Chapter 38
CARTER
Irented an SUV at the airport, opting for one with four-wheel drive. It was hell on gas mileage but it would keep me from getting stranded in the torrential rains that seemed to plague this part of the country. I didn’t mind bad weather, as long as I was prepared for it.
The sky was still dark when I drove away from the airport in Louisville but it lightened as I got close to Ferris. By the time I took the familiar turnoff to get to Granny’s Acre Farm, the first rays of the sun were turning the world golden. It was the perfect lighting for our reunion.
I parked beside her van, wondering if she was already awake.
Was she watching me right then, wondering who the hell was showing up on her property at this ungodly hour?
Would she come marching out with her shotgun again?
Or would she see it was me and come running from the house, stripping her clothes on the way?
When there was no sign of her, I walked up to her house, vibrating with excitement.
Big romantic gestures had never been my thing, but I suspected it was because I had never been in love before.
I would happily move heaven and earth to be with Shelby, as I had proved when I quit my job in spectacular fashion.
I hadn’t just burned that bridge. I had blown it up, incinerated what was left, and pissed on the ashes. It would all be worth it when Shelby saw me standing on her porch.
With a grin so big it hurt, I knocked on her door, trying to find the right balance. I wanted it to be loud enough for her to hear it but I didn’t want to sound like I was the SWAT team banging on her door.
There was no response, and I worried I might have used too light of a touch. I rapped my knuckles more forcefully on the wood, then waited. No sound came from inside, making me pretty sure the house was empty.
Of course, she was probably already out in the chicken house, feeding her girls.
Maybe I hadn’t gotten here early, like I thought.
Maybe I had gotten here well past her starting time.
The farm life was still new to me, but I would get my bearings soon enough.
If not, I was sure Shelby would whip me into shape.
I sauntered over to the chicken house to find Shelby, but she wasn’t there either. I called out her name, in case she was crouched in the corner of a pen somewhere scrubbing at something.
But no. There was no response, other than the chickens clucking agreeably. A quick look at the feed troughs told me the birds hadn’t been fed yet. Concern panged through me.
Shelby would never neglect her animals. She had hammered it home to me that the work had to happen every single day, no holidays, no exceptions. She wouldn’t just forget to feed the chickens and ducks. That told me she wasn’t anywhere here on the property.
The most logical explanation was that she had slept somewhere else last night.
A horrible image of her with another man flashed through my mind and I felt like I would be sick.
I quickly banished the thought, knowing she wasn’t the type to bounce into some random guy’s bed just to forget about me.
It was more likely she had gotten hammered in town with Lila and Jake, and she had slept on their couch instead of driving back to the farm.
Wherever she was, I knew one thing for certain: these birds needed breakfast.
I went to get a sack of feed and started the process. Shelby’s van was here, so whenever she came back, she would be getting a ride from someone. I kept an eye out for an unfamiliar car rolling up the drive.
I knew she was going to go nuts when she saw me here—and that some of the chores were done. I worked up a sweat in the unseasonably warm morning, and I took my shirt off. No one was around to see me, and if Shelby came back to find me shirtless, all the better.
I considered stripping all the way down while I worked, so the first thing she saw when she came back was me in my full glory.
What stopped me was that she probably wouldn’t be alone when she came back, and I didn’t need to flash Lila or Jake, or worse, her brother.
Shane already had a bone to pick with me and I didn’t want to give him another one.
By the time I finished up with the feeding, there was still no sign of Shelby. Starting to worry, I pulled out my phone to just call her. It was late enough in the day that she wouldn’t still be sleeping off a wild night. When my screen lit up, I saw I had two missed calls from her.
Holy shit. I hadn’t felt the vibrations while I was working. She had called me sometime between when I first got here and now. But she hadn’t left a voicemail or sent a text. I had no idea why she had been trying to get in touch with me.
I called her back immediately, but it went directly to voicemail without ringing, like her phone was turned off. Fuck. I left her a message anyway, telling her to call me back as soon as she got my message. Then I threw my shirt back on, got in my SUV, and headed toward Ferris.
The feed store was hopping as usual in the morning.
Jake was behind the counter having a spirited argument with an old man about what looked like a fishing rod, which the feed store also sold.
This place was amazing and I was always finding new, cool stuff to look at.
But now was not the time. I needed to find out where the hell Shelby was.
Jake saw me approaching and he handed the rod back to the old timer, who shuffled off grumbling. “I’ll show you how to string the line later,” Jake told the guy before turning to address me. “Well, look who we have here. It’s like I’m seeing a ghost.”
“Boo,” I said and shook his hand. “I’m looking for Shelby. She’s not at the farm.”
