13. AVERY
AVERY
Two weeks until school starts and I’m really freaking nervous about what I’m doing. Am I staying, or am I going back?
Then I start wondering why I still haven’t heard anything in regard to the documents filled at court almost over a week ago.
I know Carl is going to come back at me for filing for divorce and sole guardianship.
Especially when he’s meant to be looking like a stand-up citizen.
When he finds out he’s going to make my life hell.
And I’m trying to keep myself on guard and ready for anything.
But the waiting is killing me, making me paranoid and jumpy.
I’m so desperate and ready to be done with all this and move on that I keep going over the conversation I had with Uncle Mike about it last night.
He said he would see what he could do to help seeing as he plays golf with a couple of judges Dad was also friends with.
Although it would probably help if I wasn’t in a different city, or so he keeps telling me.
I keep walking around, aimlessly picking fruit to maybe distract myself. It doesn’t work, though—nothing does, because if I’m not stressing over Carl, I’m pining and confusing myself over Rhett.
“Mommy, can I go help Doc now?” Iris asks, handing me a couple of apples she’s picked from the lower branches. “Please? Please, please, please?”
Attempting to ignore her puppy dog eyes, I look ahead only to be greeted by Jo’s narrowed stare.
“Stop it,” I snap at her, turning away.
Whenever Rhett’s here, she can’t stop giving me all these crazy, pushy signals to talk to him.
Over the last few days, I’ve managed to avoid him somewhat with his long hours and busy schedule.
When we do see each other, it’s awkward.
Mostly down to me because every time he’s near me, it’s hard to keep my distance.
Especially with Iris following him around all the damn time.
“Pleeeeease? Please can I go help Rhett with the horses?”
“Fine.” I relinquish on my plan to put space between us even though he’s been here almost every day, making good on his promise to give me time but invade my space.
With a squeal Iris runs toward the stables, not giving me one single backward glance.
“How long are you going to avoid him?” Jo asks when I turn to help her pick some more apples.
The food bank in town is having a special treat day tomorrow, and Jo has volunteered to make fresh apple pies for them.
“I’m not avoiding anyone.”
“Oh, sorry, I assumed that you were pushing him away after your conversation at the beach. You know, him being divorced and the reasons behind it…”
“Fine, I’m avoiding him. I’m purposefully staying away from him so that I don’t do something stupid.”
Dropping the apples in the basket on the ground, she pats Wave’s head when she fetches another nearby. Meanwhile, I keep waiting for her to say something. She always has something to say. It’s one of the things that has made the last two weeks at the ranch easier to handle.
“I’m guessing that by stupid you mean giving Rhett a chance?”
“Jo…” I sigh in defeat, looking in the direction of the stables again. “A chance for what? I told you, as I told him, I need time. I need to figure my life out.”
“No, you need to be happy. Figure that out first.” With a shrug she goes back to picking some more fruit, leaving me to think about what she said.
I watch while Rhett and Iris go in and out of the stables, carting the old hay and poop in the wheelbarrow. Even though they’re too far for me to hear her laughter, I can see it as Iris tips her head back and her entire body vibrates with it.
He’s so good to her. The thought breaks my heart in a completely new way. Knowing his past and seeing the way he dotes on her…it doesn’t seem fair. Especially when Carl never showed any interest in her.
“It’s not rocket science, sugar,” Jo purrs from behind me. “It’s all about heart, and Rhett’s is big.”
“I know, and it’s what makes it harder.”
“Avery…” Standing beside me, she wraps her hand around my waist, leaning into me as much as she also holds me to her.
“Look at them, Jo, just look at them. As much as I’m terrified that he’ll obliterate me, it’s her that I don’t want to hurt. I’ve done that enough.”
“I understand that, sugar, but you are not the one that hurt her. You can’t blame yourself for something that quite simply isn’t true.”
“I should’ve listened to Rafe, and she would’ve never seen…”
“Maybe, but a real man would never raise his hand to a woman, especially not one he’s promised to protect and cherish.”
“He should’ve told me he didn’t want me.
Instead, he used me and lied…and then he hurt me.
Why?” I choke the words out with every viselike squeeze of my heart.
When she doesn’t answer, I turn to face her.
