Chapter Fourteen
· Brooks ·
“Can I get the Wi-Fi password, please?” Skye asked as she walked into Addie’s house.
“In a few minutes,” Adriana said. “First, let me show you and your dad around, so you can make yourselves at home.”
Skye groaned, desperate to get back to the YouTuber re-creating period costumes from films and movies but making them historically accurate.
Bravetown had turned all her theoretical fascinations into something tangible.
It was like when I realized music didn’t just come from speakers, but it was something I could create myself.
It was a beautiful thing to watch, and I was already prepared to buy her a sewing machine or a vintage typewriter or anything else she may need to pursue her interest.
I just hoped that I was right about all of this. That if Skye had a choice on where to live, she’d choose Bravetown.
“It does get pretty dark out here at night, but those are blackout curtains if you need them,” Addie explained as she showed Skye around her bedroom, which Skye was going to occupy for the remainder of the harvest festival.
“Or if you want to go the other direction, sometimes I like to leave this lamp on when I go to bed.” She flicked on the small lamp on her dresser.
The lampshade was covered in red and pink glass beads and it bathed the room in a scarlet light.
It was like two shades of pink away from a flashing neon sign announcing “girls, girls, girls.” As if reading my thoughts, Addie turned and cringed. “It’s a vibe, okay?”
“Uh-huh.” I grinned and turned on my heel. “I can imagine you going to bed and vibing with that.”
“Do you only have one bedroom?” Skye asked.
“Well, yeah, I’m only one person.” Getting ahead of the awkward conversation, she added, “Your dad and I will share the pull-out couch.”
“Okay, but that means the tour is done, right?” Skye was already twisting her shoulder bag to the front to free her iPad from its confinement.
“Yep,” Addie confirmed.
“You get to finish that one video,” I said, “or you’ll get a headache from all that screen time.”
“Da-ad.”
“One video.”
Grumbling, she flipped her tablet around where the video was still paused. “I still have thirty-eight minutes to go. You said I get to finish that.”
“Okay, go watch thirty-eight minutes of”—I squinted at the screen—“Zorro costumes?”
“Thank you!” She kicked her shoes off and turned to Adriana with expectantly raised brows.
“The password’s ‘Password1.’ Capital ‘P.’ ”
“Thanks.” Skye jumped up on the bed and nestled in between the plethora of cushions and throw blankets that swallowed Addie’s mattress.
“Seriously, Addie?” I set Skye’s backpack down before I turned and headed back to the living room. “Password1?”
“That’s the one the guy installed. Do you know how to change a Wi-Fi password?”
“Point taken.” I sat down on the couch. “Are you sure you’re okay with sharing the sofa?
My offer stands. You can have the hotel room.
Or I’ll book you your own room somewhere out of town.
” As grateful as I was for this escape from the fireworks, we were balancing on a delicate line between perception of our relationship—engaged—and the reality of having truly kissed once.
I didn’t want her to feel pressured into sharing a bed with me.
“Brooks.” She dropped onto the sofa next to me and lay back. “I’m a grown-up. I don’t think I’ll get cooties from sleeping next to a boy.”
My gaze traveled over the rays of honey curls splayed out around her and the masterpiece of freckles across her nose, before getting caught on that singular one marking her bottom lip. “What about kissing boys? Is that safe?”
“Only the ones I’ve kissed before.”
“Lucky me.” I leaned back on one elbow and traced the outline of her lip with the pad of my thumb.
She hummed the sweetest appreciative noise.
My lips had just lowered enough to feather over hers when the doorbell interrupted us.
Again. Last time that had happened, I’d been thankful because it kept me from saying or doing… well, this.
Now I cursed the person on the other side.
Addie sighed and pushed herself off the sofa to answer the door. “Mom?”
Damn, that was one hell of a déjà vu.
I swung myself off the sofa, tugging my clothes into place right as my would-be mother-in-law slipped past her daughter. “A peace offering.” Maureen held up a basket filled with shiny red apples. “I may have overstepped the other night.”
“Come in, why don’t you?” Addie took a deep breath and closed the door.
“I’ve had a little think about things.” Maureen placed the apples on the kitchen counter. “That, and Renee may have gotten a word in over brunch yesterday, and she told me that the Young boy and your Annie Lou friend were babysitting for you guys last week.”
