If he looked in the rearview mirror, she’d be standing there, arms tight around her middle, staring after him, with hurt and anger in her eyes.
He didn’t look back.
Chapter 22
For two weeks, Allison tried not to watch Brent and his workers saw, hammer, and drill their way around the school building not far from her duplex. For two weeks she ignored the quiver of Finnley’s chin as he, too, watched from a distance, obeying her, clutching the kitten to his chest. For two weeks, she avoided talking to the other people who lived at Green Acres Farm. Anything beyond, “yes,” “no,” and “thanks for dinner.”
How could she have fallen for that man? He said he wasn’t the right guy for her — that she deserved better — but he didn’t know what she’d gone through. What her dad had done. The only person who deserved better was Brent.
Then why didn’t it feel like anyone was being done any favors?
* * *
For two weeks, Brent tried to keep his gaze from slipping toward the duplex beside the construction site. It nearly killed him. Which was worse, seeing Finnley sitting on the stoop, watching him with, Brent imagined, vulnerability in his brown eyes, or seeing Allison shepherding Finnley into the duplex, into her Camry, into the straw bale house?
The worst was that she didn’t even glance his direction when she did it. She held her head high and looked anywhere but at him.
“You guys need to talk.”
Noel’s voice caught Brent by surprise. He didn’t even bother asking who Noel meant. He knew. Everyone knew. They might as well have taken out an ad on the front page of the Galena Herald.
Brent shrugged. “We talked.” At volume. And kissed. He’d relived that kiss a hundred times a day for two weeks.
“I don’t like being caught in the middle. By rights, Allison should be the one over here going over the project with you and making decisions. Signing off.”
“I know.” He would not look toward the garden, where she weeded beside Claire. With her back to him, incidentally. “Sorry, man. It’s just the way it is. Better this way.”
Noel chuckled. “I doubt it’s better. Do you want to talk about it?”
Wasn’t the first time the other man had asked. The first time, Brent had hesitated. He was used to saying “no” now.
“Today’s the last day for a while. Patrick refuses to let one of the other foremen take over once the windows come.” He grimaced. “So I’ll be back.”
“Smart man.” Noel ran his fingers along a post that Brent had planed with his own hands.
He wanted to see the school bustling with eager students in the worst way. Wanted to see Allison’s joy in her new home. See Finnley slide down that banister. See his son grow up. Not just watch from a distance, but experience it. Dwell within it, every single day.
“Being as you won’t tell me what’s going on, let me tell you a bit about myself.” Noel dropped onto a giant roll of electrical wire.
Like Brent didn’t have anything to do to wrap up the project? He crossed his arms over his chest and surveyed the other guy.
“It seems to me your faith is solid.”
Brent nodded, even though it felt anything but. Yes, he clung to God every single day, but only because the waves of despair threatened to wash him away. God was his anchor. If he let go, all hope was gone.
Noel picked up a pair of electrical stripping pliers and turned them over in his hands. “I didn’t have that. My mom took my sister and me to Sunday school when I was a kid, but I bailed as soon as I could. Wanted nothing to do with an old peoples’ religion, you know?”
“Yeah, I kind of did the same. It didn’t seem relevant in the face of football or parties.”
“I wandered. A lot. I lived for myself. Whatever felt good at the time. After I started Enterprising Reforestation I realized I needed to make some changes or I was going to end up on the streets like my father. A guy couldn’t run a business if his head was muddled with alcohol.”
“Yeah.” Brent had heard bits of Noel’s story before.
“So I quit drinking. Gradually pulled back from the whole scene. Some of it just wasn’t fun anymore when I wasn’t half-smashed.”
Brent grimaced. “I can relate.”
“I was pretty proud of myself. Still didn’t need God. I’d done it myself. The self-made man and all.”
That’s where his story and Noel’s diverged, then. Obviously Noel’s path hadn’t been as wrong as Brent’s. Brent had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that he couldn’t save himself from it. He’d thrown himself at the mercy of a loving God. God had forgiven him.
Forgiving himself was harder.
Facing consequences was harder yet.
“It wasn’t until after I met Claire that I began to see Christianity as something other than an escape hatch from eternal damnation. I was determined not to believe for her sake, you know?”
Brent knew, all too well.
“But it was God reeling me in.” Noel chuckled. “Like a big sucker fish on a line. He let me pretend I was free, but the lure had been set and, sooner or later, He’d reel me in.” Noel met Brent’s gaze. “I’m so thankful He did. Changed my whole life, and I don’t just mean selling my business, marrying Claire, and moving to Green Acres. Those might be the biggest outward changes, but inside… that’s where the magic happened.”
“I get it, man. I do.” Brent had to choose his words carefully. Not give away too much to this man he could see being a real friend. A brother.
“Allison’s changed a lot since she came three months ago. She’s softened.”
Brent leaned over, grabbed a hammer off the concrete floor, and jammed it into his tool belt. “Softened?” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice, even while he knew Noel spoke truth. He’d seen the vulnerability. She’d tried to open up to him.
Noel chuckled. “Yeah. You notice she’s wearing some color these days? Finnley told her his favorite color was yellow.”
