Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DELANEY
C ade was quiet at breakfast the next morning. Part of me wanted to try to gently encourage him to talk it out with me, and another part of me wanted to let him have the time he needed to work through his thoughts and come to me with his questions.
I wasn’t sure I had all the answers to some of the questions that I knew he’d no doubt have, but I’d always be ready to listen to them.
“What happens now?”
I looked up from my notebook where I was going over the funeral arrangements, paranoid that I’d missed something, and found my son sitting, staring at me, waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. When I could tell that he was disappointed, I set aside my notebook and added, “There isn’t a timescale or a schedule for how we do this, honey. I think we just play it by ear and see how it goes. Take time to get to know each other again, and then sit down and see what we all want the future to look like.”
He nodded thoughtfully, going back to his cereal.
“Do you think you have some idea about what you want?” I asked carefully, already hating myself for the little nudge I was giving him.
How could I expect my nine-year-old to have any answers when I myself was struggling?
“Trace is cool,” Cade said, shrugging. “It might be nice to have him around.”
I tried to keep the smile off my face, happy that the first time they’d met each other had gone so well.
“Yeah? You looking forward to going out to see the horses today?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Cade grinned and shoved some cereal into his mouth. “I came here and found a dad and an uncle. That’s pretty lucky, right? I think I like it here.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” I told him, more out of habit than anything else. “And you might have mentioned that already.”
He gulped down the cereal, shooting me one of those innocent looks that he knew meant he got away with something before he continued. “Do you think the school has a baseball team?” he asked casually.
“I’m pretty sure it does, monkey.”
“That’s nice.” And he went back to his breakfast.
I loved that my son thought he was so sly, even if his motives were more obvious than a neon sign on the moon. I wouldn’t be the one to burst his bubble, though.
Staying here would be nice. Maybe? I still couldn’t get past the thought of being in the same town as Regina. Her words from that fateful night echoed around my head, but what power did she really have over me now? She couldn’t hurt my family by threatening our livelihood, and she couldn’t take the farm from me if I didn’t want her to. There was no mortgage hanging over us now. Any leverage she may have once had was gone.
When it came time for the funeral, the whole town would know about Cade, and I had no reservations about setting them straight with what happened.
Regina had stolen ten years from us, and now she was the one standing to lose everything that was important to her. There was something delicious about that, and yet, it still wasn’t enough.
“Is there coffee? Where is it? Why are you keeping it from me?” Blake mumbled, stumbling into the kitchen in her pjs and looking like she hated the world right now.
“Good morning, Aunty Blake,” Cade cheered, and I sniggered.
She glared at him through her tangled pink hair. “Why are you so full of energy? Did you drink all the coffee?”
“I don’t drink coffee,” Cade protested with his nose wrinkled in disgust. “It’s gross.”
My phone buzzed on the table, and I quickly checked my messages.
“I have news that may make you feel less like death?” I said slowly, dragging it out.
She peered at me through one eye with the other scrunched shut as she made her way to the full coffee pot on the side. “I’m listening.”
“How do you feel about drinks tomorrow night?”
“I’m intrigued. Keep going.”
“I met someone at the flower shop. Emma’s married to someone I went to school with and moved here. She invited us out for drinks, and I completely forgot about it until she just sent me a message.”
Blake nodded, pouring the coffee carefully into the biggest mug she could find.
“Would you be okay if we went out for a couple of hours?” I asked Cade. “Her husband Griffith is someone I went to school with, and he offered to come over and”—I picked up my phone to read the message word for word—“school the kid in extreme Pokémon battling.”
Cade perked up at that suggestion. “I’m intrigued. Keep going.”
“Oh, great. You’re picking up stuff from the grumpy one in the corner,” I snarked. “What did I do to be punished like this?”
“Hey,” Blake protested. “I’ll have you know I’m an absolute delight!”
Anything else she had to say was lost behind the mug as she started to gulp the scalding coffee down. I’d never been able to figure out how she did that. She didn’t even have any creamer in it to lower the temperature.