“Rhett could’ve told her he was unhappy or that he couldn’t deal with it all…
he could’ve walked away instead of cheating on his wife. ”
“You’re a good girl, Avery. Smart. And you know as well as I do that we all make mistakes. Isn’t that human nature?”
Of course I know that—it’s part of the reason I can’t bring myself to completely push Rhett away.
“Human nature sucks.”
“Yeah, I agree with you on that,” she scoffs, putting all her weight on her stick with both hands. “You know, there is no one I trust more with my life than that man. After Duke died, Rhett could’ve forgotten about me. Instead, he kept coming over here even when I told him to go.”
“Sounds about right.”
“He sat on my porch step for days after the funeral, and then one day I woke up and there he was looking after what was left of my life. Shoveling horse shit and posting ridiculous checks through my door.” With trembling hands, she tries to tuck my flyaway hairs behind my ears, giving up when her fingers don’t cooperate.
“Rhett’s nothing like the man that hurt you. ”
“I know, and it’s why he has the ability to crush me.”
“Between you and me, I think he feels the same. You’re not the usual Dr. Reynolds groupie.”
“Wait, is that an actual thing?”
“Oh yeah, he’s got a real fan club full of pretty bimbos with more tits than brains and absolutely nothing to make him pause and want more than…well, you know the story. All he’s gotta do is smile and they get all weak at the knees.”
In an instant his words replay in my head, making my stomach turn. I can have that effect, you know—make you weak in the knees.
If I wasn’t already wondering what he could possibly see in me, her statement makes my heart fall to my feet.
Why would he want me when he can have any woman he smiles at?
“He cheated on his wife because she was a two-bit, money-hungry hussy, and he might feel bad enough for what he did, in the circumstances that he did it, not to tell anyone the straight-up truth about Sarah, Willa, and all the women that sniff around him.” Turning, she starts for one of the trees on the farther side of the orchard before shaking her head and coming back to where I’m glued to the dirt.
“You know, perfect doesn’t exist, Avery.
And even if it did, we’d probably scratch at it so hard trying to find a flaw that we would taint it ourselves. ”
My heart falters at her words, so much like my father’s that a deep pang of longing hits me hard in the chest, nearly knocking me off my feet and stealing my breath. I look up at the sky, and a fat drop of rain hits me straight between the eyes.
There are only a few bright white clouds, and the sun is beaming down so hard that it burns through my eyelids, and nothing else follows.
“Look at that, your own drop of luck,” Jo chuckles, still looking at me. “It’s a good omen, sugar.”
Don’t you just love the rain, baby girl?
It’s good omen, a promise of beautiful things to come.
I remember my father dragging me and my mother out into the yard when it poured and how they would laugh because they were so happy.
I want to be that happy that Iris will feel it like I did.
All I’ve ever wanted was to have a drop of the bliss they shared, even when she was told she was too sick to fight through it.
“Don’t waste it.” Jo smiles at me with tears swimming in her green eyes. Pressing a kiss to the top of my head, she turns and ventures back to picking the fruit.
I grab the basket from the ground, the weight making me wince with the slight ache the pull on my side radiates. The bruises have pretty much disappeared in the last few weeks; they seemed to get worse the first couple, and then they started to gradually fade.
Following her around to another tree, I keep glancing back, trying to catch glimpses of Rhett and Iris. And every time I do, she’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her, making my heart throb in my chest, completely at odds with my fears and the rationality behind them.
Mom always used to say that it’s not how people treat you, but by how they treat what’s yours that you see your true worth to them, and Rhett dotes on Iris like my father doted on me. As though he loves her with every cell of his being, and if he can love her, then maybe…
Stop it—it’s too soon to be thinking about another man, my head nags even as my heart melts at the sight of him picking her up when she trips over herself.
Sitting her on one of the large rain-harvesting barrels, he checks her knees, and I don’t know what he tells her, but she laughs so hard that he starts laughing, and I can’t help but smile at it all. A pinch of happiness flutters in my belly and tugs at my chest.
“Isn’t that a sight to fall for?” Jo nudges me gently as she drops another handful of apples into the basket, and we start for the house.
“In case you’re still tripping over everything in your head, you should know that second chances come around when we’re the least ready.
Believe me, I wasn’t ready for the day Duke found me.
Good men, they tend to sneak up on you.”
“God, you are pushier than Callie ever said you were.”