Chapter 11
chapter
eleven
August melted into September, which promised cooler temperatures and less horses to take care of now that the summer riding lessons had ended.
But there was still plenty to do around the farm as they prepared for winter.
Outbuildings to repair. Fields to harvest. Stalls to clean and prep for the clients who would bring their horses by Halloween.
Sometimes earlier, if Mother Nature decided to snow in early fall.
Darren loved his work on the farm. Tucker paid well, because he knew his men needed a way to support themselves and possibly a family.
Darren had started thinking a lot about a family again now that he and Farrah were dating again.
He still hadn’t kissed her, but he’d been watching her for the go-ahead signal.
He didn’t want to be pushy and impatient with her, so they spent time in restaurants, in the botanical boutique, at her place.
One day in mid-September, he asked Cody and Shiloh to finish his chores for him so he could go visit Jim and Corey. He’d been out to the farm, of course, but his time had been occupied by Farrah, and he missed his conversations with Corey and his whittling with Jim.
He pulled up to the house and got out of his truck, taking in all the colored and fallen leaves Jim hadn’t gotten to yet. He bypassed the front porch and went around to the shed in the backyard to get a rake.
He pulled the leaves into neat piles and had the front yard finished before Jim made an appearance. “You don’t have to rake my leaves.” He leaned against the porch railing, those overalls and that gray T-shirt ever-present.
“I sure don’t.” Darren leaned the rake against the trunk of a tree and climbed the steps. Jim looked tired, and concern spiked in Darren’s chest. “You okay?”
“Had a bit of bronchitis,” he said, easing into his chair. “You want to carve today?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jim pointed to a basket in the corner. “Make me something nice.”
Darren chose a piece of wood and collected his knife from his glove box. He stroked the blade across the bark, the silence between him and Jim comforting and calming.
“So you’re seein’ Farrah again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You like that woman a lot.” He wasn’t asking, and Darren had been honest with Jim and Corey before. He didn’t kiss and tell, but he’d used them as a sounding board, asked them questions about falling in love, relied on their support as if they were his parents.
“I’m in love with her.” He just said it right out loud for the world to hear. He hoped she was way back in the boutique, behind the fish tanks, so she didn’t hear.
“Corey was right then.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She did.” Jim picked up his knife and selected a piece of wood. His shavings joined Darren’s on the porch. “I’m worried about you, bud.”
Darren slowed his knife and paused to look at Jim. “Why?”
“She broke your heart once before, and I can’t watch you go through that again.” The unadulterated love in his eyes made Darren’s chest tight, tighter.
“You’re like a son to me, Darren.” Jim’s knife went swish swish swish against the wood. “I want you to be happy.”
Darren stared at the older gentleman, pure love flowing through him. “You’re like a dad to me, Jim.”
Jim looked up and their eyes met. Darren felt everything for Jim he’d ever felt for his own father. He nodded and focused back on his wood. “She makes me happy,” he finally said, his throat quite narrow.
“You think this time she’ll see it through to the end?”
“She’s not a bad person,” Darren said, the need to defend her strong. “She’s….”
“Broken,” Jim supplied. “I know. We can see it.”
“She’s getting help.” The face he saw in his mind started to take shape. He nicked out a piece of wood for the eye on one side, then the other. “She’s fixing things with her parents, and she’s seeing a therapist every week now.”
She still didn’t tell him much, but Darren had employed every patient bone and cell and blood vessel he owned.
It had only been a few weeks since her complete break-down in her kitchen.
They never did eat the meatloaf, and he never had mashed the potatoes.
She’d come out to the hammock with water pouring from every hole on her face, and he’d held her tight until she’d quieted.
Then he’d stayed for another hour. He’d tucked her into bed, fed her cat, and slipped out like a thief in the night. Problem was, it was his heart that had been stolen that night. He loved her, and he’d do anything to protect her, shelter her, ease her pain.
And he liked being her protector, loved the vulnerability she allowed herself to show only to him. He thought they really could make things work between them, given enough time.
“She just needs time,” Darren said aloud, as much for himself as for Jim.
“And you’ve got loads of that.”
“Yes, sir.” Darren held the face out to examine it. He added a few more lines for the hair and then he held it out for Jim to see. “This is my father.”
