Jordan had texted Averil almost every day for the past week. His persistence shocked her. Ever since they’d started dating, he’d led her to believe he didn’t care much about her, that if she ever did anything he didn’t like he’d simply move on without batting an eye. So why was he still contacting her? Still trying to talk to her? She’d made it clear she was finished with the relationship.
She was staring down at her phone, trying to decide whether to reply, when a man cleared his throat, and she realized she had a customer. Brant Elway. His flatbed cart was loaded with a bag of protein cakes for cattle, a lick barrel and some poultry feed.
That was the problem with living in a small town, she told herself. There was no way to escape ex-boyfriends and old flames. And now that she worked at Miller’s Tackle & Feed, she saw Brant and his brothers quite often, even though they probably had a couple of tons of protein cakes—or range cakes as they were called—regularly delivered to the ranch. They only used the feedstore to fill in here and there, but they ran such a big ranch that even that was significant.
Putting down her phone, she grabbed her scanning gun. “Good morning,” she said politely, as if he was a total stranger, and began scanning his items.
“Morning.” He stepped back so she could walk around to get the UPC on the lick barrel.
She wasn’t going to say anything else. If she could help it, she never engaged with him. She knew how Talulah felt about her, and how defensive he was of his wife. Averil was Enemy Number One, even though all she’d ever done was want him—and, sadly, that hadn’t been something she could control. Instead, she was going to minimize the pain of her rejection, and the embarrassment and shame of its being so public, by minding her own business and staying away from them both whenever possible.
So it took her off guard when, unlike the times he’d come through her line before, he attempted to speak to her.
“How’s Mitch?”
She looked up in surprise. “He’s...doing good,” she said, the sentence involuntarily falling to a mumble after the first word.
“He’s a great kid.”
Brant’s kindness made her even more uncomfortable, so she focused on finishing as quickly as possible. “Thank you.”
She gave him the total for his purchases and waited, looking anywhere but at him, as he inserted his card. The transaction went through, and she ripped off his receipt. “Thank you for shopping at Miller’s Tackle & Feed.”
His hand brushed hers as he reached for the receipt, which caused her to let go and jerk back too soon—she didn’t want him to think she was trying to touch him—and the paper fluttered to the concrete floor. “Sorry,” she said, and they nearly cracked heads as they both bent over to grab it.
“I’m sorry,” she said again when all she ended up doing was getting in the way.
He stood, the receipt safely in his hand, and she turned her attention to the space behind him, hoping she’d find another customer and that would be that. But there wasn’t another customer. And he didn’t take his items and leave.
Thinking he must need something else—a product he’d forgotten to get at the store, or a question he wanted to ask about when they might have a certain item he needed—she met his gaze expectantly. “I’m sorry. Did I... Was there something else?”
“You’ve now apologized to me three times,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she responded automatically, then realized she’d just apologized again. “Oops! Sorry.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. That word just kept coming out. She didn’t know what else to say to him. She was sorry—sorry she’d ever fallen in love with him, sorry she’d ever seen him as the perfect father for her son, sorry she’d believed he would be everything her first husband wasn’t. And sorry she’d reacted so badly when he got with Talulah instead.
“I hope we can get past any...hurt feelings or misunderstandings from the past,” he said.
She blinked at him. “Why?” She didn’t matter to him. He had everything he could ever want, especially now that he and Talulah were expecting a baby. She had no idea why he’d even make such a statement.
“Because I never meant to hurt you. And I know Talulah didn’t, either. We’d both like to see you happy.”
She couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or simply trying to smooth things over for his wife. Or did Averil seem pathetic enough to evoke the kind of pity that would instigate such an exchange? “I’m doing great,” she insisted with a stubborn smile. “Thank you. I’m sorry if—” She stopped talking, catching herself when she saw his eyebrows slide up.
“You don’t owe me another apology,” he said.
“Right. Understood. I was just saying... I’m doing fine,” she repeated. “Thanks for asking.”
He frowned. “I can tell you don’t believe me, but I don’t say something unless I mean it, Av,” he said and pushed his flatbed away.
