Chapter 17 Austin #2
I shrugged. “I just figured it wasn’t meant to be. And I wouldn’t trade my kids for anything.”
“I know you wouldn’t. But you’re also really talented at something you love to do. It doesn’t seem fair that you can’t do it.”
“I can do it,” I argued.
“I meant make a living with it.”
I frowned. “Look, I’ve had this argument with Xander and Mabel a thousand times. I won’t quit on my dad.”
“So you’ve never told him you’d like to start your own business?”
“There’s no point.”
“Don’t you think he’d want you to do what you love?”
“It doesn’t matter what I love,” I said, anger working its way up my spine. “Last year, he had a heart attack and fell off a ladder. Fractured his arm and some ribs. If I hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have been found for hours.”
“Oh no!” Veronica gasped, her elbows coming off the table. “Owen mentioned something about a heart attack. Poor George!”
“He’s okay,” I said. “But I don’t trust him not to climb ladders or lift things he shouldn’t or exert himself too much. I make sure he’s safe. It’s what he’d have done for his father.”
“Is it the thing you’d want Owen or Adelaide to do for you?”
I thought for a second. Would I want them to set aside their dreams for my sake? “No. But it’s different.”
“How so?”
“It just is,” I snapped. “And it’s my family and my business so leave it alone.” I stood up and grabbed both our empty bowls, carrying them to the sink.
A few minutes later, I was still at the sink doing dishes when she came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my torso. “I’m sorry, Austin,” she said, laying her cheek on my back.
The tension in my back eased. “I’m sorry too. It’s a touchy subject between me and my siblings, but I didn’t mean to get short with you.”
“I was out of line to push you. I just wish there was a way for you to do what you really love.”
I shook my head. “Me too, but there isn’t. It comes down to a choice between what’s best for my family and what I want for myself. And I won’t be the kind of guy who chooses himself.”
“I understand.” She pressed a kiss to my spine. “And I admire that. Your family is lucky to have you.”
Turning off the faucet, I rotated to face her. Lowered my lips to hers, warmth flooding my body. “Thanks. Want to go upstairs and let me untie your top with my teeth?”
She laughed. “That’s why I wore it.”
The next morning, I woke up to multiple texts from Xander.
Dude. Lumber yard. Today.
I’ll be at your house at four. We can drive together.
No excuses. YOU LOST.
My groan must have awakened Veronica, because she rolled to her side and faced me. “What’s wrong?”
“My brother is bugging me to knock off work early and take him to the lumber yard to find some wood for his bar.”
“And you can’t?”
I exhaled and scratched my stomach. “I don’t like leaving my dad alone on the job.”
“Hmm.” She snuggled closer. “What if I invited your dad to come with me to the farmers’ market this afternoon?”
“Would you?”
“Of course! I’d love his company. But will he say yes?”
“I think he would.” I thought for a second. “Would you be willing to come ask him in person? I don’t think he’d be able to resist you.”
“Like father, like son.” She giggled, dropped a quick kiss on my chest and hopped out of bed. “I’m going to work out, and then I’ll clean up and pop over to the job site. Can you text me the address?”
“Yes.” I watched her pulling on her clothes and wished I could yank her right back into bed.
I could practically hear the clock ticking down on our time together.
She showed up at lunch time, while my dad and I were eating sandwiches in the shade of our client’s side porch.
“Hi there,” she called, strolling up the driveway. “How’s it going?”
“Veronica!” My dad, as expected, was delighted to see her. He rose to his feet and smoothed his Two Buckleys work shirt over his ample belly. “What are you doing here? Did you come to see me?”
“As a matter of fact, I did!” She beamed at him in full cherry-lipped glory, then gave me a smaller, more secret smile. “Hi, Austin.”
“Hi.” I took another bite of my sandwich, wishing I could eat her for lunch instead. How many hours was it until bedtime?
“So George, Noreen at the library told me about the farmers’ market, and I’m planning to head there this afternoon. I wondered if you and Xander might like any fresh produce.”
“Well, sure! Isn’t that nice of you?” My dad slipped his thumbs beneath his suspenders. “I haven’t been to the market in years.”
“Why don’t you come with me?” she suggested. “I’m all by myself with the kids gone, and I’d love the company.”
“I’d love to, honey, but I’ve got work to do.”
