THE COUNTY ROAD stretched straight away to a vanishing point, with open fields lying on either side. Lauren could see for miles in every direction. There wasn’t another vehicle in sight...except for the mud-spattered Dodge crew cab parked crossways in the road, blocking her way.
A man leaned against the truck, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his chest. He could have been posing for a cowboy calendar, with the vast sky stretching above him and the cloud shadows rolling across the ground.
She’d walked away from him once, and it had taken every ounce of self-denial in her system to do it. And now here he was again.
She thought about turning Vincent around and going right back the way she came. Instead she pulled over, turned off the ignition and got out—not because that was the most efficient way of dealing with the situation, but because he looked so unbelievably good that she couldn’t not go to him.
He walked over to her—long, firm, purposeful strides. He was wearing a sky-blue shirt that brought out all the coppery tints in his skin, and as if that wasn’t enough, his hair was loose. He did not stop or slow down until he was close enough for her to see the dark brown flecks in his amber-colored eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
There was no need to ask what he meant. Somehow, some way, he’d found out about the baby. Now he wanted an explanation, and in all honesty she owed him that much.
“I should have, I know. I was wrong not to. It wasn’t fair. But I couldn’t see that then. I was barely admitting it to myself. I wasn’t ready to tell other people. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t mean to deceive you. I just didn’t think it would be an issue. I never expected—”
“That’s not what I mean. It was your business, I get that. It’s not like you were obligated to let me know you were pregnant right from the get-go, just in case I got attracted to you. But why didn’t you tell me later, once we started, you know, getting close? Why didn’t you tell me at the River Walk? You knew I cared about you. We could have talked it over like adults.”
“What was there to talk about? I’m the one who has to deal with it. I’m the one who’s pregnant with my moron ex-husband’s baby. I’m the single woman who’s living out of a van and has to figure out a way to provide for a child.”
“But why leave at all? Why not stay? Stay in the bunkhouse. We’ll finish the work on it, the two of us. Then you and the baby will have a place to live that isn’t a van, and you’ll have access to a good doctor, and it’ll be the same doctor for the whole pregnancy instead of a different one in each town you drive through. And I’ll be there. And when the time is right, things can move forward with us.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we get married.”
For a moment she couldn’t believe she’d heard right. He’d actually said “get married,” and he looked dead serious. Something caught at her heart, and all the colors in the wintry landscape brightened, as if a cloud shadow had just rolled past.
But she’d felt such things before, shock waves and thrills and ecstasies and all nature bursting into song. She couldn’t trust them. That was why she had to get away, to put distance between herself and Alex so she wouldn’t be at the mercy of her feelings—her frothy, unreliable feelings that had led her wrong so many times before.
“I’m sorry if that freaks you out,” Alex said. “But I mean it. I’m willing to wait. I know it must feel weird, after Evan. We’ll go slow, build up trust. I’ll be patient. And in the meantime I’ll be as close as you want, as close as you’ll let me be.”
So much open space all around her, and suddenly Lauren couldn’t breathe.
“So, what, I’m just supposed to give up my whole way of life? Stop traveling and settle down in a small town? Turn my custom van into a soccer-mom van?”
The words rang hollow in her own ears, and she could see from Alex’s face that he wasn’t fooled.
“You just said yourself that you were the one living out of a van, like it was a bad thing. Now you’re saying you won’t give it up?”
“I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t have to give it up just because I’m pregnant. Lots of van-life people have kids that they travel with.”
“But that’s not what you want, not really. You never expected to live out of a van forever. That’s the whole reason you came here in the first place when you found out about the baby. You wanted a place to belong. You wanted good people around you, and a regular roof over your head, and so you came here, to this place. That’s no accident. That’s why you started working on the bunkhouse. You wanted a community, a real live, flesh-and-blood community that stays in one place.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking about me like you know me. Boxing me in.”
“Boxing you in? How? By putting a roof over your head? That’s bull. You drive away now, you still live in a box. It’s just a box on wheels, whose transmission could go out a hundred miles from nowhere.”
“That’s my problem, not yours or anybody else’s.”
“No. It’s not just your problem anymore. You’ve got to stop thinking of just yourself. You have a baby to watch out for now.”
“You think I don’t know that? Everything I’m doing now is for the baby.”
“How? That doesn’t even make sense. You’re talking in circles. Listen, we can do this. I have a good job—two good jobs. You have a job you can do from home. We have a place to stay.”
“Yeah, on someone else’s land. I think Dalia’s going to want her bunkhouse back at some point.”