“Noah and Esra, yes.” Addie turned to me with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, there’s no such thing as privacy in Wild Fields. You’ll get used to it.”
“Uhm…we were in Nashville to have some engagement photographs taken,” I said because I wasn’t entirely sure what point exactly Maureen was trying to make by bringing up our choice of babysitters.
“I don’t know if Adriana told you, but my parents cut me off because they weren’t happy about the circumstances under which Adriana was born.
Because of that, I vowed to raise my daughter with all the freedom I’d never gotten.
She wouldn’t be expected to get married, settle down, have a few kids, while her hubby brought home the bacon.
” Addie’s mom pursed her lips. “Regardless of what I think of you as a person, Brooks, I also want to give my daughter the freedom to choose this.”
“Mom, Brooks is a great person.”
“I’ll decide that for myself once I get to know him. Which I intend to do.”
“I’m an open book,” I said.
“And if you do intend to become part of this family, I would like to avoid my parents’ mistake and be part of my grandchildren’s lives.”
“Oh, you want to meet Skye?” I asked.
“It doesn’t have to be today. It doesn’t even have to be this week. But eventually, yes.”
“I appreciate that, but I didn’t…I mean, we haven’t…” I’d operated under the assumption that Addie and I would be back to being just friends by the end of the year, and a potential new grandmother hadn’t been on the map.
“We’ll talk to her about it,” Addie said. “I wouldn’t want her to feel like we’re trying to replace her mother’s family.”
“All right. I’ll get out of your hair.” She squeezed Addie’s arm as she passed her by. “Brooks, can I talk to you alone for a second?”
“Mom, seriously?”
“It’s fine,” I reassured Addie. “Of course we can talk.”
I followed Maureen out the door, and she didn’t stop until we were halfway between her neighboring property and Adriana’s cottage.
She shot quick glances from one side to another, then needled me with a death glare so akin to her daughter’s that it was hard to take her seriously.
Everything that reminded me of Addie just made me smile.
“I don’t care who you are, or how many assassins you could send after me with the money in your bank account.” Maureen narrowed her eyes at me, a warning finger raised to my chest.
“Assassins?”
“If you hurt her again, I will find you and cut your dick off with garden shears. And not my good ones. The rusty ones from the back of the shed that will need a couple of painful snips to cut it off. You have no idea what you leaving did to her, even if it was for some noble reason.”
“Actually, I have a pretty good idea. She told me.” I rubbed the center of my chest. “And if I could turn back time, I would. I hate what she went through. I can only try to right my wrongs now.”
“Well…good.” Maureen deflated a little and nodded before turning toward her home. “Rusty garden shears, Brooks. Very rusty,” she called back over her shoulder.
At least there was no doubt about where her daughter got her colorful language.
I waited until Maureen made her way safely back to her own house.
And as I watched her ponytail swing, and the bottom of her jeans scrape over the gravel, I could see where Maureen’s threats came from.
Not just because of everything that happened after my last tour, but because she wasn’t much older than me.
Even though she’d been a teenager when she had Addie, dating someone her daughter’s age had to seem absurd.
When I turned back to the little bungalow, I could see Addie scrambling away from the window. By the time I walked through the front door, she seemed awfully busy washing those apples, not even looking up from the sink. “I’m making turnovers.”
“Don’t worry. She’s just trying to protect you.”
“From big bad Brooks?” she scoffed.
“From being hurt.” My first instinct told me to go and hug her, kiss her, give her verbal reassurance to loosen the tight set of her shoulders.
None of that would make her feel much better though.
Addie needed people to show up for her. So I quietly stood next to her by the sink and started peeling the apples.
After a few minutes of working in silence, she turned the old kitchen radio on and pressed a quick kiss to my shoulder as she walked past. It was barely a peck, but it was a quiet confirmation of understanding.
After what was probably more than thirty-eight minutes, Skye was beckoned to us by the smell of freshly baked goodness.
We spent the rest of the evening burning our tongues on puff pastry, talking through our schedules for the next two weeks—Skye and I would have breakfast here before heading back to the hotel, so she could do all her schoolwork in an environment she was already accustomed to—and playing Scrabble.
While Addie made sure Skye had everything she needed in the bathroom, and grabbed her things from the bedroom, I got the couch ready. It wasn’t going to be the most comfortable bed I’d ever slept on, but I doubted that would even register once Addie lay next to me.