Chapter Four
After the womendeparted, Mason tried to return to work but thoughts of Natalie made it difficult. He was happy when his dad’s oldest employee, Charlie, interrupted with, “Your dad was looking for you.”
Good. Any conversation with his dad was sure to bring his focus on to something other than the beautiful woman with the sparkling dark eyes and smoky voice, one that made it sound as if she’d recently woken up. She’d appeared on the farm wearing a white jacket with a bright red scarf, reminding him of Sierra snow flowers popping up through the snow in springtime. It was fire and ice, just like her. Both elements could be dangerous and, yet, he didn’t want to avoid either one.
He entered the greenhouse, finding his father checking the soil of one of the many potted poinsettias. Bentley, the Labrador, was now snoring under one of the potting shelves.
“You wanted to see me?”
His father’s aging brown eyes turned to him. “Ah, Mason. I heard you were helping Enrique’s niece. How’d that go? She got everything she needed?”
He wished he could have done more than given her a Christmas tree but, at the moment, he was happy to be guaranteed future interactions with her. “Yeah, fine. I’m going to deliver the tree to her later this week.”
“I think Charlie is going into town later today and can probably—”
“I think Natalie needs to make room or get a tree stand or something. Probably better if I just do it.”
His father gave him an odd look, like he knew Mason was making excuses and possibly getting himself sucked in by a woman again. But he was being friendly and nice, and Natalie already knew him, so there was no reason to bring Charlie into the picture. And, okay, maybe he did like her but that didn’t mean he wasn’t about to make the same mistake he had made with Dakota. He cleared his throat and was determined to sound as mature as possible. “So, was there something in particular you wanted to talk about?”
Daniel sank onto a nearby stool, returning the poinsettia to the shelf. “How much are you expecting to inherit this business, Mase?”
“Uh, what?”
“The business. Is this what you really want? Are you expecting to take over for Mom and me after we’re gone?”
Mason wasn’t sure what he expected from this conversation, but it wasn’t this. He woke up this morning with nothing but excitement at the prospect of seeing Natalie again and that was it. While he was trying hard to prove to his father that he could respect his father’s business and take it seriously, he wasn’t sure he was ready for this conversation yet. He wanted more time to prove himself, so when the business was put in his hands, he’d earned it.
The problem was that his parents had Mason late in their lives. His mom had been forty-five and his dad had been ten years older than that when he’d been born. He’d grown up with his parents frequently mistaken for his grandparents. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as he had always been loved by both of them, but he couldn’t help thinking about how he wouldn’t have as much time as his peers. The pressure of limited time left a weight in his stomach, like he had to hurry up before he squandered another opportunity.
It didn’t help that his father frequently used the phraseAfter I’m gone. Whether this implied his parents’ retirement from Motherlode Nursery and/or their move to Arizona to be closer to his mother’s sister and/or his father’s eventual earthly demise, it felt like Mason always had to be prepared even though there was nothing wrong with them.
At least nothing was wrong yet. This time felt different. His father didn’t seem to be asking him about some hypothetical plan in the distant future. His heart panicked at all the horrible possibilities his father was trying to prepare him for. “Is something wrong?”
His father’s gaze snapped to him. “What? No, I-I just thought it was time we talk seriously about it and I…” Daniel stopped, taking a moment to pause. “I think this is going to be our last season.”
A million questions flooded Mason’s mind. The first one being, was the business in financial trouble and was it somehow his fault? His past mistake of previously taking a few hundred dollars from the business no longer seemed insignificant and maybe his shortsightedness had caused a greater consequence than he originally thought. “Are things that bad we have to close?”
Daniel’s face reflected surprise. “No, It’s not that. You know your mom wants to move to Arizona and we both just feel it’s time. We’re ready to retire. And Charlie offered to buy the business.”
He didn’t hear anything after that because what the fuck? Charlie? Sure, the man had always been his dad’s right-hand man but—He couldn’t deny it. Mason had assumed he’d get the business.
Why not me?
Deep down he knew why.
“You don’t want me to have the business,” he said calmly to his father even though he didn’t feel the emotion at all. He was trying not to feel betrayed or appear entitled.
His father pressed his lips together. “It’s not that, it’s just Charlie has a lot of experience and really knows the business—”
“I grew up in this business.”
“But are you here because you want to be or because that’s just where you ended up?”
He wasn’t sure how to answer that question because it was possible for both of those things to be true at once.
His father must have taken his silence as confirmation of the latter option. “This isn’t a punishment. And Charlie focuses one hundred percent on the nursery and tree farm. It’s not a hobby for him. He takes this seriously.”
Mason understood the implication. It always returned to the same thing. It’s not that he didn’t take his father’s business seriously, it was more that his father always wanted things done in a particular way. Anything veering from this path meant it was being done wrong and not taken seriously. Mason’s detour from his father’s path happened when he became interested in beekeeping a few years ago. What started as curiosity, became so much more to him.
