Chapter 21 Teetering
Teetering
Jenny
With the baking done for the day and the lunchtime rush coming to an end, I perched on my stool and opened Mahjong on my phone.
The timer was running out, and I only had a few tiles left when the bell over the door trilled.
I lifted my head to offer a smile and came face-to-face with Deacon’s mother for the first time in well over a decade.
She’d aged more than I expected, and it hurt my heart that I knew the probable reason why.
“Hello, Mrs. Raine,” I greeted.
She’d never, not in all the time I’d worked at Buns and Biscuits, come into this bakery. Not even when Ansel owned it.
“Hello.”
My knees quaked. “Can I help you with something?”
She looked over the racks behind me and the case in front of me. “I’ll take a baguette and a sourdough loaf, please.”
I nodded and commented, “Ansel’s sourdough is famous around here.”
I didn’t know why she was here, but I knew it wasn’t for bread.
Hands shaking, I retrieved the paper bags with my Buns and Biscuits icon on it and packaged her bread.
Laying them down on the counter in front of her, I asked, “Would that be all?”
“Yes, thank you,” she replied, digging into her wallet for a ten-dollar bill.
I opened the cash register, scooped out her change, and placed it in her trembling hand.
Tipping my chin up, I met her eyes. There was anger flashing in their depths, but also distress.
“I want you to leave my son alone,” she blurted. “Nothing good can come of you two being together.”
Her words sliced through me like a knife.
Deacon and I hadn’t talked about his parents, what they thought about him being with me. He hadn’t offered the information, and I’d been afraid to ask.
This was why.
She narrowed her gaze on me.
“He won’t even talk to us,” she spat.
My eyebrows leapt, and I spoke without thinking. “Aren’t you seeing him everyday on the farm?”
She laughed, the sound bitter and sour. “I guess you two don’t spend much time talking.”
A red haze filtered over my vision.
Mouth dry, hands shaking, I slammed the cash drawer. “I’m going to do you a favour this one time and not tell Deacon you stopped by--”
Her mouth opened, but I held up a palm.
My voice shook with rage and a sense of misplaced betrayal. “Provided you don’t say another word. And I suggest you go back to your regular bakery.”
“I can shop wherever I want,” she snapped.
“You can,” I agreed. “But Moose Lake is a small town. When Deacon finds out you’re coming here and asks me how you treated me, I won’t lie for you.”
She drew back and looked at me, her gaze assessing.
Lip curling, she opened her mouth to speak.
I leaned forward. “Not another word.”
Lips thinning, she spun on her heel and walked out the door.
Her bread left on the counter.
Shaking, I backed up, sat back down on my stool, and braced my hands on my thighs as our conversation played out repeatedly in my mind.
My mind churned.
One thing stood out in stark relief and left me cold. If Deacon wasn’t working on the farm, what was he doing?
There was so much I didn’t know about him and the past ten years, so much I didn’t want to know.
But I should know what he was thinking for the future.
Maybe it was time we started making plans and facing the obstacles that stood between us.
Like Adam.
Running into him at the movies, watching him leer at me in front of his wife and Deacon, as if they should understand why it was permissible, cut me deep.
But I wasn’t who they said I was.
I’d never been that woman.
However, I was a woman holding far too many secrets, one of them mine. Two, now, if I counted his mother’s visit to my bakery.
I looked down at my hands. They trembled in my lap. Everything in me wanted to forget, but I needed to tell him.
When his truck pulled up at three o’clock, I locked the door and ran out to meet him.
He smiled and leaned over for a kiss. “Hello, beautiful.”
“Hey,” I breathed, the tension in my shoulders falling away in his presence.
“You want to come to my place?” he asked.
I held up my overnight bag. “I like your place.”
“That’s good.” He smiled. “Maybe we’ll buy it. What do you think?”
I couldn’t stop the smile from stealing over my face. “It’s definitely something to think about.”
His house was my dream.
We moved around the kitchen together, a synchronized duet, putting dinner together before laying it out on the wide, country table.
He pulled the heavy chair to his right out for me to sit, then tucked me under.
I guess you two don’t spend much time talking.
I understood her anger, but it had nothing to do with me.
But she was right about one thing, we needed to start talking. “How’s it going on the farm?”
He grimaced. “They don’t need my help, and as you know, it’s not my first choice.”
“What have you been doing all these weeks?”
“Research, paperwork, dealing with investments, and courting you.” He grinned. “That alone is a full-time job.”
I tried to smile but failed. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t working on the farm?”
He pressed his lips together, his brow lowering. “I don’t want my family involved in us in any way. Not yet.”
“Eventually?” I asked lightly. Did he hope things might iron out?
“Perhaps,” he allowed.
“Is it likely?” I asked softly.
He frowned. “They’re not happy I’m seeing you. And they’re even less happy that I won’t have much to do with them if they don’t accept you’re my choice.”
“I don’t want to come between you and your family.”
He leveled me with his gaze. “And that’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“Deacon,” I began. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “You’re not looking at this from the right angle. You and me, we’re one. You’re worried about coming between me and my family. I’m worried about them coming between me and you. I’m not going to let that happen.”
I nodded, wondering how long he could hold out.
“Will you?” he asked, his eyes as serious as I’d ever seen them.
I blinked, my eyes skittering away as I thought about what he asked. The truth was, I had let them come between us.
And I still was.
But I could change. It would be hard enough for him to take a hard line with his family, he didn’t need to fight me on it as well.
“No,” I answered firmly. “I won’t.”
Hours later, after curling up on a couch I could well imagine being mine, he took me to bed, making love to me until the wee hours of the morning.
While he pulled my back to his chest, tucked his face into my neck, and fell into a deep sleep, I stared unseeing into the darkness.
Our relationship was a wild, off-the-tracks, rollercoaster with neither of us at the controls. And I was living a double life.
On one side, I fought off my mother, his mother, and the women who wanted him, while doing my utmost to avoid his father, and shield him from the dirt they flung at me.
On the other side, I pretended everything was perfect.
The more I kept from him, the harder it was to come clean.
It was a fine balance.
And I was teetering.