Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Delaney
“The bastard took my UTV.” Poppy opens the door to the greenhouse, and I slip around her, needing to get out of here. “Whoa, what happened?”
All the years pile on top of one another, and the tears trickle a few at a time until I can’t control them anymore.
“Delaney.” Poppy puts her arm around my shoulders. “Tell me what’s going on.”
My back shudders, and the longer she holds me, the more the weight feels almost unbearable.
“Levi is a dick,” I murmur, backing out of her embrace.
She looks around. “Levi? Is that where Bennett went, to kick his ass?”
Her utter confusion only reminds me how much I’ve allowed our friendship to wane. “No.”
My brother told me to let the truth out, but look where I am now.
There’s so much I have to deal with now.
This isn’t freeing. It only buries me under another truckful of rubble.
I was feeling so good about myself, as if I was useful again and not only good for being pretty on someone’s arm and a good mother. But I have no one to blame but myself.
“I don’t understand.”
I turn away from her and walk back toward the shop. “You’ll hate me just like him, so I need to go. I’ll call you later, and if you want to talk to me, you can pick up.”
She probably won’t. I’ve deceived an Owens, so I’m pretty sure everyone from Plain Daisy Ranch is going to hate me as much as Bennett does.
“I’d like to talk to you now.”
I shake my head. “I need to get Leia.”
We reach the shop, and I walk in, going behind the counter.
“Heya, you two,” Summer says, but her smile falters when she sees me crying. “Did the peonies die?” she teases since I might be slightly obsessed.
“Not now, Summer,” Poppy says and waits for me by the door.
I get my purse from the drawer behind the counter and quickly put it on as I cross the store. Poppy doesn’t stand in my way as I walk out the door, but she follows me.
I click my key fob, unlocking the door, and I’m about to slide into the driver’s seat, but Poppy shoves me aside, getting in first.
“What are you doing?” I shout, struggling to find my footing. “Poppy!”
“First of all, you’re not driving in this condition.” She twirls her finger at my face. “Second, I’m Team Delaney first and always.”
“It’s been years of me dodging your phone calls and texts. And on this one, you’re going to take his side, believe me. And you’d be right to.”
She secures the seat belt and puts out her hand. “Give me your keys.”
“Poppy!” My voice rises, but her hand doesn’t lower.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“What are you going to do?”
“There’s a lot of twine in that shop. I can bind you and toss you in the trunk. Summer owes me two favors, and I’m not opposed to using both of them to get you through this.”
I look at the store to see Summer’s face pressed to the window. No doubt she would help Poppy.
“Fine, but I need to get Leia.”
“Leia’s at school for another two hours.”
“I’m picking her up early.”
“Why?”
She keeps her hand out, waiting for me to give her the keys, then I hear a UTV coming down from The Knotted Barn. I drop them in her hand because the last thing I want is for Bennett to return her UTV. I can’t face him right now.
I round the front of the car and get into the passenger seat right as Romy and Lottie turn the corner in a UTV of their own. Oh god, the catalyst of my decision all those years ago hits me. They’re Leia’s aunts, and I’ve stripped them of a relationship with her too.
“Can we go?” I ask quietly, but Poppy rolls down the window.
Fuck, I’m not in the mood for this. Are they here to kick my ass? Surely Bennett went to his family for support after what he just discovered.
“I gotta go. Flowers are in the cooler.” Poppy rolls up the window and puts the car in reverse.
They both step out of the UTV with their eyebrows furrowed as they watch us drive away. I hold it together, pretending I’m not about to have a breakdown.
Once we’re off Plain Daisy Ranch, I finally release a breath—until I realize Poppy isn’t driving me to the school. She’s turning onto the county road toward Hickory.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
“I’m not in the mood for games.”
“I know.”
The truth rests on the tip of my tongue, knowing I should just tell her, get it over with. It’s my car, so I won’t be stranded, but every time I open my mouth, shame silences me.
Fifteen minutes later, she pulls into an ice cream shop I’d forgotten all about, a place I should take Leia to.
Poppy parks and turns off the ignition. “There’s nothing a sundae can’t fix.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong.” I stare through the windows at everyone smiling inside.
“Listen, I’m not going to push you. I mean, Nash says I’m super pushy, but I want to be here for you.
You’re my best friend, and I know we’ve had some distance, but that changes nothing for me.
I was so happy when you came back. Let me be your person.
” Her shoulders dip. “Until B comes to his senses.”
I put my hands in hers. “You’ll always be my person, and believe me, he’s not going to come to his senses. Any hope that you had for us to get to where we were in the past is dead and buried.”
“I doubt it, but let’s go.”
We head into the ice cream shop because I always drown my sorrows in sugar. Maybe I should ask them if they have a loyalty card since I’ll probably be here a lot after today.
Once we’re settled in a booth and have both ordered our sundaes, me a peanut butter one and Poppy salted caramel, she sets her gaze on me.
