Beck’s chuckle is the saddest chuckle under the sun. He shakes his head, his gaze sweeping the landscape behind me. For a moment, his amber eyes stare ahead unfocused. Like he’s not looking at his farm, but at a view he doesn’t recognize.
And it’s the sad chuckle and the look in his eyes that makes me forget what I’m afraid of. I place my hands on his cheeks, and his gaze snaps back to mine.
“Everything else feels like a fight to survive.” His eyes blaze. “Being with you is… oxygen. As easy as breathing and better than laughing.”
My smile cracks wide open.
The corners of Beck’s lips tug up before he presses his forehead to mine. “A hell of a lot better.”
I’d like to kiss him right now.
I should kiss him right now.
But intrusive thoughts don’t wait for an invitation.
“I heard your dad on the phone this morning.” I try to meet his gaze, but with our foreheads touching, I just go cross-eyed and have to pull back. “Is… is the farm in trouble?”
His brows shoot up. “You heard Pop on the phone? Who was he talking to?”
I wince, remembering the pain in Mr. Olivier’s voice. I was eavesdropping, and now I’m confessing as much to Beck. What’s wrong with me?
“Someone named Paul?” I squeak.
Beck shuts his eyes and lets out a sigh that sounds both exhausted and hopeless.
Without even consciously choosing to, I run my fingers through Beck’s hair, wanting to soothe him. Wanting to make it better—whatever it is.
His eyes open slowly, and for the first time, I see real worry in them. And, God, it’s like a punch in the stomach.
“Yeah… Yeah, the farm is in trouble.” And then he tells me about how the farm is family-owned. How his uncle only holds a share of it, but he wants to sell that share. About how if he can’t raise the money to buy it, losing that share will be a major blow. One that Olivier Family Farms might not recover from.
And as he tells me about how he stands to lose everything—and how he’s trying to figure out a way to bring in the harvest, secure a loan big enough to buy out his uncle, keep from going bankrupt, launch a side gig, and take care of his dad—I realize that I might just be falling in love with him.
Because hearing about this hurts like hell. Like it’s not just happening to him, but it’s happening to me too. Like his heart has imprinted on mine, so his pain is my pain.
And even though none of this is joyful, I know without a doubt that Beck’s joy—however it comes, whenever he feels it—is my joy too.
Without a doubt, I want to help him. I want to help him more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
But what can I do?
I can’t hold down a job. I may or may not be able to live on my own.
Hell, I can’t even make a decent Cobb salad.
Chapter Seventeen
BECK
I should have had a clue about how big Hattie’s sister’s wedding would be when it takes me forever to find a place to park—and even then, it’s in an alley behind a giant three-story house on St. John Street.
But as I approach the cathedral, the street in front of it flanked with Lexuses, Cadillacs, and Beamers, I’m not sorry that my dusty, old truck with its farm vehicle plates is out of sight.
I’m also not sorry I wore my suit, even though Hattie insisted I didn’t have to. Mom’s funeral was the reason I bought it and the only other time I’ve worn it, but nobody here needs to know that. A quick scan of the crowd on the steps of the cathedral confirms that I’d look out of place without it.
And even if Hattie wouldn’t be embarrassed about that, her parents might be, and, no matter what, I definitely would be.
I’ve never been in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, but not even the four-story Romanesque Revival facade prepares me for the marble grandeur inside.
