If You Hold Me (A Sugar Maple Novel Book 4)

by Ciara Knight

  “Yet, you’re out of farm shape. You know this life is different than all others. Your father was strong and active for many years because of his work.” His mom spoke with pride in her voice. There was nothing more important than work ethic to farmers.

  Tanner sipped the bitter, hard-core, man-coffee they always drank on the farm. What he wouldn’t do for a softer pick-me-up with a hint of promise drink. Maybe he was city boy soft now. He choked half of the vinegarish-tasting blend down while sitting in the rocker next to his mom.

  “Your father would be devastated to have you back here.” Her words were strangled and full of sorrow.

  Surprised at her moment of uncharacteristic emotion, he studied the trees near the driveway that swayed with a burst of wind coming from the mountains, sending leaves raining over the front lawn. He hunched over, resting his elbows to his thighs, the bitterness of regrets stronger than the coffee. “I know he didn’t want me here, but I’m all that the farm has right now.”

  “Gee thanks.” Her tone switched faster than hay igniting from one carelessly tossed match.

  He softened his tone. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that Pops made it obvious he never wanted me here.”

  Her brows knitted tighter than a clove-hitch knot. “That’s not true. Your father would’ve loved to have you here.”

  He let out an exasperated chortle. “Had a funny way of showing that. He made it obvious that my life wasn’t here since I was big enough to climb into a tractor. It was all football, all the time.” A spasm in his shoulder challenged his next sip of coffee, but he managed to raise the cup to his lips and take one more swallow before he could force his voice not to catch. “I know I let him down.”

  His mom leaned forward, the chair creaking with the movement. “You didn’t let him down.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s why he never came to see me after I lost my college scholarship? I wish he could’ve seen me as more than a failed football player.”

  She shot forward. “Is that what you think?” She didn’t say anything else. She only looked down her nose with a hurt, narrowed-eyed expression.

  “What was I supposed to think? You never came to visit me, and there was always an excuse for me not to come home. In a decade, I’ve only seen you a handful of times. Most of those times were for events in Hawk’s life. I knew he was Dad’s favorite, but I thought that I could make up for not playing in the NFL by getting a college coaching job.”

  “I know you’re a capable, talented, and smart young man, but you’re an idiot.” She marched to the screen door. “Your father never cared about football. He only cared about you. He cared that you weren’t stuck here, that you’d have choices he never had. Your father wanted to give you the world, not take it away from you.”

  He opened his mouth to argue further, but when she fled inside the house, he didn’t have the energy to chase after her, not if he wanted to get enough work done to make a dent in the ever-growing chore list. Not to mention the fact that when his mom walked away, the conversation ended. Nothing he said or did would ever change that. She was as stubborn as Mary-Beth.

  The rooster crowed, announcing the workday needed to begin, so he abandoned his cup in the kitchen sink and set off for a crop and orchard evaluation. Walking the grounds, he tried to focus, but his mom’s words kept creeping in, fouling his attention. How could she say that? Did his father really send him away out of some false sense of giving him a better life? What better life could exist than being with family and working alongside them once he’d ruined his big chance?

  It didn’t matter. This place only offered bad memories and lost family.

  After deciding there was enough to harvest between the corn and apples, he headed to work on the old combine. Without it, there wouldn’t be any harvesting of corn unless he did it by hand one stalk at a time. He snagged the old toolbox from the barn and went to the outer edge of the field, where Gobbles—his brother Hawk had named her when they were kids—sat broken and rusted.

  A car rumbled along the front drive, but he didn’t care who came for a visit. Most likely his mom had invited Mayor Horton out to discuss wedding plans. The ones designed in parallel with what he and Mary-Beth had discussed years ago. Did she even remember their relationship and promises to each other?

  How things had changed since they were young—the once high school principal turned second mother to a bunch of teenage girls now ruled the town and, at the moment, his life on the farm. Wedding planning had taken over his mom’s life and turned everyone in town crazy with decorating and beautifying the farm, but that wouldn’t pay the bills. The crops would.

  That stirred his determination to fix Gobbles, so he set to work assessing all the mechanisms, hoping to fix it himself without having to pay a mechanic. Belts, feeder house, and elevator chain needed replacement, some cracks needed to be welded… All that he could do. A few bearings needed some TLC, but the real problem area appeared at the feeder house floor. It would have to be replaced completely. Great… How much would that cost? He crawled under to check the sieves and straw chopper and realized they needed some attention, too.

  “You look like you could use a pick-me-up.” Mary-Beth’s voice startled him, causing him to hit his head, luckily not on any blades.

  He rolled out from underneath, rubbing his skull and blinking through the sharp pain. “What are you doing here? Trying to kill me now?”

  “No. I brought you coffee. A special blend just for you.” She shoved a cup in his face as if it were medicine for his now-aching head.

  He stared up at her, realizing she really had brought him coffee. The aroma covered the odor of oil and rust and disappointment, so he took the proffered drink and leaned against the tire, allowing himself another minute to see straight.

  “You need some help with this?” Mary-Beth sounded strange, her voice in the I-want-something tone that she’d reserved for getting her way when they were kids.

