by Sosie Frost
“Jules.”
He didn’t look at me. “Yeah?”
A heaviness gutted me, crashing into the ever-present morning sickness. I swallowed, drowning those words in a pit of cowardly nausea.
“I’m going to approve the barn.”
His jaw clenched as he looked away, patting the hard metal of the railing.
“Thanks, princess. But I think I’m looking for something else now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Julian
Never thought I’d miss dealing with the county fair until I was back at home, managing disaster after disaster on the farm. Easier to deal with catastrophe when it was on someone else’s land, screwing with someone else’s day.
Then again, Micah had made any calamity manageable. Or maybe fooling around with her in a spare tent had made the problems worth fixing. Sex was a great defense against a world eager to rain on a sunny day, slip a disc in a man’s spine, or pick apart a farm one rotten timber at a time.
The last replacement fence post pounded into the soft earth. I joined it with the old fence that had separated my fields for the past ten years. Instantly, the rotten wood crumbled. The fence teetered, and two feet fell forward, cracking another three support posts.
I pitched my hammer at the mess. Fuck it. I’d take a goddamned match to the whole line. No sense trying to salvage the unsalvageable. The wood was as warped and splintered as the roof to the house. I’d only bought so much timber for the fence. I’d need double what I’d ordered to fix what remained. Maybe more.
That money was better spent on the roof. The hot water tank. The barn. The seed. The equipment. Modernizing the irrigation system.
Lists upon lists of projects. Expensive projects. Projects that needed more than one godforsaken person to complete.
Screw the fence. I needed a beer. Didn’t trust myself anymore with painkillers, but no one said a goddamned word when a man self-medicated with alcohol.
I ditched the timber and retreated to the house, pitching my tools onto the porch as a silver Accord spun its way up the driveway. Micah parked next to my truck, patted a grazing Clyde on the head, and met me on the bottom step. I sat. She didn’t.
Her dress looked a little tight. Not showing, but enough about her was changing. Didn’t have much time left in the first trimester. At some point, we’d have to tell people. The little princess didn’t want to start any gossip, but I sure as hell wouldn’t tolerate anyone suggesting the baby wasn’t mine.
Or that the woman belonged to anyone but me.
Micah wore her hair down today. Gentle curls brushed against her shoulders. Gorgeous. Tempting. If only she dared to let her defenses down too, for even a moment.
Did she even realize how beautiful she was? What I’d give to greet her properly? Haul her into my arms. Kiss the apprehension from those pouty lips? Relieve both of our stresses with a simple touch?
“Hey,” I said.
Micah fiddled with a folder. She handed it to me, swallowing hard. Her eyes were red.
Crying?
Jesus.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Here.”
I ignored them. “Tell me what happened.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re upset.”
“I’ve been upset.”
And I’d done everything in my power to help her. “What can I do?”
“It’s not your responsibility to worry about me.”
Bullshit.
Micah kicked a rock. Her high heels sunk into the mud. She never learned. The woman was so obsessed with portraying the right image she’d never recognize her real self if she stripped out of the designer clothes and faced the mirror.
“A few weeks ago, I met with Mayor Desmond,” she said. “Apparently, my father had convinced him and the board that your land was worth a great deal of potential to the community. Tax revenue. More people and businesses moving in.”
“Yeah.” I leaned against the stairs and ignored the pain screaming from my lower back. Wouldn’t get any better standing. Learned long ago to just get used to it. “I heard that too. I counter-offered.”
“Anything good?”
“It’s no Rivets’ contract, but it’d be enough to get my brothers and sister on their feet.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“I’m trying to stay off my feet.”
She smirked. “Are you interested?”
“What do you think?”
“If you are, I wish I had known about it earlier today.” She handed me the application. “This is yours. Pending approval by the zoning committee—who, under penalty of death for skipping their assigned duties at the county fair, promised to sign off on the variance. It’s yours.” She bit her lip. “I’d say you earned it.”
“And only three months late.”
“What’s a couple months? You’ve waited five years.”
I tapped my folder against my hand, but Micah didn’t share my smile. My stomach dropped.
“What?” I asked. “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing—”
“Tell me.”
She dragged a breath over lips thin and tight. Trying to stop the tears. This time, it wasn’t because of the hormones.
“Mayor Desmond expressed to me his interest in the future development of your property,” she said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning…he would have preferred you sell the farm so my father could begin work on Butterpond’s revitalization.”
Son of a bitch. “What exactly did he tell you to do about my application?”
“That doesn’t matter now.”
“Like hell, princess.”
Micah hesitated. Too damn proud and too damn vulnerable. “I was told to decline your application.”
The folder turned to lead in my hands. “You refused?”
Her eyes met mine, glistening with tears she’d never let fall. “I filed your application. Then I packed my desk.”
