Delivery to the Farmhouse (Havenwood Cowboys Romance #4)

Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

O nce Debra released me from her embrace, I felt like an imposter all over again. Everyone gathered, some sitting at the table, some at the bar stools. Dawson helped Bex get settled onto the couch. I strode from the room and out onto the back porch, wanting to let them have their private time with their mom.

Kody, Sophia, and Paisley punched through the back door, dancing around the open space. I followed them, standing in the cool evening air, watching the children play.

Grass had been laid out here, which surprised me since there wasn’t any in the front yard yet. Aside from the lawn and the incline of the hillside, there wasn’t much else out here.

A feeling I couldn’t name settled into my chest. I never had this. A yard to play in. My parents were loving. They cared about me, but my family never had the close-knit feel that the Holdens had.

I wanted this. And I wasn’t sure I’d find it in Bridgewater. Not when it felt like my life was waiting for me out there. Somewhere beyond the line of the mountains and the stretch of the blue clouds in the darkening sky .

A cricket chirped, and Bex’s kids laughed and toppled onto the grass, kicking out their arms and legs as though they were building snow angels.

The door opened behind me, and Dawson stood on the porch. Raising his voice, he called his stepchildren inside.

“They just laid that sod!” he called. “You can’t be on it yet!”

Well, that was a big whoops.

To their credit, all three of those kids listened to their stepdad and came running.

“Sorry, Dawson,” Kody said, bending to pick Sophia up from behind and carry her up the porch. The two-year-old didn’t like this much; she squealed and clawed at her big brother’s hands around her middle.

“Ouch! Stop it, Soph!”

“Just let her walk, dude,” Dawson chided. “She can do it herself.”

Finally succeeding at prying herself free, Sophia toppled on her hands and knees onto the porch. Laughing, she pushed herself up. Then Paisley stepped in and took Sophia’s hand.

“I’ve got you,” she said, and before long, the three of them followed their stepdad back inside.

Dawson waved to me as he went, and I waved back, seizing inside as Colton took their place and joined me on the porch’s top step.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, propping his arms on the wooden railing and staring out at the sod.

I tucked my hair behind my ears, not sure how to put feelings to words. I didn’t want him to feel bad for bringing me tonight. These listless feelings were nothing new—and they certainly weren’t his fault.

“I just needed some air,” I said.

“Got plenty of that out here,” he said, drawing in a long, slow breath through his nose. “Everyone is heading into Burley for some ice cream. You want to go? ”

“Ice cream sounds great…”

“But?”

I was so conflicted. My defenses toward him were lowering, that was true, but that only posed an entirely new problem.

Getting close to him didn’t fit into my recently hatched plan to leave town. What could I say? I’d told him I wouldn’t reject him again. But really, what was I doing here?

I had to be upfront about my feelings.

“But I don’t want to get your hopes up unfairly,” I said.

Colton winced. “Way to let a guy down easy. It’s just ice cream.”

“No—that’s not?—”

He moved closer, cinching all of my nerve endings like the drawstrings of a bag. With his hands in his pockets, he nudged my shoulder.

“I’m a likable guy. You might find that out if you’d give me a chance.”

“That came out wrong. You are very likable.” A little too likable.

“Then what’s the problem?”

I looked down at my shoes. “I’m leaving.”

I’d lived in Bridgewater my whole life. Maybe that was what I needed—to experience something new . New job. New residence. New town. Maybe halfway across the country.

I heard Arkansas was nice this time of year.

Or Florida.

Or anywhere but here.

“You’re leaving? Just when I’m getting to know you?”

“I need to,” I told him, staring at the sunset—not at him.

I couldn’t look at him.

“Why?”

I shook my head and stared at my feet on the newly stained boards of his mom’s porch. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

More like, it felt too stupid to say my reasoning out loud .

He took off his ten-gallon hat and set it on the corner post beside him. Then he rested against the beam like he was settling in for a good long story. “Try me.”

“But—ice cream, your family?—”

I pointed to the back window where the Holden clan was visible sitting and talking. Kody and Paisley were chasing one another around the backs of the couches.

“Will be fine without me. We gave Mom her gift. That’s all that matters. I got nothing but time, Natalie. And ears.”

“Time and ears ?” I snorted.

He pointed to the designated specimens on the sides of his head. “Yep. Two of ‘em.”

I half-expected him to start wiggling them

“All the better to hear you with, my dear. And I’m pretty good at using them, if I say so myself.”

His expression was so heartfelt, I couldn’t help smiling. “So you’re the big bad wolf now?”

“Never said I was good.” He winked.

“You said you were a good listener!”

He caught himself. “Why don’t you try me on for size, and we’ll see how things work out.”

Folding his arms, he moved in, frying any capacity for concentration I had left. I was absorbed by his broad chest and the way his arms folded across that chest, by the intoxicating charge he added to every breath I took.

His voice dropped to a level meant for riddles and unruly admissions.

“I’m pretty good at a lot of things,” he said, capturing me with his gaze.

He was the tide, and I was a boat with no steering. And there was a leak. And no life vest. And water seeped in the longer I lost myself in his blue eyes.

