Chapter 13
HONEY
I decide to dash back to Seventh Heaven to slip on my new sundress and sandals and maybe even my new hat before Fox finishes whatever he’s doing at Greene’s. I stash the hat box in the bike basket and pedal toward Seventh Heaven.
If I had just been concentrating better on what I was doing, instead of thinking about whether I was going to look cute or just plain stupid in a cowboy hat, I wouldn’t have bowled through the stop sign on the corner next to the ‘Don’t That Take the Cake’ cake shop.
I jam on the bike brakes as a car almost sideswipes me.
My bike tailspins. I frantically steer away from the large group of tourists ogling the cakes in the window, then careen helplessly into the ‘Don’t That Take the Cake’ sign.
The tourists make their way toward me as I lie on the pavement groaning.
“I’m fine,” I yell out. A young woman wearing a T-shirt that says, “I got healed in Heaven” snaps a photo before I even have the chance to peel myself off the ground.
“Look! Don’t that take the cake!” she yells, chortling to her friends and showing them the photo.
When I try to push myself up, my wrist screams in pain and buckles under my weight. I slide back down onto the pavement.
Fox pushes through the group of ladies. He bends down in front of me. “Hey.” He slips his arm under my waist. “Can you stand?”
I push my face into his chest as someone else snaps a photo of me. “Please tell them not to take any more pictures,” I plead into John’s chest.
He stands and turns. “If anyone else takes another photo, I’m going to break your cell phone,” he growls. “You got that?”
Except for a few stragglers, the ladies scurry away at John’s protracted glare.
He drops to a knee again, slides an arm under me, and lifts me in his arms. “You should have been watching where you were going,” he tells me. I push my face into his wide, hard chest and make a sound that’s half laugh, half sob.
“It’s not funny. I’m such an idiot. I think I reinjured my wrist and might have twisted my ankle.”
He runs a finger along my cheek. “Did you hit your head, Tiny?”
“No.”
He tucks me close and heads in the opposite direction from his pickup.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m taking you to the clinic.”
“No! Take me home!” I scrub at my face. Big, fat, angry tears are plopping on John’s shirt as the reality of what I just did sinks in more clearly. My wrist and ankle are throbbing, Ned’s bike is mangled, and someone took a photo of me and might have posted it on social media.
“You might need X-rays. Or a splint. Or who knows what?”
“No!”
He curses, turns away from the clinic, carries me to his pickup, backtracks then puts my bike in the back, and joins me, his expression solemn when he sets the hatbox on the seat. “You need to get checked out at the clinic.”
“You already said that.” I bite out the words, then stare past him. “And I said no.”
He pulls out of the parking lot and drives silently, his jaw tight, his fists clenching the steering wheel. I slump against the door, silently kicking myself over and over again for getting myself in this position.
When we get to the dirt road leading to Heaven, he pulls the pickup over to the side.
“What’s going on? Damn it, Wren, you can trust me.” His eyes burn into mine.
“I can’t tell you.”
He sits back and stares out the front window. “I don’t know what to tell you because it seems like we’re at a standstill if you can’t trust me.”
“Then we’re at a standstill,” I whisper. “Because I’m not going to pull you into the mess I made.”
He shifts toward me, meeting my gaze head on.
“Too late. I already jumped in. Waders first. Whether you damn well want me to be in this mess with you or not, I’m there.
” He stares at me so long and so hard that I feel it all cracking—the weight of the secrets, the heaviness in my heart, my resolve to keep a barrier between the two of us.
“Do you have social media?” I ask him, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Does it look like I have social media?”
“Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook—”
“I know what social media is. I just don’t make time for it.”
“I need to find out if that woman posted that photo.”
“If so, it was just that one, right? Just one photo.”
I frown out the window in frustration. “You don’t understand.”
“Right. So make me understand. Because I’m here with you, trying to understand.”
“How many bakeries are named ‘Don’t That Take the Cake?’”
“Am I supposed to know that?”
“With that one photo, it’ll take no time whatsoever for whoever he has looking out for me to track me down here in Paradise Springs.”
“He as in the man who hit you?”
I nod, crumpling further into the seat. “But…”
“Doesn’t seem like there should ever be a but in this kind of situation.”
“The bruises are from a car accident. I wasn’t lying about that.” I look away from his unwavering gaze. “But he caused the accident and he has hit me… It’s complicated.”
“Doesn’t sound complicated to me. He laid his hands on you. You need to stay away from him. That’s it.” He crosses his arms and stares out at the marsh while tears gather in my eyes.
It does sound simple. But why wasn’t it?
“I feel like I’m stuck in this situation that I’ll never get out of,” I whisper, as much to myself as to him.
“Remember what I said about Bert?” His eyes roam my face, while I remember who the heck Bert was.
“Your donkey?”
“Yeah. That’s Bert.” He locks eyes with me, his gaze level. “Who do I need to kick? Give me a name.”
I don’t answer.
He puts the car in drive and drives a couple more miles, glaring out at the road before easing the truck off the road again. “Here’s what we’re doing. We’re going back to my place. You’re staying with me tonight. Maybe forever, if we can’t rectify this situation.”
“We can’t rectify it.”
“Fine. You’ll stay with me forever. Meanwhile, between now and forever, I’ll ask Bear to come by, take a look at your wrist and ankle, and—” He glances over at my hand cradling my stomach. “And you need to tell him you’re pregnant, Wren.”
My gut plummets to the floor mats. “Is that why you’ve been doing all this? You feel sorry for me because I’m pregnant?”
He turns to me and levels me with another gaze.
“Last week, Larry Galahad, who works at another ranch down the road, broke his leg. I felt bad for him. The guy has a family to feed, and he needs two good legs to do his job. But I didn’t show up at his house, bring him wildflowers and pizza, and I didn’t buy him a cowboy hat in a fancy hatbox because I thought that he’d look cute in it.
And I sure as shit didn’t ask him to stay with me so I could take care of him. ” He frowns at me.
I can feel my lips quivering into a laugh, so I bite them, and his frown deepens. That frown is becoming so darn endearing that I have to force myself not to lean over and kiss it.
“Are you making fun of me?” he asks.
“No. I was just thinking about kissing that frown off you.”
“I might let you do that after you tell me what the hell is going on. Because if we start kissing now, we might not get to anything else.” His gaze sweeps over my face slowly, like a caress.
“Okay. No kissing.”