I rose to my feet, gritting my teeth as the quick stab of pain struck my back before jolting down my sciatic nerve. She rushed forward to help. Just what I needed. First a limp, now a woman throwing her career away for me.
“You quit your job?”
She shook her head. “A resignation looks better on resumes.”
“Christ. What the hell did you do?”
“What I had to do,” she said.
A quiet rage tore through me. Who the fuck was Desmond to think he could control what I did or didn’t do with my property?
The mother fucker thought he could threaten Micah to get his goddamned development?
I’d rip his head off.
“Jules—”
I interrupted her, teeth clenched. “I would never ask you to sacrifice your job.”
“You didn’t need to ask me.” Micah brushed a soft hand over my arm, then pulled away before she got too close. “This was important to you. You needed this barn—for more than just a three-legged goat. This…this was for you. To start again. To help your family. It was what you wanted.”
But it wasn’t what I needed.
The nails and timber, boards and concrete meant nothing to me. The barn was just a building. The farm just an idea.
But this woman—this beautiful, sexy, unbelievable pain in my ass—was everything missing from my life.
And now she finally understood.
It’d taken disaster after disaster, ruined pies and cancelled fireworks, but now she realized what I’d promised her.
Everything I meant to rebuild. Everything I wanted to begin.
It was for her.
And our baby.
“Don’t worry about anything.” I pulled her tight, ignoring her quiet protests. “Not the job, the baby, anything. Got it?”
“Jules…”
“Forget the damned five-year plan. I can give you so much more.”
She tensed. “Wait, Jules.”
&
nbsp; “You’ll stay here. On the farm.”
Now she pulled away, her eyes wide. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ll help you through the pregnancy here. We’ll fix up a room for a nursery.”
“Stop,” she said. “Listen to me.”
“We can raise the baby together. Here. On the farm. Like we should have done from the beginning.”
“Jules, you don’t understand,” she said. “You…you didn’t let me finish. I resigned from my job today.”
“I know.”
She quieted. “That means I can’t stay in Butterpond.”
Shock cracked through my spine. “Why the fuck not?”
“Because I’ve accepted a position at the civil engineer’s office in Ironfield.”
Son of a bitch.
Micah couldn’t meet my gaze. Good. At the moment, I couldn’t stand to look at her.
“You’re fucking leaving?”
“It’s a great opportunity,” she said.
“In Ironfield.”
“The job pays more. I’ll have more responsibilities. It’ll look great on a resume.”
What the fuck did a resume matter? The woman spent so much time thinking about her future she never actually lived her life in the present. She’d planned the next five weeks, five months, five fucking years of her life to the goddamned minute.
And only now did I realize she’d never once meant to include me.
Micah had pissed me off before, but she hadn’t actually hurt me.
Not until now.
“What about the baby?” I asked.
She pointed to her belly. “Well…unless you want to put the baby in your uterus, he’s coming with me.”
“Don’t get smart.”
“Then use your head, Jules.”
Unbelievable. “What the hell are we going to do about the kid?”
What were we going to do about us?
Micah had no real answer, and she faked the pleasantries because she was too scared to admit the truth. “We can work something out—”
I slammed my hand against the railing. “What the hell do I have to do to convince you to stay? You’re carrying my baby.”
“I can’t plunk down where I’m standing because I’m pregnant.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because this is a good job!”
“And this is a good farm.” My chest ached. “And I’m a good man.”
Micah frowned. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you see? That’s why I gave you the barn!”
“So you’d have an excuse to leave?”
“As a gift to you!” Micah stared at me in disbelief, like she wasn’t the one cracking open my chest just to rip out my heart. “I did this for you, cowboy!”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You did it for yourself.”
“What?”
“You’re too obsessed with your future to realize what you’ve got now. What you’re missing. What you’re losing.”
“I have to think about the future,” she said. “I don’t have a choice now.”
“Don’t blame the baby for this.”
Micah hand reflexively covered her tummy. “Don’t you dare. I love this baby, Julian Payne. That’s why I’m doing this! So I have a job, some money, some security.”
Because she couldn’t depend on me?
Or because she refused to admit her feelings?
“I saw your five-year plan, princess,” I said. “You never once planned for a child…or for someone like me.”
“A bastard who would criticize me for accepting a fabulous new job offer?”
“That’s me. Ruining your life, one job at a time.”
She brushed her hands through her hair, tangling her fingers in the curls. “Jesus, I thought you’d be happy for me. This is everything I’ve always wanted. A good job. Cushy pay. Maternity leave. I don’t have to rely on you for this. You got your barn. I got my job. Everyone wins!”
Except the jackass who’d played for more.
“We talked about this,” she said. “You agreed with me. These past few weeks…it was just sex. We never made plans for anything more.”
I frowned. “We’re having a baby. That is our plan for more.”
