I take a long sip. “Get all the hay in?”
“Around eighty percent of it,” Leo says. “We’ll get the rest of it in tomorrow morning. The weather report says it’s not supposed to rain until sundown.”
“You better hope they’re right.” If I’d helped them, we would have finished the job today. But I’ve learned by now I can’t be in twelve places at once. We all had to learn how to Get Shit Done a long time ago and despite my twin brothers’ happy-go-lucky attitude, most of the time they’re reliable. “I’ll give you a hand if we do it early. I’ve got to be at the Barrington project building site by one.”
The twins are both hard workers and strong as fuck, but they’re also a lot more laid back than I’ve ever been. Luke is more of a natural farmer. He’s genuinely passionate about learning new things and he reads up on all the latest farming technology and techniques.
Leo’s more of a numbers guy and the more business-minded of the two. Which makes them a good team.
But neither of them has the relentless drive I have. What they’d rather be doing most of the time is jamming together and making music. I don’t begrudge them this. Hell, I’d rather be sitting around making music too. But life isn’t like that.
The farm and all the challenges that go along with it don’t keep them up at night, and I’m glad. They haven’t had to carry the brunt of the burden of the responsibilities of the mortgage, the bank, the insurances and so on, but whatever. That’s my job.
Tobias places a huge platter of fried chicken on the table in front of the girls. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “this evening’s menu includes extra crispy fresh buttermilk fried chicken with paprika seasoning, skillet-baked cornbread, apple slaw, and home-harvested green beans. Ladies first. Rox, Ma, Daisy, Dee, get in there before these boys have a chance to clean the plate. And save room for dessert. Daisy helped with the pies and they are masterpieces.”
A small hand touches my arm. “I helped, Uncle Nate.”
I look down at Daisy’s angelic little face. “I can’t wait to taste them, darlin’.”
“Still warm and served with homemade vanilla ice cream and home-grown blackberries,” Tobias adds.
“Wow,” gasps Roxie, and I am beyond grateful that I’m now seated with the tablecloth providing coverage, because her breathless gasp does things to me that are not suitable for family occasions.
I’ve dated a lot of women over the years, but nothing ever really took. I remember one woman I briefly dated was there the last time I saw Roxie. It was around five years ago. I’d gone to play pool with Kade and the boys at some bar in Nashville and I was pissed off because the woman—whose name I can’t actually remember—made a huge deal out of the fact that Roxie and I talked for a while. I broke up with her before we even left the bar and never saw her again.
I remember holding myself back from going after Roxie that night. I almost couldn’t hold myself back. But with her being not quite eighteen at the time and with her brothers surrounding her like a brigade of hell-bent bodyguards—and me among them—I hadn’t. I’m practically another brother, or at least that’s how we all saw it at the time. In those days, I had a lot to prove and a mountain of responsibility I didn’t fully yet know how to handle.
But that was a long time ago. And the thought flares tonight like a neon sign in a bar window: I am not, in fact, Roxie’s brother. Not even close.
There have been a string of mostly one-night-stands between then and now. Occasionally the loneliness and the animal urges become too much to bear and I’ll go out with someone new. But none of these “relationships” last. None of them mean anything to me. I can barely remember their names, even when I’m with them. Which has led to more than one pissed-off meltdown.
I’ve been accused of being cold-hearted and unfeeling. Of not being capable of love. Of using people.
The problem is, it’s all true. I chalked it up to the fact that I work so much and I don’t have time to give them the kind of commitment they always want and cry about because I don’t give it.
Deep down I think I’ve always known why, even if I haven’t allowed myself to fully acknowledge it for what it is. And I realize now that all those women were wrong.
About all of it.
Here, with the raucous sound of my family’s conversation and laughter surrounding me, I do my best to deal with the wrecking ball that’s currently pummeling its way through my soul.
Maybe I always knew. Maybe I just never allowed it enough oxygen to fully sink in, because it was a thing that happened when we were kids and I always figured she’d moved on. Or that her brothers would never allow it. Or, more accurately, that I would never allow it because she was too young and too close to home.
But now, with her scent and the sound of her laughter branding itself onto my broken, unfeeling heart, all those shattered pieces feel like they’re sealing hotly back together. The forging force of it kick-starts my pulse into a slow-burning high gear, as though it’s just realized what it’s pumping for .
The reason I couldn’t love anyone else is suddenly crystal clear, like the clouds have cleared away and the sun is shining directly onto the little hell-raiser sitting at my kitchen table with her mischief-glinting blue eyes and her thick dark hair and that banging little body that I’d fucking kill for.
It’s because none of them were her.