Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
BECK
The moment I spot her dark gray Jeep Sahara on the farm access drive, I cut the tractor’s engine and give the horn three blasts.
“Early lunch!” I shout. Then I might actually throw myself from the cab.
“Do I get to meet her?” Javier shouts from the harvester.
“No!” I call over my shoulder, gunning for my truck I left parked on the farm track.
“What time are we starting back up?” he hollers after me.
It’s 12:40. We usually only take an hour for lunch, but Hattie is here, and I know an hour won’t be enough. I’m tempted to cut the guys loose, give us the rest of the afternoon. But I can’t afford it.
Especially now.
“2:30!” I yell back.
I think I hear him mutter an impressed damn before addressing his field hands in Spanish, but I don’t give them another thought once I fire up the truck’s engine.
I drive too fast on our dirt roads. She’ll pull up to the house before I will, but I texted last night and asked her to wait in her Jeep.
I want to be there when she meets Pop.
I told her I didn’t want him to have to answer the door for her, and that’s partly true. He wouldn’t use his walker, and he might take a spill.
But he’s been in a worse mood than I have since Uncle Paul dropped his bomb, taking it out on me and anyone who crosses his path.
I won’t let that happen to Hattie.
Besides, we haven’t had a lot of time to talk the last two days, but I got the impression her Sunday was almost as rough as mine.
As the truck bounces over mud ruts and puddles, I spare myself a glance in the rearview. The rain we had Sunday has kept the dust down, but I’ve been on the tractor for hours, and I’m far from clean.
I drag a hand down my face and swat at my shirt and jeans, but it’s probably a lost cause.
When I pull up to the house, Hattie is sliding out of her Jeep in slouchy, faded overalls and an off-white T-shirt.
I swallow hard because it’s the most casual I’ve seen her, and thank God for it. She looks so soft and comfortable. Beautiful, yet not out of my reach. She’s still touchable—once I wash my hands.
She flashes me a smile as I throw my truck in park, and, damn, I want to say every stupid cliché ever spoken.
You’re a sight for sore eyes.
I thought I’d die waiting for you to get here.
I missed you.
I’m still brushing myself off when I round the hood of the truck. “Hey, Beautiful.” I stop a couple of feet from her, afraid I might stink. “God, I’m glad you’re here.”
She’s gripping the still open door of the Jeep, looking me up and down. Then she frowns a little.
Shit, can she smell me from here?
“Are you sure you’re glad I’m here?” she asks.
“Hell, yes.” I take a step closer, putting my grimy hand on the door next to hers, close, but not touching.
She eyes our hands and then looks back at me, wearing a disappointed frown. “Don’t I get a hug or a kiss?”
My grin splits my face. “As soon as I get cleaned u—”
“Come. Here.” Then she’s tugging my wrist, crashing into my arms.
And my nose is in her hair and I’m crushing her against me almost as hard as she’s crushing me against her.
“God, I missed you,” she says into my chest. “Isn’t that dumb? It’s only been two days. How can I miss you so much? What’s wrong with me?”
Her words are thirst-quenching. “Not a damn thing,” I say through my laughter, hugging her tighter. “I missed you, too.”
“You did?” She squirms in my arms, pulling back just enough to face me.
And the look she’s giving me? It’s why language was invented. Why the species hasn’t died out. Why men go to war and why they broker peace.
“So much.” I place a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I’d kiss you until you couldn’t stand up straight, but I’d bet my distillery that Pop’s watching from inside.”
She jerks out of my arms. “Seriously?!”
“Deadly,” I say, wincing. “And I’m going to warn you, he’s never in a very good mood, but he’s been extra pissy this week.”
She huffs. “Don’t worry. I’ve got loads of practice with Grandma Eloise.” She leans back into the Jeep. “Help me carry these inside?”
She emerges, holding out two bakery boxes. From Poupart’s.
“I couldn’t make up my mind,” she says when I take them from her. Then she reaches back into the Jeep for a full grocery bag. From Champagne’s Grocery.
Shit, this girl is way outta my league.
“I mean… I’m hungry, but it’s just us.”
She shuts the Jeep’s door. “And your dad.”
I keep my face blank. Pop knows she’s coming, and when I asked him how he felt about having lunch in his room today, as grumpy as he’s been, he had the good grace to just nod.
“I… don’t think he’s gonna join us.”
Hattie blinks. “But he needs to eat, right? I know you said you’d make omelets, but do you think he’d turn up his nose at a bacon cheddar quiche?”
“A bacon cheddar quiche?” My mouth waters. “Is that why this box is so heavy?”
She points to the box in my right hand. “That box is heavy because of the quiche, and that one,” she points to the box in my left, “is heavy because I had to get three of every kind of croissant. They just looked too good.”