“Go on, Dad,” I said. “We’re about done here. I’ll finish up.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. And since I picked you up this morning, why not just go with Veronica now?”
“I guess I could,” he said. “Long as you’re okay without me.”
“I’m fine.” Behind his back, I gave Veronica a thumbs up.
“Are you ready?” she asked him.
“I guess I am,” he said, stuffing the trash from his lunch back into his reusable bag. “And maybe if we have time, we can stop into the barber shop. Gus always gets a proper shave on Tuesday afternoons, and we can see if he or Larry need anything from the market.”
I was one hundred percent sure his motive for stopping into the barber shop was more about Gus and Larry seeing him with Veronica than offering to pick up beans and squash for them.
Hiding a smile, I waved goodbye as they headed back down the driveway, and Veronica lifted her sunglasses and winked at me over one shoulder.
My heart stumbled over its next few beats.
“So?” Xander said as soon as we hit the road. He’d left his SUV at my house so we could make the thirty-mile drive in my truck, which meant I was stuck with him for the next half hour.
“So what?”
“So how’s it going with Veronica?”
“Fine.”
“That’s it? Fine?”
“Yep.”
“Does that mean it’s still on?”
“It means what it means.”
He thumped my shoulder. “Don’t be a dick. How’d it go in Chicago? She get her stuff?”
“No. But I did get to punch her ex in the face.”
“Nice.” Xander sounded impressed. “So now what?”
“Now she has to buy some new clothes.”
“I mean, now what for her? Will she stay in Cherry Tree Harbor?”
“Just for the summer,” I told him. “In the fall, she’s going back to New York.” As I said it, I realized how much I hated thinking about it.
“Why?”
“She misses her life there.”
“You can’t convince her to stay?”
I frowned. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Because you’re into her?”
“I’ve known her for less than a month, Xander. I shouldn’t even be messing around with her.”
“But you are. She’s the first woman I’ve seen get under your skin.”
“We’re just friends.” I rolled my shoulders, wishing he wasn’t right. “We have a good time together. But when the kids come home on Sunday, it has to stop.”
“Why?”
“Are you serious?” I shot him a look. “Because it’s not okay to fuck the nanny—or anyone else—with the kids in the house.”
“Is that what she thinks too?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
Of course he didn’t. When Xander saw something he wanted, he always went for it. “Look, if I’d met her under different circumstances, maybe I’d go down that road, see where it led, but as it is, things between us end when the kids get back.”
He was silent for a moment, the hum of the tires on the highway filling the cab. Then he asked, “You really think that?”
“Think what?”
“That if you’d met Veronica under different circumstances, like maybe if she’d just been a girl you saw one night at The Broken Spoke, you’d have gone down that road? Because I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t. Somehow you always have a reason why you can’t ultimately do the thing that would make you happy.”
I scowled. “Right now I can’t think of a single fucking reason not to throw you out of my truck right here on the highway, and that would make me very happy.”
Xander exhaled. “Never mind. Sorry I brought it up.”
I was annoyed for the rest of the trip, giving short, dickish answers when Xander asked my opinion on anything at the lumber yard and barely nodding my approval at the gorgeous barn wood he chose for the bar, even though I was excited about working with it.
What he’d said had hit a nerve.
Of course I wanted to be happy. But you couldn’t just go around doing whatever you wanted without thinking about the fallout—at least I couldn’t. The one time I’d acted selfishly, carelessly, I’d gotten Sansa pregnant.
At the same time, I hated thinking about what it would be like not to have Veronica in my bed at night. See her naked. Touch her when I wanted to. I felt like a kid who’d just opened the best Christmas gift ever only to hear that he couldn’t keep it.
By the time we loaded the lumber in my truck, my mood had soured to the point that Xander didn’t even bother talking to me on the drive back to the house. We unloaded the wood in silence, and he uttered a quick thanks before he left.
I closed the garage door and headed for the house, wondering if I had time for a run before dinner. I felt like I needed to work off some of this tension or else I was going to take it out on Veronica.
She could tell something was up the moment I walked into the kitchen, which smelled so good my stomach growled.
“Uh oh,” she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I ditched my work boots by the back door and tossed my keys on the counter.
“Are you hungry? Dinner is ready.”
“I was thinking about taking a run before dinner if I have time. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” She glanced behind her at a pot on the stove, and I felt guilty.
“You can eat without me if you want.”