When he was gone, Averil let her breath go. She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding it. He made her so self-conscious. And he’d called her “Av.” Since when had he ever addressed her the way Talulah and Jane did?
She wished she didn’t have to be reminded, every time she saw him, of the friendships and other relationships she’d lost. It’d been easier when she didn’t work at the feedstore. Then she didn’t have to see him quite as often.
She was so tired of obsessing about Brant and Talulah that she immediately directed her attention back to her phone and the dentist from Libby she’d been dating. Jordan wasn’t nearly the man Brant was, but what’d happened with Brant had taught her that she wasn’t worthy of a man like him. Maybe Jordan was the best she could get. Maybe she was stupid to reject him. If she didn’t settle with Jordan, with what she could get, she could spend the rest of her life feeling isolated and alone...
She started to text him back.
Sorry I’ve been acting so weird lately. It isn’t you. I’ve just been going through a lot. Why don’t you come over for dinner this Fri—
“Averil?”
She looked up again and slowly lowered her phone. It was her boss. Mick Miller had never told her she had to stay off her phone at work. She was simply supposed to handle the register, and there was no one in line at the moment. Still, maybe he wanted her to be doing nothing while she waited for the next customer.
“Yes?” she said, already bracing for his rebuke and formulating her next apology—this one to him.
“Brant Elway just paid you a great compliment.”
Her mouth opened and closed twice before she could switch gears. It didn’t sound as though she was in trouble. “He did?”
“He said he likes it when you’re at the register because you’re always quick and efficient.”
“He did?”
“Said I should try to hang on to you if I can. And I might just do that. It was what I was already thinking, but the Elways spend a lot of money in here. So thanks for doing such a good job and keeping them happy.”
“You...you’re welcome,” she stammered.
He didn’t seem to mind that she’d been on her phone but she checked out a few more customers and waited until her break before returning her attention to the text she’d been writing to Jordan. He wasn’t what she was looking for, and if she wasn’t going to love herself enough to pass him over, how could she expect anyone else to love her?
Erasing what she’d written, she typed a different message.
I really appreciate the friendship you’ve offered me and the fun times we’ve had. But I’m looking for something else in my life, Jordan, something I doubt I’ll find if I keep hanging out with you.
She needed to clear the slate, start over and raise her standards again. Just because her self-esteem had fallen into the toilet didn’t mean it had to stay there.
You’re just going through a weird transition.
Was that how he’d categorized her behavior lately? In some ways, it didn’t surprise her. He never took responsibility for anything.
We’re not right for each other. But I wish you all the best in the future.
Fuck you! I don’t really want you anyway—you fat, ugly bitch.
She winced as his words took another chunk out of her self-esteem. She wasn’t even overweight.
She knew her situation would most likely get worse before it got better. But she needed to be okay with that, to face the sting of it bravely and endure. Otherwise, she might never get herself going in the right direction.
Got it. Okay. Goodbye.
Wait! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. We should talk about this.
Her phone lit up as he tried calling her. But she declined the call and blocked him just in case she ever lost her conviction in the future. There wasn’t any point in having a conversation with him because this time she was done with Jordan for good.
“Are you okay?”
Papa was sitting across from Jane, petting Otis, who was, thankfully, fully recovered, while taking his turn at Rummikub—a game Jane used to play with her grandparents when she was ten or eleven that she and Papa had recently started playing again. Caught up in her own thoughts, she stared at the wall behind him. She didn’t think it was good for him to watch television all the time. His mind needed more stimulation than that. She hoped playing games and doing puzzles together would help him retain his mental faculties for as long as possible.
“What do you mean?” she asked, pulling her attention back to the game.
“You haven’t been yourself lately.”
Since it was her turn to move, she studied her tiles, pretending to give her strategy some thought. But she won almost every time they played, so she was trying to lose. That meant what she put down didn’t really matter. She only wanted to make him feel good. “In what way?”
“You’ve been quiet. Distracted. And you’re throwing up all the time.”