  He took a sip and grimaced at the overly sugared flavor that made it taste more like a butterscotch milkshake than coffee. “Uck. What’s in this? A pound of sweetener?”

  “No.” Her face turned sunrise pink. “You love caramel.”

  “Not since high school, and not in my coffee.” He handed it back to her.

  She snatched it from him with a glower and a huff.

  He watched her expression turn from agitated to nauseatingly sweet like her coffee. “What do you want?” he asked, with no room for her to question that he was on to her antics.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again. “I forget how well we can read each other. We always could. You’re right, I need to ask you for a favor.”

  “I don’t have much time for favors right now. As you can see, I’m a little overwhelmed trying to get this place running again.” He removed his cap and wiped his brow. “I don’t understand how my father let it get this bad.”

  “You don’t know?” She took a step back and looked at the house, then back to him. “Seriously?”

  “Know what?”

  She took another step backward until she ran into Gobbles. “It’s not my place to tell you. I just assumed you knew.”

  He closed in on her, not leaving her any room to run. “Tell me.”

  A hawk squawked and soared down to the corn, fetching something and rising into the sky. She watched the creature as if wishing to fly away with it. “Your father wasn’t able to work the farm for over a year.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’d been sick for years with cancer. He fought it with chemo, but that caused heart problems. He was too weak to work.”

  “Years? How many years?” Tanner choked on the knowledge that his father had suffered without a word to him.

  “He was diagnosed about the time you were injured in college, and Hawk did the early enlistment his senior year in high school and left for the military.”

  “That long?” Heat rushed over him; his breath caught. “My fath
er was sick all that time and no one told me? What happened to the town family motto?”

  “You haven’t been a member of this family for a long time.” Her eyes misted, but she lifted her chin.

  His breath caught and didn’t want to release. With his hands to his knees, bent in half and gasping for air, he leaned against the dilapidated old machine. The same machine he’d ridden on his father’s lap when he was four. Learned to maintain when he was eight. And learned to drive when he was twelve.

  Nothing made sense—not his family, not his life here, not the way Mary-Beth’s hand rubbing small circles on his back soothed him the way she always had. “How could he not tell me? My mother, my brother… No one told me.”

  “I don’t know why your mom didn’t tell you, but I believe Hawk doesn’t know either.”

  He breathed in deep, stinging breaths until he could stand, despite the throbbing in his head that had intensified. “Why wouldn’t she tell him?”

  “Rumor in town was that they didn’t want to tell Hawk because they didn’t want him distracted when his life was in danger. Then after a long battle, your father’s passing was sudden. One night he went to sleep, and he didn’t wake up. I always thought you didn’t care enough to come home.”

  “Didn’t care enough? That’s what you think of me?” He gripped the warm metal and squeezed, attempting to rid himself of the anger and sorrow that plagued him without allowing his temper to show.

  “I don’t know who you are. I thought I knew you, but then when you left and never returned, I assumed you moved on with your life and didn’t look back.” Her hand returned to him, the familiar-yet-foreign touch from the past stirring something inside him. A feeling. A strange peace he didn’t expect. A welcome home feeling.

  He flinched, wanting to change the subject. “My mom said something strange this morning about how my father sent me away for a better life.”

  The town courthouse bell chimed in the distance, a cow mooed, but Mary-Beth didn’t say anything, so he continued. “I always thought he’d sent me away to fulfill his dreams, and I resented him for it, but that was because I thought he wanted me to be an NFL player to make him proud. I always felt like the only reason he paid me any attention was because I played the game he always wanted to play. That he lived vicariously through me.”

  “Don’t lie to yourself… You wanted to run off and be a football hero as much as your father wanted it for you.”

  “Maybe, but when it didn’t happen, he didn’t want me home. I felt like he couldn’t look at me.”

  “And now?” Mary-Beth walked around, swatting at the tall corn stalks.

  “I have no idea. I mean, he never spent any time with me unless it had to do with football. I tried to help him in the fields, but most days he’d send me to practice.” His hands ached, forcing him to release his fingers, which had been balled into fists by his side. “My father was fighting cancer and never told me. I could’ve been with him, working this place, helping him through it. If I had been here…” His voice cracked, and he couldn’t continue, the thought alone too harsh to face.

  Chapter Seven

  Tanner appeared broken, a state Mary-Beth had never witnessed in all their lives. “You couldn’t have saved your father.” She approached him with a soft step, soft touch, soft heart. The anger and resentment she’d been holding melted away. “I knew you felt pressure in high school to get a good college scholarship, but I had no idea you felt that way about your father.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t. Not until he disappeared on me when I was injured. Like I wasn’t good enough to be his son anymore. Had I known he was fighting cancer, I would’ve insisted on coming home and helping here.”

  “I’m guessing that’s why your father didn’t tell you.” Mary-Beth still resented the way Tanner had left, but they were kids then and had been friends since they were toddlers. Seeing him in that kind of pain softened her resolve, her bitterness. “You should talk to your mother about how you feel. I’m sure she can tell you more than I can. I was gone for four and a half years for college, and since I returned, I’ve been busy with the coffeehouse and raising my little brother.” She paused, remembering why she’d come to speak to him in the first place.

