Chapter 46
Forty-Six
I’ve always thought I hated surprises, but it turns out, what I really hate is being surprised.
As I park the Volkswagen in a patch of grass and watch Gavin and Addie try to make sense of where we are, I am delighted by their confusion and the surprise that awaits them.
I’ve been working on this appointment for weeks.
“A farm?” Gavin asks, peering through the windshield. “Is this the place where the guy kept talking to the cow?”
At my confused frown, he smirks. “It was udder nonsense.”
I snort out my “bad” and push the driver’s door open, pulling the seat forward so Addie can climb out. “This isn’t just any farm.” Addie takes my hand, and I squeeze it. “We’re here for Addie.”
She smiles, the blue of her sweatshirt making her eyes brighter than usual. “Me?”
I nod, guiding them both toward the barn where a woman—Lisa Dagney—steps out with a wave, strolling toward us.
She looks exactly like her online photo.
Long hair and deep laugh lines bordering her mouth and eyes.
Under an open denim jacket, she’s wearing a Kelly-green T-shirt that says Happy Days Ranch with a smiling sun logo.
Gavin’s narrowed eyes only make my smile widen.
Tucked at the end of the most rural road in town, the property is gorgeous.
With a red barn and pastures hugged by split-rail fences and trees, it looks like a farm.
On my deep inhale filled with the pungent yet nostalgic scent of grass and manure, it smells like a farm too.
A breeze blows that screams October, crisp enough it slices through the knitted loops of my sweater to chill my skin.
“Reese?” Lisa says, extending a hand I take before introducing her to Addie and Gavin.
“I haven’t told them why we’re here,” I admit, barely hiding my elation. “If you want to do the honors.”
“Of course.” We tour the property as Lisa explains the farm and its mission of working with kids with special needs.
When the first horses and goats come into view, Addie’s face triples in size with her smile.
I think I might burst—literally burst. It’s exactly what I hoped for.
But when I look at Gavin, his smile is tight, slight, and in no way matches how my insides feel.
Lisa moves on to sharing the benefits of equine and hippotherapy to Gavin—both of which can help strengthen Addie’s speech, focus, muscle strength, and coordination, among other things—and then lists the mounted and unmounted activities they do.
Gavin nods, absorbing the information with his flannel-covered shoulders rounded and his hands shoved in his pockets. Not saying much.
Addie is nearly dancing out of her skin at every activity mentioned, but Gavin is not. He’s quiet, deep in thought, shifting a serious gaze from Lisa to Addie, then finally to me where it stays and makes me squirm.
And then it strikes me: I’ve overstepped.
I don’t like surprises because it’s presumptuous of anyone to think that I want something I haven’t already done for myself; I’ve gone and done the same damn thing.
Gavin said he wanted to try different therapies, but he never said this kind of therapy, and he certainly didn’t ask for my help.
Addie isn’t my child. I’ve assumed, now I’m the ass.
Dammit.
“We usually start with basic care of the animals and work our way up to riding,” Lisa says. To Addie, she asks, “You want to help me feed everyone, Addie?”
Lisa doesn’t have to ask twice.
Gavin and I stay at the fence as they disappear into the barn. I wait for him to say something—anything—but he doesn’t. He reaches down to snap a piece of tall grass then twirls it between his fingers as he leans against the railing.
While my first instinct is to defend my decision for coming here by listing every benefit, ultimately, it wasn’t my call.
She’s not my kid, she’s his, even if not biologically.
I’m just a . . . what am I? A woman he offered to have a child with?
A woman in love with him? A woman who makes therapy appointments for someone who didn’t ask for them?
I would kill me if I were him. With a smile.
Addie and Lisa emerge from the barn into the pasture with a red bucket of feed.
“I probably should have asked you first,” I finally say, watching as Lisa shows Addie how to scoop feed out of the bucket while a goat bleats in their faces. “I’m sorry. I did—”
Gavin lets out an incredulous laugh. “You’re sorry?”
“Yes.” I have never tried so hard in my life to mitigate my combative personality. I swallow, looking at Addie—she’s so damn happy with her arm out, palm flat, and a goat snacking from it. “I just thought—”
Gavin steals my apology with a hand around my neck and kiss on my mouth.
It shuts me up and takes my breath away.
And just as fast as he’s there, he pulls back.
Just an inch. “I’m not mad, Reese. I’m—” His eyes bounce over every piece of my face—of me.
“I’m wondering where you’ve been. I’m wondering how we’ll ever survive if you remember I’m thirty and cut grass then you take off for the city.
I’m—” He kisses me again, briefly beautiful.
“I’m in love with you. I’m grateful. I’m .
. . everything.” He laughs a little, his eyes almost glassy. “And you’re everything.”
If I read that line in one of Remy’s books, I’d label it romanticized bullshit hyperbole, but with Gavin, it isn’t.
He means it, and if I said it, stupid as it would sound, I’d mean it too.
Because I feel everything with him because he’s everything to me.
We are everything. Everything I want and everything I didn’t know I’d ever find.
There is no universe where I willingly walk away from him—from them.
From the future we’ll have. Not for a job or a condo or anything.
I refuse. I’ll sell every shoe I own. I’ll wait to have a baby until we’re ready—even though right now, I feel pretty damn ready.
I’ll live in a shed and I’ll work at a vineyard and I’ll have babies that we’ll watch grow to have all the grandbabies Gavin’s already thinking of.
Like he can read my thoughts, he presses one last firm kiss to my lips, looks at me in a way that says I see you, Reese Conway, then goes back to leaning against the fence to watch Addie. He’s a spectacular father, and she isn’t even his. My heart smiles from the center of my chest.
“Oh,” I say, rolling my shoulders. “Well—” I push my hair out of my face. “That’s good news because I’ve already paid for a year’s worth of lessons.”
He laughs then drapes one arm around my shoulders, both of us watching Addie with the animals, her contagious joy filling the air like a melody.
The sun dips low and the sky turns the in-between color of day and night.
When it shines on Addie, she glows like a bubble in glass.
I turn from her to Gavin’s profile. His eyes stay on her, slight smile lifting his lips as he does.
And because he’s everything, he glows too.