He’d noticed? He was so unaware of most things these days that she hadn’t been overly worried he’d take note, but she hadn’t thrown up right in front of him, either.
He leaned toward her, his once-shrewd eyes studying her closely. “Is there something wrong with you, Janey? Are you sick?”
“No,” she said immediately, grabbing his free hand to reassure him. “I’m fine.”
“You’d tell me if that weren’t the case, wouldn’t you? I wouldn’t...I wouldn’t want the way I’ve changed to make you feel you couldn’t come to me.”
He knew what was happening. That wasn’t a secret, even to him. Those moments of realization on his part were some of the saddest for Jane. She would hate, most of all, to lose what he was losing, so it always made her feel sad when he acknowledged that something was going wrong with his brain—and that it was getting worse all the time. “Of course I would still come to you,” she assured him. “You’ve always taken care of everything.”
“Then why haven’t you talked to me about it—told me why you’ve been throwing up?”
She laid down a tile, but he didn’t pay any attention to it. His eyes remained on her. “I was going to wait to break the news until...until I was further along,” she said. “But there’s no need to make you worry.” Especially after the scare he’d had with his beloved dog.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m pregnant, Papa. I’m going to have a baby.”
He rocked back. “Will you be getting married?”
“No.”
“Are you happy about the baby?” he asked.
She thought about all the baby books she’d sneaked into her room and read after he went to bed—and her appointment with a good ob-gyn in Lancaster, the next little town over, which was coming up on Monday, her day off. “I am.”
He nodded solemnly. “Who’s the father?”
“Kurt Elway. He helped with your dog, remember?”
He didn’t say if he remembered. She generally tried not to use that prompt, but it was such a habit with people in general that she’d slipped up. “He doesn’t want to marry you?”
The idea of that seemed to make him sad, so she smiled to let him know she wasn’t hurt. “Kurt’s a good man. That just wasn’t part of our deal.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, obviously bewildered.
“You don’t have to.” She gave his gnarled hand another squeeze. “All you need to know is that everything is going to be okay.”
“You’re not moving out to start a family of your own?”
“No. I’m staying right here with you.” At least for the foreseeable future...
“But that’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. You’re not making this decision—to stay here—because of me, are you? Because if it’s your choice, I want you to go. I’ve lived my life, Janey. What happens to me now doesn’t really matter. It’s you I’m worried about. I hope...I hope you’ll change your mind.”
She blinked, trying to rid her eyes of the tears that’d suddenly sprung up. Even with the mental capacity he’d lost, he knew he loved her. She was terrified he’d lose that, too—forget who she was. “What happens to you matters a great deal to me,” she insisted.
“But don’t you understand? In some ways, you’re all I have left. If you’re not happy, I’ve lost everything.”
“I am happy.”
His craggy eyebrows came together in apparent confusion. “Then you don’t love him...”
She opened her mouth to say she didn’t but couldn’t make the words come out. She liked Kurt more than any other man she’d met. She admired him more than any other man, too—at least of her generation. And she’d spent the last week lying awake in bed, dying to see him again, to feel his hands on her body and his mouth on hers. But he hadn’t called. And she’d been afraid to reach out to him for fear she’d get his hopes up that they could get into a serious relationship only to crush them. “What happened is unusual and hard to explain. I plan to do some traveling eventually. I want to see the world.”
“With a child?”
“Of course. Why not? It’ll be a good experience—a good education—for a child, too.”
“But wouldn’t it be that much more wonderful with a loving companion at your side? I’d give anything—any experience I’ve ever had, anything I’ve ever done—if I could just see your beautiful grandmother again. When you’re young, so many things seem to be important. But when you get old like me, you realize that there’s only one thing that matters in the end. And that’s people. People, Janey,” he emphasized. “Those you love and spend your life with. The rest is just window dressing.”
Jane felt as though she’d swallowed a boulder and it was sitting right where the baby was supposed to be. “Even if Kurt and I feel we have different paths ahead of us?”
“Can’t you work out a good compromise?”
That was the thing. She didn’t think they could.
