Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
FALLON
I let my head rest against the rail fence that surrounded the corral. Sighing, I took long deep breaths of the cold winter air. Snowflakes fell around me and I could almost forget everything that had happened this last week. And I could almost imagine I was in one of the snow globes I used to collect.
They’d always seemed magical, and I could believe just about anything as I stared into the scene depicted before me. But right now, the scene surrounding me was something I didn’t recognize. Anxiety arose in me as I wondered if I’d lost myself coming here, the same way I’d lost myself with Andrew?
The cold not only numbed me, it also calmed my soul. With all the action in the house, I was happy for a quiet moment. Grabbing on to the fence, I felt like I was hanging on for dear life so I didn’t whirl down the drain because someone pulled the plug.
Nobody let me lift a finger. Cooper had Josie so occupied playing when he wasn’t at school. I’d hardly seen her. Having Mom around made all the difference, but I craved peace. I was used to wandering around an empty house, with only Josie as company. All this action here was making me irritated.
I still didn’t feel like I was bonding with Lottie either, and it made me afraid.
It was happening again, and I didn’t know how to stop it. Asking for help was out of the question. They were all so happy I was home, and they already pitied me enough. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of anything else.
“Why aren’t you resting?” His voice took away the chill, with a warmth that rivaled the warmest summer day, and even in the cold, I could smell him as he approached. The warm citrus, pine and leather.
This is what had filled my dreams for the last five years.
“I’m fine Nash, it feels good to be moving around.” I glanced over my shoulder and smiled, but not turning to face him.
“I don’t care that you’re fine. You had a baby a week ago. You should be resting, not standing out in the cold staring into the snow. Get back to the house.” His tone was gruff, and I didn’t want to fight with him, but I wasn’t about to let him decide my life for me .
“When you have a baby, let me know how it feels to be cooped up in a house with people always watching you, making sure you don’t get too close to the door, or find the car keys because they’re worried you might leave again.” My nose stung, and I was trying not to cry in front of him. I couldn’t take the humiliation.
“You’re supposed to be resting. Jake said you need to accept the help, don’t you remember?” He took his cowboy hat off and ran his hand through his hair. It was his tell when he was frustrated, and I used to see it a lot when we were angry at one another. “Go back to the house.” This time, his tone was forceful and fierce. He wasn’t asking, he was telling me.
“Nash, I don’t need you telling me what to do. You aren’t my husband.” The words rolled off my tongue before I could stop them.
“No, I’m not, but I should’ve been.” He reached out and gently placed his hand on my cheek, his thumb rubbing something off my face, his eyes locked on mine and I was frozen where I stood. He turned and walked off to the barn. I backed up and pressed my back against the fence. Slowly, I sat down in the snow as I replayed his words over.
I’d never seen that much passion or caring from Andrew. But it had been commonplace with Nash. I never had to guess how he felt, but tonight it was fury, and that look I was used to.
I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there, letting those words roll around in my head ‘I should’ve been’ .
“Fallon, are you alright?” My mother stood in front of me, her hands gripping the much too big jacket tightly around her.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Oh no! The cinnamon rolls, I forgot they were in the oven.” I went to get up, and she gently helped me off the ground and held my hand.
“I’ll get them. It’s actually what made me come look for you.” She moved her hand to my back and guided me to the house.
I could smell the warm, caramelized sugar and yeast wafting out of the house. It made my stomach growl, and I wondered when I’d actually eaten last.
“All right, now we’ll get out of these winter clothes and you and I are going to go someplace more comfortable and talk about what made you go outside and stare off into space.” She reached for my hand, and I took hers.
Following her to the living room, we sat on the sofa and I didn’t know how to tell her what Nash had just said. Or did I even tell her? Was it something that should stay between him and me? There’d already been too many secrets. I couldn’t keep hiding things. “Nash was frustrated with me for not resting, and I got mad at him and told him he had no say in the matter. He wasn’t my husband.” I closed my eyes and waited. When I opened them again, my mother’s arched eyebrow and pointed look was something I’d remembered from my youth. She was either going to side with him about me resting or she was getting ready to haul off and smack him. “Then he said no, but I should have been.” My words were barely above a whisper, and I looked down to my sleeping baby so I could hide the tears that wanted to fall.
“Oh, my girl.” She shifted on the couch and put her arm around me. I let my head rest on her shoulder and for the first time in almost six years, I’d felt normal.
“He had a ring, you know.”
“What?”
“He told me he had a ring and was planning to ask me to marry him, but I ran off.” My words were a whisper. I wasn’t sure I’d even said them out loud.
“I think I’m going to need you to back up a bit.” That confirmed I had in fact said them and I wasn’t surprised she needed me to clarify.
“Well, you know what happened after Daddy died, and it didn’t stop after the first time. We were seeing one another very regularly, let’s say. Most of the time it was secret places, like the barn or the west pasture.”
“Oh my god, you were always in the barn together. I just thought he was being a supportive big brother type.” Mom gasped and put her hands over her face. “That barn has some kind of pull.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When you four were making your father and me crazy, we’d go to the barn and tell you we were cleaning stalls. We never cleaned stalls.” She shook her head and made no attempt at hiding her grin.
“Mom, really? Why? Just why? ”
“Hey look here, missy, if I have to sit through listening about you and Nash Powers, you get a story or two yourself.” Our laughter startled Lottie awake, and Mom reached for her when I’d unwrapped her. She rocked slowly from side to side and patted her back until she drifted off to sleep.
“You can’t change the past, sweetheart, but you can make a new future. Tell me about Kentucky.” She gently set Lottie back in the cradle and looked at me.
“Things were good until they weren’t. He was the total opposite of everyone here. I fooled myself into believing that to shed my past, I needed someone who didn’t remind me of it. He’s an accountant for his family's horse farm, drove a sports car and doesn’t step into a barn if he doesn’t have to.”
“When did he start hitting you?” Her voice was bitter, angry and caring, all wrapped up in a tight knot that settled into her throat as she asked.
“A year in. We’d been at an event and someone asked where I’d grown up, and was interested in hearing about this place. When we got home, he was pissed that I’d monopolized everyone, so it was a slap across my face. Oh, he was sorry, and I chalked it up to his drinking, but then it happened when he was sober.” I looked down at my hands, embarrassed, and kicked myself for staying. “I should have been stronger. You didn’t raise me to tolerate that behavior.” Tears threatened to fall, but I’d cried all the tears I had for him. He didn’t get anymore .
“Oh, baby, you’ve always been one of the strongest people I know. This man might have tried to make you believe differently, but you overcame him.” She wrapped me in a hug and I wished I could believe her.
“The girls look nothing alike. I’m so amazed there’s no resemblance.” I watched my mother’s face as she studied Lottie, and the crease between her eyes deepened.
“Not all siblings looks alike as a newborns, mother.” I shook my head as I thought back to Josie’s birth and what she’d looked like. She was perfect, just like Lottie. Even when she was just born, she was serious, and her face was expressive.
“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say Josie looked a little like Nash.” She turned to look at me and I could feel the world spin slightly. “But he wouldn’t have seen you and not told me, right? You wouldn’t have made him swear not to tell me and let me sit here for five years worried sick about where you were, right? You wouldn’t keep him in the dark about having a child for two years, would you?” She looked back down at the baby in her arms and gently brushed her cheek.
“I couldn’t tell him.” I whispered.
“What?” His rough voice could have cut glass. My heart pounded and my stomach churned as I twisted to face him.
This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
We were supposed to be alone.
But it was too late for that now.