Chapter 43 Hunter
Hunter
The Jasperville County Fair’s in full swing by the time we get there, and Atticus looks like his brain might explode from the sheer number of food stalls, lights, and rides spinning in the distance.
“Can I get that? And that? And that?” he asks, pointing at everything.
“Whatever you want, kid,” I tell him.
By the time we’ve made one lap around the fairgrounds, I’ve got him loaded up with a corn dog in one hand, cotton candy in the other, a deep-fried Oreo stuffed in his pocket, and a giant cheese curd on a stick that his mother’s graciously carrying.
“Gonna need to roll him out of here by the end of the night,” Wren jokes, shaking her head.
We pass the midway games, and I let him play every single one—basketball, ring toss, that rigged game where you shoot water into the clown’s mouth. Fifty bucks later, he wins a neon-green stuffed frog that’s almost as big as he is.
“You’re spoiling him,” Wren says as I pay for a midway ride pass so he can go on anything he wants.
“He’s having the time of his life,” I say, watching Atticus run toward the Ferris wheel. “He’ll be fine.”
“If he throws up in your truck on the way home, I’m not cleaning it up.”
I laugh. “You haven’t lived until you’ve puked up corn dogs on the way home from the fair.”
We wander a bit, watching Atticus from a distance as he bounces from one ride to the next, his face lit up like the Rockefeller Plaza tree at Christmastime. Wren stays close to my side, her arm brushing mine now and then, and every time she does, it sparks something warm beneath my skin.
Once again, all feels right, like this is exactly how it’s supposed to be. It’s a feeling I can’t quite put into words, I just know that it’s everything I never knew I needed and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure it never fades.
We’re heading toward the Ferris wheel when I see him.
Cole Benton.
He’s standing with a girl half his age clinging to his arm, dressed like someone trying too hard to look grown. She looks exactly like the kind of girl who’d fall for his payroll offer—impressionable, too naive to understand how the world works, too insecure to not fall for someone like Cole.
Wren sees him a second after I do, her body tensing beside me. “Ugh. He’s shameless. How old is she? She’s got to be nineteen, maybe twenty at the most.”
“That’s his MO,” I say. “Pluck some girl out of the crowd, promise her the world, treat her like shit, then pay her off when she’s too ashamed to admit what he is.”
Wren watches him, her eyes hard. “She looks like a baby. I wish I could warn her.”
“He likes them that way,” I say, my jaw tight. “Inherited his daddy’s half-billion-dollar operation, lives like some Midwest playboy. Private jet and all. But the thing about money—it doesn’t buy you class. Sure as hell doesn’t buy you a personality.”
Unfortunately, Cole spots us too. He waves, grinning like the asshole he is, and stumbles toward us, beer sloshing out of his cup with each unsteady step. How any women find this attractive is beyond comprehension.
“Well, well, well,” he slurs. “It all makes sense now. The farmer and the smut writer. Isn’t that a Hallmark movie or something?”
I stare him down, my fist clenched. Wren holds my arm tight, as if she can read my mind.
He smirks, turning his unfocused attention to Wren. “This is who you turned me down for? Hunter fucking McCrae? Could’ve been me, sweetheart. I’m a whole lot more fun than this stuck-up prick. Man’s got a corncob permanently shoved up his ass.”
His eyes drag down Wren’s body, slow and shameless, like he’s picturing every way he’d ruin her if given the chance—and he does it in front of his girl, who either doesn’t notice or is too passive to care.
I clench my fists tighter, watching the Ferris wheel rotate, counting the seconds until Atticus is back on solid ground. We can’t leave yet, not without him.
Cole grins wider, interpreting the delay as an invitation to stick around a bit longer.
“So,” he says, swaying slightly, “is he the inspiration for your next dirty book? Gonna write about the broody farmer who plows his fields and his neighbors?”
I step forward, eyes hard. “Did I not make myself clear the first time, Benton?”
He chuckles, throws his hands up. “What are you gonna do, McCrae? Punch me in front of all these people?”
He points behind me, and I glance over my shoulder, where a county deputy stands by the ticket booth, watching the crowd, chatting with some locals.
“You and I both know you’re not gonna go to jail over me,” Cole taunts. “You love your little operation too much. You’d never leave it in someone else’s hands.”
Little.
It’s a dig, meant to needle me, but I know better than to bite. I’ve got more acres under management than Cole could comprehend if he weren’t too busy blowing his inheritance. At least I manage my farm myself. He wouldn’t know where to start if he tried.
I stare him down, quiet, composed, because I learned a long time ago—men like Cole want a reaction, a show.
I’m not giving it to him.
But I promise myself this—his day’s coming.