The next few weeks, Kurt threw himself into his work. Once he’d learned about the baby, he was always the first to leave the house and the last to come home because he couldn’t stand being idle. That was when his mind began to wander and paint pictures of a future he’d rather not see. Jane eventually getting with another man. Having to take that man into consideration whenever he dealt with his own child. Having to allow that man to be the live-in father he wanted to be and make decisions regarding Kurt’s child he might not always agree with. Having to accept that as much as he wanted to be everything Jane could ever want, he wasn’t what she was looking for.
He knew he should tell Ranson, Miles and his parents about the situation. But it was easier to ignore what was coming. Since there’d been no noticeable changes in his life—not yet—it wasn’t hard to pretend nothing had changed. Whenever he grew worried that he was making the wrong decision, he’d just tell himself to relax, he had time to adjust to the idea of having a child before he invited his mother’s displeasure.
But since some people knew about the baby and others didn’t, every day was a gamble. He began to avoid his family and friends, just because he didn’t want to know if word was getting around or have them ask if something was wrong. As long as he put enough into his work, which had always been physical, he could go home at night, drop into bed so exhausted he didn’t even dream and get up and do the same thing the next day. Denial might not be the best coping mechanism, but it was the easiest for him—until Brant knocked on his bedroom door after dinner one night.
“Kurt? It’s me.”
Talulah had planned a girls’ night with her friends at their place, so he hadn’t gone home like he normally did after they came in from the ranch. He’d stayed to eat the parmesan chicken, brussels sprouts, homemade rolls and ginger carrots their mother had made and planned to watch a movie with Ranson and Miles.
Kurt had assumed his brother would be too preoccupied with what was going on in the rest of the house to notice he wasn’t part of it, so he was surprised by Brant’s interruption.
He didn’t answer. He thought if he pretended to be asleep, Brant might leave him alone.
But his brother just knocked louder. “Kurt? I’d like to talk to you.”
“Shit,” Kurt muttered. Since he hadn’t felt like being around the others, he’d been surfing YouTube on his phone, watching daredevil sports to distract him from the noise coming from the living room.
“Kurt?” Brant said.
Setting his phone aside, Kurt got up and cracked open the door. “What is it?”
“Can I come in?”
“I’m already in bed.”
Brant gave him a sardonic look. “You’re obviously awake, and this won’t take long.”
With a sigh, Kurt stood back. “What is it?” he asked as Brant came in and closed the door behind him.
“I just wanted to check in to see what’s going on with Jane.”
“Nothing’s going on.” Kurt hadn’t even talked to her. He’d been avoiding her just like he’d been avoiding the fact that they’d be having a baby together.
“She still pregnant?”
“I’m sure she would’ve called me if she wasn’t.”
“Have you told Mom and Dad?”
“Not yet.”
“Ranson and Miles don’t know, either?”
Kurt scowled. “There’s no rush.”
“Except there is,” Brant insisted. “Word has a way of getting around this town, bro. What if Averil tells Charlie? And he tells his parents?”
Kurt swallowed a groan. “Averil knows?”
“I can’t imagine she doesn’t. She lives above Jane’s store. Talulah told me they have coffee together almost every morning.”
And a pregnancy wasn’t something Jane would be likely to keep to herself if she felt it was safe to speak, as she would with an old friend. The fact that she was having a baby would be on her mind constantly. How could she avoid it? “I need to tell them soon,” he acknowledged.
“You know Mom and Averil’s mom have been close ever since Mom started helping with the Fourth of July parade, right?”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. Dinah’s on the committee, too.”
Kurt jammed his hand through his hair. In the beginning, he felt as though he’d been running away from something terrible, something he was escaping. But instead of getting away as he’d hoped, the choices he’d made had slowly funneled him into ever narrower alleyways, finally dumping him in a dead end.
If Averil knew, there was nowhere else to run. She had no reason to keep his secrets.
“I’ll go over to their place for lunch tomorrow.” It would be Saturday, after all. It wasn’t as if he had to work.
“Good idea. I think sooner is better.”