  “What is it?” He scratched his chin the way he’d always done when he was figuring something out. But nowadays, he wore sexy scruff instead of boyish virgin skin.

  Mary-Beth shooed him off. “Nothing. It isn’t important right now.”

  He picked up some tools spread around in the grass and tossed them into his father’s large red toolbox that had belonged to his grandfather and probably his father before him. There was a lot of history on this farm. That was one of the things she’d always liked about this place. “The favor you were going to ask. What was it?”

  She toed the blades of pale green, knowing this wasn’t a question she wanted to ask, especially with all he was facing, but it was for her little brother. The one person in her life she’d do anything for, since he’d always been her light when the world was dark.

  “You might as well tell me before we start yelling at each other again.” He winked, his playful, I’m-going-to-turn-this-situation-around kind of wink. He’d always been good at lightening a mood, which was probably why everyone had loved him in high school. It was a defense mechanism she recognized as a way to avoid pain and uncomfortable feelings. But it wasn’t her job to care for him anymore.

  “Right. We wouldn’t want that again. The town is already talking about our reunion.” She pushed her shoulders back and decided to go for it. “You know my little brother is in high school now, right?”

  “Right.” He wiped his strong, farm-blistered hands on an oil-stained rag. How he’d changed in the brief time he’d arrived home. The wounds on his hands would pop, hurt, and callous over the coming months, or he’d be gone in a week and they’d return to city soft.

  “Well, I think he wants to live up to your legend. He wants to get a big college scholarship for football.”

  “You want me to talk him out of that?” He smiled, the half-crooked, I-own-your-heart kind of smile. And he always had, until he was gone.

  She averted her gaze, refusing to fall for such tactics. “No. If that’s what he wants, I won’t stand in his way, but there’s a problem.”

  “What’s that?” He stiffened, his forearms flexing.

  “The high school coach left, and they have no one decent to train them—well, except Mr. Praetor. They should make it to state this year, the first time in almost a decade, and Andy hopes to get noticed by college scouts.”

  “Old man Praetor? Can he still walk?”

  “He uses a scooter most of the time.” She shrugged. “Will you do it?”

  He slammed the toolbox shut. “Do what? You haven’t asked me anything yet.”

  “Will you coach the high school football team?”

  He stood, stretching his arms over his head. “No.”

  A rippling of anxiety traveled the length of her arms and legs. “No?”

  “No.” He snagged the toolbox and headed toward the house. “As much as I’d like to help Andy, can’t you see I don’t have time to eat or sleep, let alone play ball?” At the edge of the field close to the barn, he stopped and eyed the land. “There was a time when all I wanted was to work this land. Now all I want to do is get away from here. The desire is as dead as this place. After five generations, it’s now beyond repair, yet I’ve been charged with the impossible task of restoring it.”

  “I can help,” she blurted before she could stop herself. What was she doing? The last place she wanted to be was the farm.

  With Tanner.

  Working side-by-side.

  Alone.

  “Unless you can fix that combine, the roof of the barn, harvest the land, there isn’t much you can do.”

  She didn’t like to be dismissed, and she didn’t like letting her brother down. No matter how much she didn’t want to be around Tanner and all the feelings that sh
e’d thought were long gone but were bubbling to the surface, she would swallow her pride for Andy. She’d been detoured from her plans to be a dancer on Broadway. She wouldn’t let him be dismissed from his ambitions. With phone in hand, she marched to find cell reception at the little spot near the front porch. Once three bars popped up, she dialed.

  “Who’re you calling?” Tanner approached her with an inquisitive eyebrow lifted.

  “I’m more capable than you think. Stop acting like you’re all alone. You’re in Sugar Maple. Here, you’re never alone.”

  “Hey. What’s up?” Stella asked.

  Mary-Beth spoke before Tanner could stop her. “You know how you’re running a tab at the café? Well, I’m cashing in. Come to the McCadden Farm after I close up shop, and bring your tools. You’re going to fix an engine for me.”

  “What kind of engine?”

  She shrugged, as if Stella could see her.

  Tanner shook his head. “I don’t need any help. I just need to work without interruption.”

  “The kind that runs a combine to harvest corn.”

  “Cool. I think I can manage that.” She hung up without another word. That was her way, on to the next task without a goodbye. Pleasantries had always made her uncomfortable.

  “Okay, now, I freed up enough of your time to go check out the football team after school. I’ll meet you at the high school at 3:30 sharp. Don’t be late.” She hoofed it to her car without looking back.

  “I didn’t agree to this,” he shouted after her.

  “I’ll have men here Saturday to fix the barn roof, and I’ll be here after football practice and after the morning coffee rush to help with harvest and care for the animals.”

  “Why would any men in town help with the roof? It won’t happen. I need to stay here.”

  She about-faced. “Your excuses are over. The wedding will be here, so they had already spoken about working on the structure of the barn. Again, we’re a town family. Despite you abandoning us, we’re still here, and we don’t turn our backs on anyone. We would’ve been here sooner, but your father wouldn’t accept the help. You call me stubborn?”