All hands on deck—because I was sinking. Fast.

I didn’t doubt he was good at a lot of things. He fixed band equipment on stage. He farmed. He worked on machinery in his shop. He built cabinets, houses, and townhomes. He put out literal fires. In fact, this statement had me staring at him like a dazed idiot.

“Start talking,” he said, hitching his grin into place as he bent his legs and sat on the top step.

I sank onto the step beside him, feeling more at ease than I expected. So I went for it.

“Do you ever feel like you don’t fit in your own life? Like life is one big shoe store and you desperately need a new pair. Everyone around you is trying things on and finding their stride, but nothing you try works. Every pair is too big or too small. The wrong color. And now, there’s a new owner who’s forcing you to make decisions you’re not ready to make.”

“Why aren’t you ready to make decisions?”

“Because nothing fits,” I said with a laugh, going back to the shoe analogy. “My parents moved to Saint Anthony to live near my sister.”

“And you didn’t want to go?”

I sighed, curled my legs to my chest, and wrapped my arms around them. “No, I love it here.”

“So stay here.”

Like it was that simple.

“And do what? I don’t want to work at the post office. I’m terrible at construction. I nearly started one of the townhouses on fire! I don’t want to work at The Mercantile like Bex did. There’s nothing else for me here.”

At a population of around three hundred, Bridgewater was just too small.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

I’d never put much credit in the term penetrating stare before, but his intense focus drilled right into me. I didn’t know a glance could be tangible, but his expression had me in its hold.

I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say. Jo Scott had asked me the same question. I had no response then, and I didn’t now.

“I thought…I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t discount construction completely. For all we know, you’ll be running the crane next year.”

I laughed, bumping his shoulder with mine. “I’m good.”

“Being an electrician didn’t sit too well with you, either.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“You could always take up farming,” he said, sniffing and staring at the newly laid sod.

“I can’t see myself doing that, either. It just feels like…like God has a plan for everyone else but me.”

Admitting as much to him struck me like a crowbar wedging a slab of wood free from the side of the house. A house where that wood had been for a long time. It took effort; the nails dug in, but eventually, the board came loose.

With a whine.

At least I wasn’t whining.

Colton clasped his hands over his bent leg. If he was bothered by my mention of God, he didn’t act like it. I wasn’t usually one to bring religion into everything, but with my life completely turned upside down the way it was, I couldn’t help it.

God was steering my ship. And fog had rolled in, blocking Him from my sight and throwing all of His directions off course.

Actually, the minute my parents left?—

No. Sooner than that. The minute Jensen had pulled the proverbial rug out from under me, God had abandoned ship, leaving me to direct my sail on my own when I didn’t have the first clue how to handle rigging or anything that pertained to ships or sailing.

It seemed like every prayer I sent upward hit the ceiling. The celestial wires had been cut, leaving me with no signal.

I knew I shouldn’t give a man so much power over me. I shouldn’t let my breakup with Jensen hold so much sway—but it was a jumping-off point. It hurt. It caused some damage, and it made me feel like I couldn’t rely on anything or anyone.

Even God.

“Maybe He’s waiting for you to make a decision,” Colton said, “before He can guide you as to whether it’s right or wrong.”

His statement sent a flutter of chills down my arms, making my hairs stand on end.

“Make a decision? Where do I start?”

“What do you like to do?”

I thought about this. My usual reservations kicked in, but the crowbar reappeared, wedging those away, too.

“I don’t know. I play piano, and I like to sing, but that’s not something I can see myself doing for a living.” My piano skills were mediocre at best.

“Why?”

“It’s just not for me.” In fact, I hadn’t yet pulled my ukulele out since I moved. With the walls as thin as they were, I didn’t want to disturb the Eriksons.

Colton nodded. “Okay, then. What else?”

I thought of my Anywhere But Here book.

“I’ve planned all these trips, but I don’t know if I want something planned. I think I’ll just take off for a bit. See where the road leads me.”

“Run away, you mean. That’s why you’re leaving.”

My heart started pounding as though he’d just caught me in the act of stealing. “I’m not running away. I just need a new start. A new life. Did you know the farthest I’ve ever been is Utah?”

“I did not know that.”

Laughter resonated through the glass doors behind us. Colton peered behind his shoulder and lifted a hand at Bryce as he glanced our way. I worried one of the others would barge out that door, give us a hard time for keeping to ourselves, and insist we join them inside.

Fortunately, no one did .

Moments passed before Colton cracked open the silence.

“If you’re leaving, take me with you.”

My jaw muscle lost its grip. “What?”

That was the last thing I expected to hear.

“I’m serious. What are you doing the rest of the week?”

“The—week?” If I was leaving, I’d be gone longer than one week.

“Yeah.”

I gestured to the house—and in theory, the townhouses in that general direction. “Working. Why?”

Colton rose from the porch. His cowboy boots clapped on the boards on the way to the door.

“Call your boss—tell him you’re sick. Then go pack a bag with enough things to get you through a week.”

I pushed to my feet as well, trying to keep up. “Why would I do that?”

And need I remind him that he was my boss?

He reached for his hat. “Because you and me? We’re going on a road trip.”