“I don’t feel as if it’s my place to tell you the whole story, so I’m just going to tell you my part, which does mix with his, but…”
She holds up her hand to stop me. “I feel like I need to remind you that what you tell me won’t be repeated. I know Bennett is my cousin, and we’re a really tight family, but I’m not going to tell anyone what we talk about.”
I nod and muster up the courage to tell her. “Bennett and I ran into one another in California.”
Her head tilts. “When?”
“Seven years ago.”
She nods and slides back in the booth.
“Leia is his daughter.”
She inhales a sharp breath and nods again. “Not Sean’s?”
I shake my head.
“Bennett cheated?”
I shake my head, and her forehead scrunches, not understanding how that’s possible. It’s such a thin line between what’s his story and what’s mine, but I trust Poppy to keep it between us.
“He and Kristie were separated. She cheated on him. I got a job at the same company as him during their separation. One thing led to something more, and we started dating. Until Kristie came back and told him she was pregnant with his baby.”
“So Wren might not be his?” she whispers, thank goodness, but you can never be sure who’s listening in these small towns.
“She’s his. He had a paternity test to make sure.”
“He left you for her, knowing you were pregnant too?”
And there it is, the assumption that I sought him out and told him.
I shake my head. Poppy’s smart, so she puts it all together.
“You didn’t tell him?” Again, my head shakes, tears springing to my eyes, and she nods. “Gotcha.” She seems to process that for a few moments. “And Sean?”
“He came after Bennett and Kristie went to Willowbrook, after he’d broken off what we had.
Sean moved into the apartment next to mine.
At first it was friendship between us, but I knew he wanted more.
He started doing really nice things for me.
Expensive dinners, trips, gifts. He adored me, or so it seemed.
I think I really needed that after Bennett left, and maybe I just got caught up in it.
When I found out I was pregnant, I contemplated telling Bennett for a long time.
I looked them up on socials. Bennett wasn’t really posting, but Kristie was chronicling her pregnancy, and he looked really happy.
I didn’t know what to do.” Tears free fall down my face.
“Would he even accept our child? Would Kristie? I picked up the phone a couple times, started text messages, but I never followed through. I have no excuse other than I was scared and mad, but I didn’t do it from spite.
I did it because I was trying to protect my child. ”
“Here you go, ladies.” The waitress pretends I’m not falling apart in the booth, which I’m grateful for.
Neither of us touch our sundaes.
“I was truthful with Sean. He said it changed nothing and that he’d raise her as his own. I didn’t know then that he had his own agenda for our marriage. He was offering us safety and security, a future that Bennett couldn’t, or didn’t, want to give.”
Poppy dips her spoon into her ice cream, bringing a heaping helping to her mouth. “Man, I had some suspicions about some things, but you just blew them away.”
“Suspicions?”
“I’m just gonna say… Leia doesn’t look like Sean, but what was I going to do, ask you why your daughter bore no resemblance to your husband’s olive skin?”
I dig into my own sundae, but the ice cream doesn’t cool my overheated body.
“Well, now I know it all,” she says.
“Some of it,” I say. “You should probably hear his side.”
She scoffs. “No, thank you.” She piles another spoonful into her mouth.
“Poppy, I never told him that Leia was his.” I stress the truth in one sentence.
No matter all the other stuff that went down between us, I took something away from him without giving him a choice. Took something away from Leia.
“I hear you.” She wipes her mouth with a napkin. “And I told you before you got in the car, I’m Team Delaney.”
“You can’t be on my team. You’re his cousin, and I’m in the wrong.”
Her brows crinkle. “True, it wasn’t the best decision, but I can understand why you did it. I can’t imagine how hurt you were. How scared. But that’s all in the past. Now you have to move forward. How do you see this thing playing out?”
I’ve been so hung up on telling him that I didn’t really think about what would happen after Bennett knew. Who tells Leia? What about Wren? Do I allow Bennett visitation on his own? I need to tell Sean that he knows. “I’m not sure. I guess I have to wait until Bennett decides what he wants to do.”
“She’ll be ten before he does something. You need to steer this boat.”
I set my spoon down. “Really?”
She’s nodding as she swallows the last bite of her sundae. I’m thinking we came here more for her than me. “You want my advice?”
“I’m pretty sure you’re going to give it to me regardless.”
“And you should feel honored that I’m going to give you my wisdom.
” She smiles and sips her water as if she has to prepare herself.
“The biggest question you need to figure out the answer to is whether you want something with Bennett in the future. You know he’s a good dad, you know what kind of man he is, and we both know he’ll eventually forgive you for this and will definitely see how his actions played into your decision.
But if you want to see where you guys fit, your girls fit, that dictates your next move. ”
I sigh, since over these last few weeks, there have been times when I wanted a future with him more than anything. But how can I ask for that when I’ve been lying to him for so long?
She takes my hand. “I’m not saying right this minute, but think about it, okay?”
I nod, and she squeezes my hand.
“You’re going to get through this and become stronger and happier, I know it.”
I’m desperate to believe her, but I’ve thought that before in my life and then lost it all, more than once.