“Don’t.” She interrupted me. “I know what you’re going to say. But we can’t start a relationship just because I’m pregnant.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because it never works! I lived through that life, Julian. My parents married only because of my mother’s pregnancy. It ruined their lives. They fought. They screamed. They hated each other.”
“You really think I could hate you?” I asked.
“No.” Her whisper was soft, slow. “But it would kill me if you did. And I can’t risk that, Jules.”
“So, you don’t even want to try?”
“If I wasn’t pregnant, you wouldn’t be asking me to move in, to live with you, to start a family with you.”
That didn’t matter. Not now. “But you are pregnant.”
“Yeah.” Her voice trembled with tears. “But a baby doesn’t make a family, Jules.”
And apparently, I wasn’t worth the chance.
I held out the folder, looked her in the eyes, and tore the papers in half.
“And a barn doesn’t make a farm,” I said.
Micah stared as the shredded paper drifted to the ground. “I…why…don’t you know what I had to do to get that approval?”
“Wasn’t that important after all.”
And it didn’t matter now. Not without her at my side. Not without our baby learning to walk on the porch. Not without a future together—kids at the breakfast table, crops in the field, a beautiful woman in my bed.
Tears stained Micah’s cheeks. Her voice weakened. “I did this for you, Jules. I did it to prove…”
“Prove what?”
Her expression crumbled, but she wiped the tears away. “Forget it. I don’t even know why I tried. You’re an arrogant prick. I knew it from the first time I met you. I should have stayed away. Should have realized what would happen. I never should have put myself on the line for you.”
“That was your choice.”
Micah swore. “And you wonder why I never take any risks. Why I don’t deviate from my plan. It’s because of you. It’s to protect me from men like you.”
She stormed away, stumbling to her car, eyes brimming with tears. She jerked the door open but didn’t look at me as she yelled. “Good luck with your damned barn. No one else is going to help you.”
I already knew that. And I’d accepted it.
Fuck the barn. And the farm. And the goddamned life I’d imagined and dreaded and guilted myself into creating.
What good was a farm without a family?
What sort of family could I have without her?
Chapter Eighteen
Micah
A strip of tape sealed the last of my belongings into a cardboard box.
Gretchen, sipping from the bottle of the wine I could no longer enjoy, watched from the couch. Ambrose rested at her feet, somehow managing to dislodge one of my favorite heels from a box I was pretty sure I’d already loaded into my car.
“That’s the last of it.” I made a face. “Thanks again for the…moral support.”
Gretchen raised her glass. “I don’t move friends, but I will certainly watch them move and give all the encouragement they require.”
“Fantastic.”
She shook the rest of the wine. The bottle was empty, but she peeked inside to be sure. “Did you know, blind roosters will crow at any time of the day, light or dark?”
“I…did not know that.”
“It’s true,” she said. “Hey, do you think the little old ladies on the fair committee would like to start another project?”
“I’m not even sure we found them all after the fair. For all I know, Alice is still wandering the fairgound.”
“Well, I need them to help with a project. I need sweaters.”
>
God help us all. “Sweaters?”
“Special Critters Animal Rehabilitation is closing,” she said. “Current residents in the county shelter include a handful of exotic animals with exotic ailments that the zoo won’t touch.”
This didn’t answer my question, but it also didn’t surprise me. “So…why sweaters?”
“For the alpaca.”
“The alpaca?”
“The alpaca with alopecia.” Gretchen tutted with a sigh. “Poor thing. Looks hideous. Always chilly. Hates everyone.” She finished her wine with a satisfied sigh. “Think she was bullied a bit.”
“I…”
“I’m gonna have to find another home for them though. The rooster does not like the cage. Keeps peck, peck, pecking at the metal…like he’ll eventually find a way out. Can’t see what he’s doing, but I’m thinking he’s echolocating every exit. I could really use a barn.”
I’d already sealed that part of my life into the boxes and threw away the one shirt Julian had forgotten under my bed. Just the word ached through me.
“I’m so tired of barns.” I kicked the heaviest box. No way I was moving the damn thing alone. I gave up. “I don’t want to talk barns.”
Gretchen hummed. “Well, you know what Julian Payne isn’t getting?”
“I’m guessing it’s a barn.”
“Did he really tear up the application?”
Wasn’t the application he’d ripped in two. It was my heart.
Gretchen didn’t wait for me to answer. “Well, he’s not getting it now. Mayor Desmond already invited your dad to the offices today.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“You know he’s going to destroy this town,” she said.
Wouldn’t surprise me. “He’s done it before.”
“Jules has to fight this. He can’t sell the land. God only knows what will get built in its place.”
Homes that weren’t the quaint, country style house with the wraparound porch and sunflowers in the gardens. Sanctioned green spaces that would never grow a single flower, let alone any sort of fruit or vegetable nurtured through a man’s blood, sweat, tears. Parks for kids that wouldn’t be nearly as fun for a child as a wide-open pasture with a couple animals to chase.
