Chapter 3 #2
“Sorry, buddy.” I grab my wallet from the back pocket of my jeans and pass him a bill. “Let’s go,” I grunt, marching toward the truck.
The drive to the farm takes fifteen minutes, but it feels like an hour thanks to Rebecca’s persistent needling.
“Come on, what happened? What did you say to her? I’ve never seen Faye that cold. Even when she shut down a guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer, she was nice about it. But she was brutal to you, never seen her so frosty. I legit cringed.”
“Drop it, Beck.”
“Not a chance. I need details. This is the most interesting thing to happen since Martha’s husband got caught skinny-dipping in the lake with his accountant.”
I keep my eyes fixed on the dirt track, refusing to rise to the bait. The less I say, the sooner she’ll get bored and move on.
We turn off the county road onto the long gravel drive that leads to the old farmhouse where Mom lives.
A two-story white clapboard structure that’s housed six generations of Evanses.
My mother’s flower beds burst with early spring blooms, daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths crowding the soil in a riot.
Remy’s horse is tied to the fence post near the barn.
My brother beat us here. Sure enough, he comes around the corner of the house still in his work gear: dusty jeans half covered by leather chinks, sweat-stained plaid shirt, Stetson hat shading his handsome, rugged features.
Mud clings to him in an unintentional but artful way, as if the field styled him for a damn Wrangler ad.
I climb out of the truck feeling like the amateur cowboy version. Same dusty clothes, but lacking the cinematographic flair.
“’Bout time you showed up,” he calls, lifting his chin in greeting. “I thought I’d have to eat Ma’s cake by myself.”
“Uncle Remy!” Rhys scrambles off the back seat and charges across the yard. “Grandma made cake?”
“Apple spice with caramel glaze.” Remy scoops him up and hoists him onto his shoulders in one smooth motion. “Your favorite.”
Mom appears on the porch, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She’s in her late fifties but moves like a woman twenty years younger, hair silver but still thick, pulled back in a low ponytail. She’s wearing jeans and a floral blouse.
“There’s my boy!” she calls. “Come inside. The cake’s still warm.”
“Can we have it before dinner?” my son asks hopefully.
“Only if you promise to eat all your supper afterward.” She turns to us. “What about y’all, you in for cake or are you going back out on the field?”
I glance at the sky. Still plenty of daylight left, good hours to work. The soil won’t catalog itself.
But Remy looks like he’s about to fall asleep standing up, his day having started at four thirty this morning, same as mine. And I could use the sugar rush and the comfort of my mother’s baking after the afternoon I’ve had.
“Cake sounds good,” I say.
Mom’s smile widens. “Come on, then. I’ll set up on the back porch. It’s too nice to stay inside.”
The back porch stretches the length of the house, screened in to keep the bugs out and furnished with mismatched wicker chairs and a nicked, scarred table, the wood faded from years of sunlight.
The view makes up for the shabby furniture: rolling pastures dotted with cattle, fence lines running to the tree line, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows over the grass where a few of our cows graze lazily closer to the house.
Mom brings out the cake on a platter, already cut into thick slices, and a pitcher of tea beaded with condensation.
Rhys claims the seat closest to the food, naturally, and Rebecca drops into the one next to him.
Remy takes off his hat, hangs it on the back of his chair, and runs a hand through his hair—longer and darker than mine, more brown than chestnut.
I take the chair at the end, farthest from everyone. Mom cuts me a side look that says she’s noticed.
“Alright, what’s up with you?” Remy asks around a mouthful of cake, jabbing his fork at me. “Did someone piss in your coffee?”
“Language,” Mom warns, just as Rhys proclaims, “That’ll be a dollar.”
Remy bows his head to Mom and smiles at Rhys. “Add it to my tab, kiddo.”
“Ryder got in trouble with Miss Rose today.” Rebecca answers our brother, ignoring my warning glare. “He got a scolding for mysterious reasons he refuses to share.”
“Miss Rose never scolds,” Rhys declares, his face smeared with caramel. “She never yells at us, not even when Tommy Peterson put a frog in the crayon box and it jumped out and made Lily Cooper cry.”
“Yeah?” Remy asks. “What did she do then?”
“She freed the frog. Then she told Tommy that frogs are living creatures who deserve to be treated with respect, and they need to be in their natural hab… habibi…”
“Habitat,” Mom supplies.
“That. And then she made Tommy write an apology note to Lily. But she didn’t punish him, just explained why what he did was wrong.”
“What about you?” Remy winks at me. “Did she paddle you? Ruler to the ass?” He’s laughing now, the bastard. “Did you like it?”
I flip him the bird behind my son’s back.
“Dad!” Rhys catches me anyway. “That’s a bad word with your fingers!”
I sigh and pull out my wallet again, handing over another dollar. At this rate, Faye Rose will cost me a fortune in swear jar contributions.
Mom sets down her tea glass with a gentle clink. “I hope you were polite to Miss Rose. She’s a lovely young woman, and I didn’t raise you to be anything less than a gentleman.”
Guilt simmers up to a full boil. With all the occasions she had to go in my place, Mom has interacted with Rhys’s teacher plenty, probably seen that warm smile and easy laugh that I glimpsed on the playground.
“Please, please, please tell us what happened,” Rebecca begs, clasping her hands together in mock prayer. “I need to know what you did to make the nicest teacher at Harbor Point ice you out like you were worth less than the muck stuck to her boots.”
All eyes turn to me. Even Remy has stopped eating, which is saying something.
I shove a massive forkful of cake into my mouth—so much cake that my cheeks puff out and crumbs spill over my bottom lip. I chew slowly, making an entire production of it.
“Sorry,” I mumble through the mouthful, spraying more crumbs. “Can’t talk with my mouth full. My mama raised me better.”
The table erupts in laughter. Even Mom cracks a smile, shaking her head.
“Real mature,” Rebecca says, but she’s grinning.
I swallow the too-large bite, the heavy sweetness sliding down my throat, take a long drink of tea, and cut another piece.
The laughter dies down, conversation drifts to other things: the heifers getting close to calving in the south pasture, Rebecca’s plans for the summer flower fields, Remy’s ongoing battle with a fence line that keeps sagging near the creek.
But my mind isn’t on any of it.
My thoughts are lost on a smile that died the second it landed on me.
Wrapped up in honey-colored eyes that went from warm to cold in a heartbeat.
Swirling over the way Faye Rose crouched down to hug my son with more love than his mother ever showed, and the way she straightened up and looked at me like I was an afterthought she’d already dismissed.
Will I ever be able to reverse the terrible first impression I made?
And why the hell has that become the single most insistent thought drilling through my head?