“Yeah, man, she’s not here. And you’re not supposed to be here either.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, shoulders tensing.
Jake chuckled and shook his head. “Dude, Lila took Shelby to the airport last night. Shelby flew out to LA to surprise you. I’m guessing she didn’t find you?”
“Fuck, she’s in LA?” I ran my hand through my hair, my mind running a mile a minute.
“Yeah, she texted Lila earlier when she landed.” He shrugged. “She was going to look for you at your office. She said she missed you. But it seems you were missing her right back. Aww.”
“You have no idea,” I said. “She was all I could think about when I left.”
“So you decided to come back?” Jake nodded like it made sense. “How long are you going to stick around this time? Because me and that old fart will be going fishing in a few days. You’re welcome to come along.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun, but I need to find Shelby.” I leaned on the counter. “You said she landed in LA, but I’m obviously not at my office. So where is she now?”
“Right.” He pulled his phone out. “Let me call Lila. She’ll know what’s going on.” He handed the phone to me. “It’s ringing. You talk. I don’t want to be passing messages back and forth like a dumbass.”
I grabbed the phone and held it to my ear.
Lila answered. “If you need me to bring the ointment, I don’t have it yet and—”
“Lila, hey, it’s Carter,” I interrupted.
“What? Carter? Why did it say my husband was calling?”
“Because I have his phone—I’m at the feed store, I mean. I wasn’t trying to make it sound like I kidnapped him or something.”
Lila laughed in confusion. “The feed store? What is going on, Carter?”
I caught her up and she laughed harder. “I’m glad you and Jake called me,” she said. “I was about to tell him. Shelby is flying back as we speak. She asked me to go pick her up from the airport.”
Relief flooded through me, followed by excitement. “Which airport?”
“Louisville.”
I snorted. “I just came from there.”
“How would you feel about going back?” Lila asked. “I think she’d be a hell of a lot happier to see you picking her up than me.”
“It would be my pleasure. Just send me her flight info and I’ll leave right now.”
“Will do,” she said. “This will actually help me out a bunch. I have an errand to run.”
“Right, the ointment,” I said quietly, so Jake didn’t hear.
There was a long pause at the other end of the line and she sighed. “Please don’t tell Jake I mentioned that.”
I suppressed a smile. “Please don’t tell me what it’s for, and we’re good.”
“Deal.” Lila paused again. “You know, Carter, you might actually be a good guy.”
I laughed. “Thank you for saying that. And for the record, I’m just as surprised as you are. I think Shelby’s been a positive influence on me.”
“Well, go get her, then. I’ll send you her flight number.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And don’t tell her I’m coming. I want it to be a surprise.”
I passed Jake’s phone back to him, waved goodbye, and hit the road. If I was lucky, I could make it there in time to meet her when her flight landed. It was a long drive, at just around two hours, and I was bouncing with excitement the whole time.
I had assumed Shelby missed me the way I had been missing her, of course, but I hadn’t expected her to fly to California to see me again.
It seemed neither one of us could stand to be apart from one another any longer.
Also, we both sucked at communicating because one text message could have saved us both a lot of time. I didn’t care, as long as I got to her.
No matter how winding the road, if it led to Shelby, it was worth traveling.
I pulled up her flight info on my phone, and it showed me in real time where her flight was in the sky. She was close. I would never make it there before she landed.
In record time, I pulled up to the curb at the arrivals area. According to my phone, Shelby’s flight had landed a half hour ago, but I was hoping she would still be around. Taking an Uber all the way to Ferris would cost a small fortune, so I figured she would wait for Lila.
Parking at the curb for too long would get me a ticket, so I slipped the attendant a hundred bucks to ignore the infraction. Then I rushed inside. All the baggage carousels were empty, with no one standing around to wait for their bags.
Shelby was nowhere in sight. I had wanted to surprise her, but now, I decided to just text her. I didn’t want to miss her again. Then I saw a little blonde head bobbing angrily over by the help desk.
I approached and heard her having a heated conversation about her missing bag.
The guy she was talking to was a head and half taller than she was but he looked scared.
“You’re not listening to me, Lucas. There was no layover in Denver.
It was a direct flight. My bag should never have been in Colorado. ”
I walked up right behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. “Ma’am, you’re causing a disturbance.”
Shelby spun around, eyes ablaze, tongue ready to lash out with venom, but she froze when she saw me. “Carter?”
“Surprise.”
She launched herself at me to kiss me, and I wrapped my arms around her. With her lips on mine, my world seemed to come back into focus, and it was centered squarely on her.
Her little fists gripped my shirt fiercely, like she would never let me go, and I was in heaven.