by Helm, Nicole
But why should she see how sincere he was? She didn’t know him. He didn’t know her. It was an old familiar feeling all in all, and one he knew just how to deal with. Give them what they wanted.
He stood. “Maybe we should meet to discuss this at a time when you’re more willing to be reasonable.”
She laughed bitterly. “You would be an asshole, wouldn’t you?”
If that was what she wanted to think of him, did it really matter what the truth was? He shrugged and fished one of his old business cards out of his wallet. He took the pen out of his pocket and crossed out everything except his name and his cell number.
Setting it on the table with a twenty, he slid it toward her. “You can contact me when you’re ready. But if it takes too long, I will contact you. Because I do want to be a part of my child’s life. You’ll hear from me one way or another.” Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he added, “And eat the sandwich and vegetables when they come.”
And because there was nothing else to say, he turned and walked right out of Moonrise, to his car, and got the hell away from New Benton and all the ways it’d never understand him.
* * *
THE FEELING SHE’D been wrong dogged Meg all afternoon.
It shouldn’t. Charlie had been so ridiculous, so familiar. She’d wanted to reach across the table and bash him over the head. With what, she didn’t know, but reasonable “action plans” always made her want to rip her hair out.
And he had been a jerk, so she shouldn’t feel one second of regret over calling him on it.
But it was something in his expression after she’d said it, a kind of weary acceptance, one she recognized from her family simply refusing to see her. Eventually, you just accepted they weren’t going to.
Everything about that last minute with Charlie burrowed under her skin and she couldn’t itch it away or ignore it. Something was off, and she had a terrible feeling the fault rested with her even though he was the one insane enough to propose marriage.
A proposal. Ha! It was a stupid suggestion and she hadn’t been wrong to scoff at it. But she didn’t feel right about the way she’d treated him.
What had happened to doing what was best for her child? Being a responsible, mature adult? There hadn’t been a lot of that going on at that table. She’d reverted into old familiar patterns that weren’t particularly fair when it came to Charlie.
He was involved in making half this kid’s DNA and it seemed as though he was interested in being a part of the kid’s life. She had to find a way for that to work, marriage to a stranger aside.
So he was traditional. Either that or he didn’t have a high opinion of marriage and thought easy peasy, we’ll get married. She didn’t know, because she hadn’t listened enough to find out.
She’d been too busy freaking out, because what man in his right mind proposed marriage to a stranger?
“And you can keep going on and on in this idiotic mental circle or you can call the man and find out yourself.” She stared down at the herbs she’d been processing and took a deep breath.
Part of growing up—part of getting clean—had been realizing she needed to own up to her mistakes. Accept them, and then learn how to move on from them. But that was all her, and the thing about being pregnant, even if she was the one dealing with all the growing and laboring and whatnot, was that she hadn’t gotten here alone.
She had to deal with the father of the baby, had to be bigger than her knee-jerk reactions. She had to be the reasonable one if he wouldn’t. He may have been calm and sure, but he was not reasonable if he was proposing marriage.
So she couldn’t get nasty about it. She had to show him he was wrong. This would be the first step in learning how to be parents to the same child even though they obviously all but lived on different planets.
She grabbed her phone out of her back pocket, and his card that she’d crumpled into the front pocket of her jeans. She dialed the number before she could talk herself out of it, hoping the scent of lavender would keep her strong.
When he answered, his voice was skeptical and wary and she couldn’t even work up any irritation for it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Charlie. It’s Meg.” Mother of your child, some way, somehow. “I think this afternoon kind of spiraled away from us.”
“That’s a way of putting it, yes.”
Oh, that measured, reasoned way he spoke was so grating. But she would rise above it. She would. “So, I was wondering if we could try again. It’s pretty important, after all.”
“Yes, it is.”
She bit her tongue for a few humming seconds, literally held it between her teeth just to the point of wincing pain so she wouldn’t say something snippy.
“Are you free this evening?” he asked.
She blew out a breath. “Yes, are you too far to come out here? It might be easier to do in private, and I can’t really leave the goats alone that long without more notice.”
“The goats. Right. Um, no, that’s fine. I can come out to your place.”
“Okay. So...”
“I’ll bring some dinner. That is, if you’d like?”
She narrowed her eyes, allowing herself the snippy expression, since he couldn’t see it. But like the chicken sandwich order and telling her to eat it, she wondered. “Why are you offering to bring me dinner?”
“Why do I feel like the truth might actually get me into trouble here?”
She softened a little. He didn’t really embody the snooty aura he gave off—at least not all the time. She needed to remember he was also the man who’d danced with one of her goats. Even if the memory was fuzzy, and it was 100 percent the fault of alcohol, there had to be some semblance of a human being beneath the surface that reminded her all too much of the world she’d left behind.