Yearning flooded Brent. “Finnley’s talking?”
“More every day, but I doubt he’ll ever be as loud as Madelynn.”
Brent forced a grin. “Hard to imagine that.”
“The two of them have picked nearly every dandelion on the property, until Sierra is protesting there’s no blossoms left for the honeybees. There are flowers in jars and vases all over the farm.”
Several times Brent had arrived in the morning to find two or three dandelions on the school floor. They’d been droopy. Dead. Had they been meant as a gift from a small boy who looked up to him? Who looked up to a man who, while he was his father, didn’t deserve to be looked up to?
Brent closed his eyes. Yes, God forgave, but sin still had consequences.
What had Noel said? Oh, yes. About the children picking dandelions. “That’s cute.”
Noel’s brows furrowed. “What?”
“The dandelions.”
“We’re having them for dinner.”
Brent couldn’t stop the guffaw. “You’re what?”
“I promised Finnley. We’re making dandelion pesto.” Noel’s eyes twinkled. “Adding leaves to the salad. Digging up some roots to dry and make tea.”
“They’re just weeds, man.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. There’s no such thing as just weeds. Every plant has a purpose. Claire’s been teaching me that. Sierra, too. She’s the herbalist, after all. A weed is simply a plant that grows where it’s not wanted.”
“Yeah, okay. But dandelions?”
“A French delicacy. They breed them. Grow them commercially.”
“You’ve been in the sun too long.”
Noel laughed as he stood and stretched. “Not so, Callahan. It’s the truth.”
“That’s crazy.” He’d have to look it up online. Not that he suspected Noel was purposefully lying to him. But pulling his leg, maybe.
Noel socked him in the arm. “There’s a lesson in that.”
Brent raised his eyebrows.
“There’s no such thing as a weed. Even all the stuff in my past I wish I could undo, it’s just like dandelions.”
Best not let this get too deep. “You can cook them and eat them?”
“Maybe.” Noel laughed. “But they all have a purpose in my life. For me, they were ugly mistakes. I didn’t care who I hurt there for a while. It was all about me. But God was still in control, you know? Romans eight twenty-eight.”
“All things work together for good…”
Noel nodded. “Grab hold of it, man. Whatever happened between you and Allison, believe that God can work it out for good.”
That would be easier to do if what had happened was between him and Allison. But not with Mallory in the mix. Not with Finnley.
* * *
Every place at the farmhouse table was marked with a small jar of dandelions. The kids had been busy. Many of the stems were nonexistent. Maddie’s work, no doubt.
Allison laughed. It felt freeing. Noel had handed her the signed-off papers on the house and school. She now had six entire weeks of not seeing Brent. This was good. Finnley would get over him. She’d get over him. Life would be normal for a while.
Without her classrooms built, but normal. Everything would come together in its own good time.
“Hello the house!”
Allison, being nearest, went to the door and opened it. A scruffy man with tied-back red hair stood on the other side. Wearing bicycle shorts? That was all kinds of wrong.
“Have I found the famed Green Acres Farm at long last?”
She blinked. “Um, yes, this is Green Acres. How may I help you?”
He beamed. “To think I have arrived at long last. So far it is from the City of Angels.”
This dude was a certifiable nutcase. Her gaze slid past him to a bicycle with a little trailer hitched on behind. Hmm. She ought to get one of those for Finnley to ride in, actually. Wait. This guy had come from where? “You biked here from Los Angeles?”
“Indeed.”
“Are we expecting you?” If so, no one had bothered to tell her, or she’d been so wrapped up in the could-have-beens with Brent the words hadn’t registered.
“Alas, no one knew of my coming.”
Plain English, buster. This was a farm, not a Shakespearean event.
“Someone at the door?”
Whew. Noel could handle this dude. Allison stepped aside. “Yes. This guy has apparently biked from L.A. looking for Green Acres.”
Noel thrust his hand out. “Noel Kenzie. And you are?”
The guy shook it firmly. “Keanan Welsh.” His gaze settled on Allison. “And this lovely lady is your wife?”
He was crazy. Had to be. But it was nice to be called a lovely lady.
Noel laughed. “My wife is inside. This is our friend Allison. Come on in.”
Just like that? Now they were welcoming tramps off the street? Well, off the dirt road. This guy could be anyone. Some weed-smoking peace-loving convict. Allison snuck him a glance.
His clear green eyes snagged hers, twinkling. Didn’t look so drugged. Or like a madman. But still.
“Join us for dinner, Keanan? We’re having dandelions.” Noel laughed. “And a few other things. There’s plenty.”
“It would be my great pleasure. I haven’t feasted on dandelions since last year. Is there a place I might wash up?”
Her first impression had been correct. The guy was a kook, but at least one willing to be clean. “There’s a tap right over here.”
Chapter 23
Keanan had pitched his tent up the hillside. He dug a latrine, and he and Noel erected an outhouse over it with scrap wood from the building site. Apparently the guy could drive a team of horses, and Zach had delegated the responsibility of reseeding the north pasture to him.
In the evenings, Keanan sat cross-legged in front of a campfire, strumming his guitar. It seemed he’d moved in, at least for the time being.