Jim stopped his carving and took the whittled face from Darren. He looked at the chin and then sized up Darren’s. “He looks a lot like you.”
“Me and Logan got most of his genes,” he said. “Ben and Sam looked more like my mother.”
Jim extended the piece back, and then faltered. “Can I have this?”
Surprise shot through Darren. “Sure.”
Jim smiled at it and then Darren. “Should we go see what Corey’s made for dinner? Or are you and Farrah going out again?”
Darren stood and gazed out at the piles of leaves.
“I’ll bag these and be right in. Farrah’s busy with her family tonight, and I’d love to stay for dinner.
” And not only because he wasn’t cooking.
Farrah had insisted he cook three times a week at her house, and Darren was becoming quite adept with chicken, potatoes, roasts, and he’d even used a pressure cooker recently.
With the leaves bagged and ready for pickup, he went inside to find Jim and Corey standing side-by-side at the island. She laughed at something he said, and his arm settled around her waist.
Darren watched the picture of love before him, a strong desire to have it in his own life roaring forward. He still hadn’t even kissed Farrah since their break-up. And he knew where he wanted to do it: Steeple Ridge.
It was time she started making some new memories of that place.
“Hey.” He cleared his throat as he entered the kitchen. The scent of oranges and peanut oil met his nose. “Just the three of us?”
“I thought we’d just eat at the bar.” Corey indicated the three plates she’d set on the far side of the island from where she and Jim stood.
“How are you, dear?” She embraced Darren, who closed his eyes and imagined his own mother and how she would hug him every morning before sending him off to school.
“Great.” His voice caught in his throat. He and Jim exchanged a glance, and Darren pulled back from Corey. “So you and Jim have been talkin’ about me.”
She shot a look to her husband. “Out of love, Darren. We only want you to be happy.”
“I know.” He glanced at the orange chicken and brown rice on the stove. “So is this ready? I’m starving.”
Corey laughed, her tight black curls bouncing with the movement. “Say grace, then.”
Darren did, and they loaded their plates with food and sat at the bar. “So I might have some questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“About Farrah?”
“Sort of. I want…she won’t come out to Steeple Ridge, and I need her out there.”
Corey simply speared another piece of broccoli, and Jim’s silence wasn’t abnormal.
Darren sighed and gazed at his food. “She has bad memories of the place. It’s where I work. I love it there, and I want her to love it there.”
“She’s a good rider,” Jim said, like that had anything to do with what Darren had said.
“Any ideas of how I can build better memories for her at Steeple Ridge?”
Corey, for the first time in Darren’s recollection of her, was speechless. Jim just shrugged. “She likes aquaponics,” he said. “Maybe you should build a small commercial operation at Steeple Ridge and ask her to help you do it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Corey said, swatting his arm. She peered around Jim to Darren. “I don’t know, dear, but I’ll keep thinking.”
Darren nodded, Jim’s idea swimming around in his head like the thousands of tilapia in the tanks down in the boutique.
Maybe building an aquaponics unit wasn’t such a bad idea. Of course, he’d have to get Missy and Tucker on board, and that wouldn’t be easy….
Darren shelved the idea, finished dinner with his two favorite people, and headed back to his own farm. Farrah belonged on a farm—one with horses and fish. Every time Darren thought about her riding a horse, his breath got stuck in his lungs.
Why do you want a dream for her she doesn’t even want? he asked himself, not for the first time.
He’d just pulled up to the farmhouse at Steeple Ridge when his phone rang.
“Ben, hey,” he said, his heart lighter than it had been in months. “What’s up?”
Nothing came through the line, and Darren checked his phone. Call still connected. “Ben?”
“It’s Rae,” he said, his voice high and choked. “She’s been in an accident, and she’s at the hospital, and they won’t let me see her.”
“I’m on my way.”
The hospital in Island Park sat right next to Peacock Park. Darren only knew that, because Logan had told him all about the birds that lived there. And about how Layla had kissed him there in the rain.
Darren had only listened with one ear then, but he knew enough to know he could park at the park and get into the hospital quicker than using their underground system.
“Reagan Buttars,” he asked the information desk.
“She’s in emergency,” the woman said, and Darren took off down the hall. He found Ben in a waiting room, his face the perfect picture of agony. “Ben, hey.” The brothers embraced, and Ben’s shoulders shook.