But that surface was also a part of him, and she had to be careful about how much she let it influence her, how much she bent to it. So she forced her tone to be kind, even though she was refusing him. “I can feed myself, but I appreciate the offer.” She swallowed. “Do you remember how to get here?”
There was an odd silence, one that made her nerves jump at the idea of him being back here. Sober. Just the two of them. Doing the opposite of what they’d been doing last time they were here.
No goat dancing. No drinking. And 100 percent no sex.
“Yes, I remember.”
There was something about his voice, something she didn’t particularly notice when she was actually in his presence and he looked like he’d just gotten off a golf cart with her dad. A kind of steadiness, a surety. It was confidence, but not used as a weapon. Her parents’ surety in their decisions and their lives and their place in the world was usually wielded like brass knuckles. No, that was too undignified. One of those ancient but giant swords that could cut you in two with one well-practiced down-the-nose look.
Charlie’s confidence was different. Besides, he really hadn’t looked like Mr. Put-Together today, had he? He’d grown a beard that looked less like he was trying to fit in with the urban hipsters and more like he just couldn’t be bothered to shave. He’d looked... She couldn’t put her finger on it. It was oddly familiar, the expression, the different way he’d carried himself, and yet she couldn’t label it.
“So, seven o’clock would be all right?”
She found her voice, though it wasn’t nearly as casually steady as his. “Yes, that’ll be fine.”
“All right. I’ll see you then, then.”
She thought she heard him groan away from the speaker, and it made her smile, though she could also just be hoping against hope there was someone human—a little lost underneath his all-too-familiar facade.
She could hope. She could look for the good in him rather than the ways he reminded her of a life that had never fit or been
any good for her. Because she wasn’t a little girl anymore, confused and ill-fitting. A problem. He couldn’t make her into that.
She looked around the shed where she dried and processed her herbs. It was tiny. A long table and a few benches barely fit into the little square. The weakening sunlight fell in patches across the concrete slab of floor. Plants hung from every available rafter and hook.
She’d found her place. She’d found herself. Unexpected turns in life didn’t take this away. Because this was the anchor.
So she could handle Charlie Wainwright. She could find a way to parent with him. He could come with his perfectly styled jeans and coiffed hair and charming smiles and action plans, and it wouldn’t change this thing.
This thing she’d built. This place that had become her heart, her soul, her savior.
If she reminded herself of that every day—every single morning—she couldn’t fail.
CHAPTER NINE
CHARLIE TURNED ONTO the gravel drive that would lead him off the highway and toward Meg’s little goat compound. He had no other words for the conglomeration of buildings that made up her operation.
He hadn’t given them much of a look last month. He’d been too busy freaking out at his total and utter spiral into irresponsible behavior. As he winced at the gravel pinging against the exterior of his car, he could see that it was, well, as weird as the term goat compound.
Her house was small, what he’d probably call a cottage if he was being kind. It was old, a little run-down and yet somehow cheerful. As if a little old lady who would offer you tea and cookies lived there.
Meg was definitely not a little old lady, and any cookies and tea had been figurative.
“Christ,” he muttered, pulling to the end of the gravel drive. There was a little stone fence of sorts at the top, one he could easily step over but he assumed kept people from driving farther.
On each stone there was some iteration of a goat or flower painted in bright colors. Charlie stepped out of his car and merely stared.
The woman he’d accidentally knocked up was really obsessed with goats. The image was everywhere, even inked onto her skin, and in just the few hours he’d spent in her company, he’d drunkenly danced with a goat and soberly watched her milk goats.
She was carrying his child. He’d proposed marriage to her.
Somehow it wasn’t a dream or some hallucination. This, right here, beside a row of rocks painted with goats, was his real life.
He blew out a breath and looked over the well-kept yard between him and the cottage. Flowers and bushes and bright green plants grew in beds along the tree line by one side of the house. Nearby, he could hear the goats bleating.
The door to the barn was open and Meg stepped out. For a brief second the whole goat thing didn’t seem weird. She had her blond hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, wispy curls hanging around her face. She was wearing shorts, exposing a twirl of color he couldn’t make out across the yard on the side of her calf.
In the plan of his life, Meg didn’t fit at all. He never would’ve considered a partner with tattoos and a goat farm, and a business that depended on the strength of farmers’ markets and people’s willingness to buy foolish things.
He couldn’t believe she thought she was solvent when this was her life. But she had a smile that made him forget all that, and even a little bit why he was here. She looked purely, 100 percent content. Like she knew without any shadow of a doubt where she was, who she was and that it was all meant to be.
Until she lifted her gaze to him. Her mouth remained curved, but her expression tightened. It wasn’t relaxed. She wasn’t content anymore.
He wished he could disappear so she could go back to that, but he couldn’t. So he stepped forward. “If you’re still finishing up work, I can wait.”
She waved him off, pushing the heavy barn door closed before he rushed to help.
She eyed him as he placed a hand directly above hers and pushed it the rest of the way shut.