“I have an apology to make,” he said to Allison one evening when the flames and music had drawn the group together.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“My complaint at the great distance from the City of Angels.” His fingers danced across the strings as he spoke, the notes speeding up as they climbed. “If Green Acres were closer, it would be more likely to be tainted. Instead it is fresh and pure, the mountain air bracing and refreshing. God’s peace abounds here.”
Allison locked her fingers together and stretched her arms in front of her until her knuckles cracked. “I understand. I grew up in Portland.” The city itself was more peaceful than L.A., but nothing like here. Now that Brent was gone and life settled into a routine of planting and weeding and caring for Finnley, she couldn’t wish to be anywhere else.
* * *
“Patrick?” Brent poked his head around his uncle’s office door. “Do you have a few minutes?”
Patrick pushed blueprints aside. “For you, anytime. What can I help you with?”
“About finishing the job at Green Acres Farm…”
His uncle sighed. “Haven’t we been over this? We’ll lose too much momentum on two jobs if I switch you out with Dale. Your crew is used to working with you, and Dale’s guys with him. And moving the whole crew is an even worse idea, because then no one will know what’s going on. On either job site.”
Brent hadn’t thought through how much it would cost the company. How much it would disrupt other people’s lives.
“You know I love you like my own son. I’d do anything for you.” Patrick held up his hand. “But I have a dual responsibility here. One is to Timber Framing Plus and our clients. And the other is to you.”
Brent dared to meet his uncle’s gaze.
“You need to find yourself a wife, lad. Settle down. Once you’ve got that taken care of, you’ll find these contracts to be mere business. A job to do well. A way to make a living and meet your family’s needs.”
As though it was simply something a guy could check off a list. Three rolls of electrical wire. Check. Twenty-eight lengths of half-inch copper tubing. Check. One wife. Check.
Allison Hart. Check.
“Maybe this is the one?”
Time suspended. Collapsed. “I wondered that myself for a bit,” Brent admitted. “But it’s more complicated than that.”
“It always seems so.”
Brent closed his eyes for an instant and breathed a prayer. “She’s taken custody of her young nephew.”
“And that’s a problem how? You love kids, or so I always thought.”
“Her nephew… is my son.” Brent’s voice choked as he stared at his hands, clenched in his lap.
“Oh.” The springs in Patrick’s desk chair creaked as he leaned back. “Is this supposition or fact?”
“Fact,” whispered Brent. Danny Boy.
“Does she know?”
He shook his head.
“That would be a good place to start,” Patrick said mildly.
“Allison doesn’t trust men. The little bit of trust I’ve earned was hard won.” The memory of that kiss would be forever imprinted on his lips. And his heart.
“So you’ve decided to make the decision for her. Just walk away before she finds out.”
“To protect her. To protect Finnley.”
“Look at me, son.” Patrick leaned forward. “Is she an adult?”
A full woman in every way that counted. He nodded.
“Why is it your job to shield her by withholding facts from her? Is that really protection?”
Brent’s clenched fingers demanded his full attention.
“Or is it your pride getting in your way?”
Ouch. He shot a glance at his uncle, only to discover compassion in his brown eyes.
“I made such a mess of my life, Patrick, and yet it never occurred to me that there might be a child out there imprinted with my features.” He swallowed hard. Licked his suddenly dry lips. “What if… what if Finnley isn’t the only one?”
“Son, have you confessed your sin to
God?”
“You know I have.”
“Has He forgiven you?”
Brent nodded.
“Then forgive yourself.”
“That’s not the problem. It’s the consequences. Forgiveness doesn’t get rid of the results.” What was he saying? That he’d rather Finnley didn’t exist? No. Yes? Just thinking about it made his head hurt. His heart seize.
“What’s keeping you from telling Allison?”
“What will she think of me?”
Patrick shook his head. “Why does it matter?”
Brent pulled in a long shaky breath. “Because…” He tried again. “Because I could… maybe… love her.”
His uncle steepled his hands. “That changes things.”
Miserable, Brent nodded.
“Does she know how you feel?”
Did she? Had she felt the passion in that kiss as much as he had? He’d said the words. Not once, but twice. “Yes.”
Patrick jerked to his feet and strode to the window. “Brent. Don’t tell me you fired that at her on your way out the door.”
He closed his eyes. “Pretty much.”
“Then you’re a fool. You know that? A fool. When you love a woman, you don’t walk away just because it’s difficult. The love of a lifetime is worth fighting for. If it’s going to fail, don’t you be the one making it happen.”
“She’s been hurt so much, already.” Whatever had happened in her past to create so much distrust, he couldn’t even begin to imagine. But with his son, he knew. “Finnley, too,” he choked out. “He’s better off without me.”
Patrick loomed over Brent’s chair. “Do you really believe that any child is better off without his father? A man who loves God and cares deeply for his child?”
“But—”
“Brent, think. Think of all you went through because your father left the family. What did it do to you?”
“It tore me apart.” Still did.
“How can this child not deserve to have a relationship with his dad?”
Dandelions for Dinner (A Farm Fresh Romance Book 4) Page 16