“That’s okay, I’ll wait.” She looked at me again and bit her lip. “Do you want company on your run, or would you rather be alone?”
“I’ll run alone.” I headed out of the room, but only made it as far as the stairs before stopping. Fucking Xander’s voice was in my head again. Making me question things.
When I re-entered the kitchen, she was putting the lid back on the pot. “I changed my mind about company,” I told her. “Do you still want to run with me?”
She turned around, her expression surprised. “Sure. But I’m not super fast or anything.”
“I don’t care. Come with me.”
A smile lit up her face. “Give me five minutes to change.”
She met me out front wearing her black yoga shorts and a Two Buckleys Home Improvement T-shirt, knotted at the waist.
I laughed when I saw it, my bad mood evaporating further. “Where’d that come from?”
“Your dresser,” she said, giving me an impish grin. “I stole it yesterday morning, so I didn’t have to walk back to the garage naked.”
“Looks good on you.”
She curtseyed. “Thank you.”
“Ready to run?”
“Yes, but don’t kill me, okay? My legs aren’t as long as yours.”
I eyed them with appreciation. “They’re pretty damn close.”
We jogged in silence, side by side, winding our way through hilly neighborhood streets and ending up down at the harbor. After catching our breath at the crosswalk, we hurried across the street and without saying a word, we both headed for the seawall.
I took her hand as we carefully stepped across the rocks to the same big, flat boulders we’d sat on the day I hired her.
The sun was low on the horizon, painting the sky with streaks of pink and orange.
Seagulls swooped above us as I leaned back on my elbows and inhaled the lake air. The breeze cooled my hot skin.
“How was your afternoon with my dad?” I asked.
Veronica leaned back on her hands, her legs stretching out in front of her. “Lovely. He’s so sweet.”
“Did he show you off at the barber shop?”
She laughed. “Yes. Told all his friends he was on his first date in twenty years. We spent two hours at the farmers’ market, then he insisted on taking me for a ride on the ferry. He told me all about growing up in Cherry Tree Harbor, all the changes he’s seen, and how some things never change.”
“Thanks for spending the afternoon with him. I know you didn’t hire on to be an old man’s nanny.”
“It was honestly my pleasure. And you’re paying me for this week even though the kids are gone, so I want to help you out.”
“I appreciate it.”
“We made a date to go back again next Tuesday—I want to bring the kids too. And did I tell you he wants to come to my dance class tomorrow night?”
I laughed. “No. I’ve been trying to get him to go to that senior mixer for years. He says no to me every time, but naturally, since you’ll be there, he’ll go.”
She smiled. “Naturally.”
We rested there for a couple more minutes, listening to the gulls overhead and the water splashing against the seawall. From the nearby Pier Inn restaurant, I smelled something cooking, and hunger began to gnaw at me. I was about to suggest we head back and eat dinner when she spoke up.
“So what was your bad mood about earlier?”
“Something Xander said that pissed me off.”
“What did he say?”
I watched a sailboat glide into the harbor. “That I always seem to have a reason for not doing the thing that would make me happy.”
She digested that for a moment. “Do you disagree?”
“Yes,” I said, slightly irritated by the question. “I’m not unhappy. I mean, is my life perfect? No. But I’m doing the best I can with the cards I’ve been dealt.”
She studied me for a moment, then looked out at the water. “Xander is really different than you. He’s not as right as he thinks he is.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if he sees your sense of duty to people you love as a flaw in your character, he’s wrong. It’s part of what makes you, you. It’s what makes you such a great dad and son and brother and friend. You put others first, and that makes you happy.”
I looked over at her, wondering how she could know me so well in such a short time. “Thanks.”
“But it also means you ignore a lot of your own needs, and I think that’s why you get so uptight. It wouldn’t kill you to put yourself first every now and again, even with family,” she said. “Love isn’t an obligation. It’s a gift.”
“Excuse me. Did you just call me uptight?” I leaned over and poked her shoulder.
“Yes, I did.” She laughed. “But I’m doing my best to loosen up all your tight spots. Maybe I’ll give you that massage this week.”
“Maybe I’ll let you.”
She stood up and brushed off her butt. “I’m hungry. Should we go home and eat? I made orecchiette with bacon and summer squash that I got at the market.”
I looked up at her from where I sat on the rock. “You should wear my shirt every day.”
She beamed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I like it on you.”
It made her look like mine.