“You’re going to be weird about me doing work while I’m pregnant, aren’t you?”
He withdrew his hand and shoved it into his pocket. Something about her made him feel more off-kilter than he’d ever felt, even in the fog of being jobless and aimless. Meg was the thing, even prepregnancy bomb, that left him feeling the most uncertain of himself.
“Well, as I hear from my sister-in-law, growing a baby is hard work.”
“Yes, and did she refrain from closing barn doors or whatever it is she does on a daily basis while she was growing a baby?”
Charlie thought back to when Mia had been pregnant with Lainey. Refrained? No, she hadn’t refrained from much, especially in the beginning.
“That’s what I thought,” Meg said before he could form a response. “Let me assure you that growing this baby is very important to me, and I’ll be taking care of both myself and it. And, even if it’s coming from a good place, people telling me what to do has never been something I swallow very easy.”
“All right, that’s fair.”
She nodded, seemingly satisfied with his response as she began walking toward the house, but he wasn’t done.
“But you’ll have to accept that telling people what to do has always been something I’ve done naturally. And I assure you, it does come from a good place. I can’t just turn it off.”
She stopped and turned to face him, that irritated line in her forehead he’d seen a lot during their short meeting at Moonrise.
“I’m used to being in charge. To leading people. My job was completely dedicated to me being able to convince people that my product and my way of getting it to them was the absolute best thing for their company.”
“This baby isn’t a product. And I’m certainly not a company. We’re people. All of us.”
He opened his mouth to argue further, but the words didn’t come. It was oddly on point with his ex Emily’s parting words to him when he’d said he wasn’t ready to marry her. It had been four years ago, that last serious relationship, and he’d thought he’d eventually marry her, but he’d had things to accomplish first and Emily hadn’t understood that.
I am not a timetable or a sales report.
He remembered that vividly. Because he’d known she didn’t understand and maybe that was for the best, but...had she been right?
Did he treat people like business objects? It would explain why the past few weeks had been so odd and uncomfortable. He should have been able to relax and enjoy some time off while weighing his options, but he just...
“Hit a little close to home?”
He blinked at Meg, who was staring at him. Not quite accusingly, though. There was a certain softness to her expression that he thought might actually be concern.
“Maybe.”
Her mouth curved at that, and it was such an odd feeling to admit a little bit of a failing, or something hitting “close to home,” and having the response be an easy, accepting smile.
“You seem to be the type who needs schedules and plans and all that...”
“And you seem to be the type who doesn’t want that.”
She inclined her head toward the house and started walking again. “Actually a lot of my life is based on a very precise schedule. Goats like routine and consistency, and if I’m going to produce enough soap to be solvent each week, I have to keep a very close eye on what I produce.”
She stepped onto the porch and pushed her door open. He bit back the urge to tell her she should keep it locked while she was in the barn. He’d bring up the subject eventually, but he sensed now was not a good time.
“But this—” she gestured toward her stomach, and then laid her palm there, her eyebrows drawing together “—this is something else entirely.” She stood inside the cottage, him still on the porch on the other side of the thresh
old.
It felt a little heavy, a little weighty, that separation. Because he might have fathered that child, but he was separate from her. She was not his partner or his spouse. They were not in this together. Not really.
She was standing there, and he was standing here, and all they could do was talk about possibilities. And the ways they were different. All they could do was dance around each other awkwardly.
He could not turn her into a timetable, or a product to sell or buy. He could not package this in a way that would make it more attractive to his life, this woman with a rainbow of swirls on her calf, a sunny day tattooed on her forearm that ended in a goat at the end of her sleeve.
“Come inside, Charlie,” she said gently.
Right. Inside. They had to talk. They had to plan, in whatever way they could agree to do that. This wasn’t business, but it was still a challenge to meet.
She wasn’t a timetable. She wasn’t a product. But that didn’t mean there was no end goal. The end goal was family. A child, and the way he wanted to raise that child. That was why he was here. To erase this line between them.
So he needed to stop psychoanalyzing himself, or letting her psychoanalyze him, and focus on that. On what he wanted. Because this wasn’t a job that could be taken from him. This thing, a child, was something he could earn that would always be his.
* * *
CHARLIE FINALLY STEPPED over the threshold and Meg was surprised that relief swamped her. She couldn’t get over the idea it’d be easier if he just went away, and for a moment she thought maybe he’d been considering it.
But he stepped forward and she gestured to the living room on the other side of the kitchen. He walked into it, too tall, too confident. He’d pulled himself together and cloaked himself with some kind of purpose.
The man on the porch she’d felt sorry for. She’d wanted to soothe him, or maybe share her fears with him. He’d seemed so human and lost for a few seconds, and she thought that man was a man she’d like to get to know.
Then she’d told him to come inside, and his expression had changed. Hardened wasn’t the right word, but something akin to that. His expression had become focused and sure. And that man she didn’t trust at all.