“Well, then, we’ll deal with that when it comes. We’ll figure out our options. I have savings. I have a nest egg.”
“For a different nest! That money is for your grandfather’s land, not for setting up housekeeping with a pregnant wife.”
“So maybe getting the land back will take a little longer. That’s okay. I’ve waited this long, I can keep waiting.”
“No, you can’t, Alex. That land is the focus of your whole existence, the land and its history. You live like a monk, working two jobs and saving your money, toiling and saving to get it back. You think you’re going to give that up for me, and for a baby that isn’t even yours?”
“Is that what this is about? You think I can’t do it? You think because this baby isn’t my biological child, that I can’t be a good father?”
“No.”
“You think I’m no better than that punk Evan?”
“No!”
“You think I’m like my father?”
“No! You’d be a wonderful father, Alex. You’d work yourself to the bone to give the baby everything you never had, all the security and stability and comfort that you were starved for all those years. And you’d give up your own dream in the process, and then one day you’d wake up and realize I wasn’t worth it.”
His eyes opened wide. “So that’s what this is. You’re not afraid of getting boxed in. You’re afraid of boxing me in.”
His face turned blurry, and her eyes burned. Inhale, two, three—
“I’ve got to go.”
He touched her shoulder. “No. Don’t do it.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Listen to me, Lauren. I love you. That’s what it all comes down to. I love you and I want to be with you. Do you love me?”
She tried to turn away, but he held on.
“Look at me, Lauren. Look at me!”
The tears fell, then her eyes cleared, and she saw him looking down at her, so honest and strong and kind that the sight of him made her ache. There were tears in his own eyes. He wasn’t just offering; he was fighting for the chance to give her everything he had to give.
Then he kissed her.
The kiss was not like any of their kisses on the River Walk. Those had been soft and tender and natural. This was hungry, needy, desperate.
It felt so good to be needed like that.
There had never been anything like this with Evan, not even close. Always with Evan there had been this element of theatricality, like he was the romantic hero in some movie Lauren was watching. This was different. Raw, real.
Then Evan blinked out of her mind completely like a burned-out light bulb. This was the only man who mattered, the only man in the world.
She plunged her hands into his hair, just like she’d been longing to ever since she’d first laid eyes on him in the goat pen at La Escarpa. His arms went around her, lifted her, turned her. He was so big and solid.
And then, somehow—she didn’t know how—she ended it.
She’d never done anything like that before, never had the strength.
She laid both hands on his chest. She could feel the pounding of his heart.
“Goodbye, Alex.”
She pushed away from him. His hands tightened on her arms, not hard, not hurting her, but firmly, and she twisted free like he was someone to get away from. He let her go then, hands held up in a gesture of compliance, face shocked.
She got into her van and started the ignition.
He was still right there, so close she could see the shadows beneath his cheekbones and the cleft in his chin. She backed up, did a U-turn.
Alex was right. He was the one talking like a grown-up, being reasonable and responsible. He wasn’t guilty of anything but loving her and wanting to take care of her.
But she could be a grown-up, too. She could take care of him, put him first.
She couldn’t outargue him. But she could leave.
“Rerouting,” said the voice on her phone.
ALEX STOOD IN the middle of the road watching Lauren’s van go away from him.
She’s going to stop. She’s going to turn around and come back and get out of that van and run into my arms, and we’re going to be together.
He kept thinking it as the van grew smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared at the horizon in a cloud of dust.
He stood there a little longer, and a little longer.
She didn’t come back.
She was really gone.
It was over. There was nothing more he could do. He couldn’t make her stay with him. He couldn’t go on following her like some kind of nut. She’d told him to leave her alone. He had to do that.
He’d offered all he could, done everything short of physically restraining her, and it wasn’t enough. She didn’t want him. He had lost.
A vehicle appeared on the horizon, heading his way. His heart gave a throb so painful that he made a little gaspy sound in his throat.
But it wasn’t Lauren’s van.
He got back into his truck and moved it onto the shoulder, slowly, like an old man. He felt dead inside.
Then his phone went off, and his heart did the painful throb thing again.
He looked at the screen. It was Claudia.
He leaned his head back against the headrest and took a few deep breaths before answering.
“Hey, Claudia. What’s up?”
“Hello, mijo. I have bad news.”
He knew what it was, knew what was coming even as he was thinking oh, God, oh, please, oh, no—
“I heard from the judge today. He’s going to close the probate and award your father the land. I’m sorry, Alex. There’s nothing more I can do.”