“H-how many kinds were there?”
A smile blazes across her face. “Four. French, cream cheese, chocolate, and almond.”
The woman bought a dozen assorted croissants from the French bakery. For three of us.
“What’s in the bag?”
She peeks inside it. “Brie, crackers, grapes, orange marmalade, and fig preserves.”
Damn. “I won’t need to cook tonight.”
Her eyes dance. “Bonus.”
I lead her to the front porch, but her pace slows as she looks up at the house. As though she didn’t see it on her drive up. As if she’s seeing it for the first time.
“You have a little farmhouse,” she declares, rushing up the porch steps, her gaze sweeping the faded wood slat rockers and rusty ceiling fans. “I love it!”
Hattie spins around, scoping out what she can see of the fields. “This is all yours?” Awe makes her sound a little breathless.
I’m only human, so the look on her face fills me with pride.
“Yep. All 320 acres.”
For now, I remind myself.
But I won’t dwell on our impending doom today.
Hattie is here, and I’ve been holding onto the promise of her for the last forty-eight hours, knowing I’d have her brightness for an hour or two. So I refuse to think about the situation Uncle Paul is putting me in and the fact that I have no idea how I’ll get out of it.
“It’s really beautiful out here,” she says, almost reverently. “So quiet. All you can hear is the wind.”
The pleasure and pride this gives me borders on ridiculous, so I try to keep my smile in check. “Thanks… It’s… everything, really.”
That’s the truth. I’ve stepped onto this porch and looked over these fields my entire life. Every time, it’s with a pull in my chest.
But today? This view of Hattie with my land in the background?
Goddamn.
That pull suddenly has a voice, and the only word it knows is Yes.
I shake my head to clear it. “I’ll show you around after we eat. Sound good?”
She faces me, excitement in her eyes. “Can I dig up a sweet potato?”
I choke on a laugh. “By hand?”
Hattie blinks like she’s said something wrong. “Is that dumb?”
I can’t shake my head fast enough. “No. We’ll dig as many as you want. And I’ll send you home with a sack of cured ones.” I stack the bakery boxes on one hand and pull open the screen door with the other.
Frowning, Hattie steps inside, still looking over her shoulder at me. “You mean I can’t keep the ones I dig?”
“Won’t be ready to eat.” Pop’s grumble reaches us from the other end of the front hall.
Hattie whips around to face him. He’s bracing a trembling arm against the wall, and while he’s not smiling exactly, he’s taking her in with a hint of surprise.
“Sweets have to be cured and stored for at least seventeen days for peak flavor,” Pop tells her.
I step inside behind Hattie, letting the screen creak closed behind me. “Pop, this is Hattie Mercier. Hattie, this is my dad, Castor Olivier.”
Without a moment’s pause, Hattie asks, “Did anyone ever call you Castor Oil?”
My stomach braces, but my father just narrows his eyes. It could be my imagination, but they might hold a tiny flicker of amusement. “Only once.”
Hattie laughs and my gut unclenches.
“You look more like your dad than Griffin does,” she tells me.
“Please,” I groan. “Never tell Grif that. He’ll just say it’s because of the crow’s feet.”
“Sunshine footprints.”
“W-what?”
Hattie shakes her head, looking embarrassed. “I mean—I know people call them crow’s feet but that’s creepy. Carrion claws right by your eyes?” A frisson runs through her as she wrinkles her nose. “Sunshine footprints sound friendlier.”
She’s right. It does.
Pop makes a noise like a cough. When I look at him, he’s still not smiling exactly, but a spark I rarely see these days lights his eyes.
Just like that, I can’t bear the thought of him eating lunch alone in his room. “Hattie brought a ton of food, Pop.” I jerk my head toward the kitchen. “Come grab a seat at the table.”
He only hesitates for a second before following us.
“Oh wow…” Wide-eyed, Hattie does a slow 360, taking in the farmhouse kitchen, which looks much like it did when the house was built in 1934.
Sure, we’ve replaced appliances, updated wiring and plumbing, but the woodwork, cabinets, and the wide cast iron farm sink have been here since the beginning.
Even the trestle table is older than Pop.
“This is so… real,” Hattie practically purrs.
My chuckle overrides me. “Yep. All real,” I tease. Still, I think I know what she means. “It hasn’t changed a lot over the years.”
But she shakes her head, still taking it in.
“No… I mean, yeah, you can tell, but—” Her gaze traces over the jig-sawed scallop cutout over the kitchen sink.
“It’s… ancestral… Like that scene in Mulan in the temple when the ghosts of all her ancestors come out and start bickering.
Like… you can feel generations in the woodwork. ”