“Okay, so we have a plan. We’re heading out to the ranch for the day. Then home, and we can eat?—”
“Pizza for dinner!” Cade cheered.
“Ooooh, I could go for pizza,” Blake added, sounding slightly more like herself now that the caffeine was hitting her system.
“The delicious pot roast that I lovingly prepared for you both yesterday, and no one even touched,” I finished, squinting at the two of them in annoyance, already feeling them getting ready to gang up on me.
“And it is filled with so much love that it would definitely last until tomorrow,” Blake added with a small smile, knowing exactly what she was doing.
“We’d be supporting the economy,” Cade added, and I blinked in surprise, not expecting that to come out of his mouth.
“You can support the economy tomorrow,” I countered. “Tonight, you’re going to eat all of your mother’s pot roast and tell her what an amazing cook she is. And if you finish it all, you can have pizza tomorrow.”
Cade grinned. “It’s a deal.” I could already see the happiness radiating from him as he decided that he’d won this round of parental bargaining.
Amateur.
I had years of experience at this and brussels sprouts in the refrigerator with his name all over them. Revenge came in the form of small green spherical veggies, and now he’d eat every single one.
“Deal?” I smiled sweetly at Blake, waiting for agreement, knowing she was just as bad. Honestly, it was easier to get Cade to eat vegetables.
She slowly blinked. I could already see the suspicion on her face, but eventually she nodded. She saw the trap and knew she was powerless to avoid it.
Parenting win!
Cade shuffled nervously in the back seat as we turned off the road and headed down the driveway toward Booker’s ranch. I’d always known he’d find a way to settle here. He’d loved it back when we were kids, and I had no doubt that he loved it even more now.
“Doing okay back there, bud?”
Cade hummed in agreement, but I could hear the nerves in his voice.
“You want to talk about it before we get there?”
I slowed the car down to delay our arrival and watched him in the rearview. When Cade looked up and met my gaze in the mirror, I pulled the car to a stop.
Pulling on the parking brake, I twisted in my seat to look into the back, propping my chin on the back of my seat.
“What if he decides that he doesn’t like me?” Cade asked. “I’m not…” He looked out the windows at the rolling fields and the few horses grazing nearby. “I don’t know about all this stuff,” he added quietly.
I thought for a moment, knowing that just telling him it was going to be fine wouldn’t work. He needed reassurance that he wasn’t lacking in his father’s family’s eyes because he was a city kid. Cade had a small-town heart. He just didn’t know it. Looking at him now, I could see how much he’d flourish in this place, and that maternal guilt moms always carried around rose up strong. I should have brought him back to this place. I shouldn’t have hidden him away like I did.
“Do you want to know a secret?” I asked.
He nodded quietly, but I could see how much he needed me to tell him that it was all going to be okay.
I glanced out the window and then turned back to him with a smile. “I hate horses,” I blurted out. “I once tried to ride one, and it threw me off into a ditch which was full of stinging nettles, and I got a rash all over my…erm, back.”
Cade snorted out a laugh.
“I’ve never been able to look at one since and not cringe.” I looked out the window at the grazing horses and shuddered dramatically. “I can see the evil in their eyes.”
Cade followed my gaze at the same time that one of the horses lifted its head, chewing a mouthful of grass, and suddenly burst into laughter.
“Yeah, real sus mom.”
“Sus?”
He looked completely unimpressed by me, and it was the first time I realized that it wouldn’t be long until I’d have a teenager to contend with. It was not, however, the first time I realized it was better to pick your fights where they’d count the most, and this was not one of those times.
“Anyway, what I’m getting at is that it doesn’t matter if you don’t know about horses, or farms, or anything to do with small towns. Your father and your Uncle Booker are going to love you anyway. Besides, everyone knows that men like to be able to teach people things. They’re going to love that this is all new to you.”
Cade looked completely unimpressed, and the next ten years of not being a cool parent anymore flashed before my eyes. I was never going to survive this. Not even the satisfaction of making him eat brussels sprouts was going to help this time.
My time was running out.