Page 40 of Pick Me This Time

19

STERLING

I’d really gone and done it now. I’d kissed Daphne LaSalle and it wasn’t the kind of kiss I could come back from. It hadn’t been a friendly peck or an affectionate brush of my lips against her cheek. It had been a full-on, I’d-like-to-fuck-you-now kiss.

Maybe even an I-like-you kiss. It might possibly even have been an I-could-love-you kiss.

I blew out a heavy breath, unable to tear my gaze away from her where she was speaking to the fire chief. She was pointing at the bakery, obviously explaining to him where and how the fire had started. It was surreal to me that it had gone that far.

That she had been caught in what might’ve become an inferno right here at Northfield Farms. I’d known the place needed work. I just hadn’t realized the potential consequences of neglecting it.

“You need to let me have some upgrades done around the farm,” I said to my dad, who’d appeared on the scene about five minutes before. “I’ll pay for everything I can’t do myself. It won’t cost you a cent.”

While he hadn’t said anything to me yet, opting instead to just stand and stare at the building, I wasn’t surprised at the first word that came out of his mouth. “No.”

“Dad—”

“You have a life, Sterling,” he said firmly. “I don’t want you getting involved in Northfield Farms. You made your choice.”

“Yeah, I know, Dad, but I’ve already spoken to Jake. They can help us do the repairs and⁠—”

“I said no,” he snapped, his fingers rolling into fists at his side. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still ominously dark overhead. Dad glanced up at it from under the rim of his ballcap, his jaw so tight it looked like his teeth might break before he glanced back at me. “End of conversation.”

“I know you don’t want my help and I realize you don’t want me here, but whether or not I chose to leave, this is still my family’s farm. It’s our family business, and without work being done on the bakery at the very least, it might not break even this year. You’ll be in worse shape than you already are.”

Grinding his teeth, he glanced back up at the sky, staring for a long moment like he was waiting for answers to drop out of it. When he finally responded, my heart broke when I realized who he’d been waiting for answers from. Why he kept looking toward the sky.

“Your mother wouldn’t have wanted this for either of us,” he muttered harshly, his voice rougher than I’d heard it in a long time. “The farm lost its touch when she died. I’m happy to let it die with her. Just let it go, Sterling.”

Shock rendered me completely immobile. Stunned speechless, I watched as he started forward and walked away, striding across the parking lot to join Daphne and the fire chief. I stared after him, utterly unable to believe what he’d just said.

It helped me make sense of the state of the place, but shit. I’d known he wasn’t doing well. I just never would’ve guessed he was letting it go to shit intentionally.

I’d thought it was grief. Money troubles. Maybe even spite that I wouldn’t be taking it over from him, but never, not once, had it occurred to me that he was just letting it die.

As he struck up a conversation with the fire chief, Daphne glanced at me over her shoulder, looking way too concerned as her gaze met mine. I tried to give her a smile, but it fell flat. I wasn’t okay and clearly she knew it.

Our kiss played through my head all over again. I groaned, scrubbing a palm over my face as I wondered what the hell I had been thinking. I shouldn’t have done it. In the moment, I just hadn’t given a shit.

Worst of all was that I wanted to do it again. Badly. Just to see if what I’d felt was true or if it’d simply been the aftermath of the adrenaline. I had just pulled her out of a fire, after all. I needed to know if that spark had been real, and the only way to find out would be to do it again—sans flames, preferably.

But that spark?

Shit. It had been something so deep that it had settled in the marrow of my bones. Something I knew would change me irrevocably if it had been real. Something I wished I’d done ten years ago, but if it was true, if it hadn’t simply been the adrenaline, then I’d wasted a lot of time I could’ve spent with her.

Time I could’ve spent building the life I’d never known I wanted, but now knew I needed. If it had been true, then she was what had been missing all this time. She was⁠—

Eric pulled up with a squeal of tires, sliding sideways into the parking spot near where his sister was standing and racing out of his car without even shutting off the engine. He rushed to her side, pulling her into a giant hug and holding her tight.

Oh, yeah. I just kissed Eric’s little sister.

Fuck. This was going from bad to worse. I exhaled heavily, dragging my fingers through my hair and trying to center myself.

This had been one hell of a morning. The disappointment when I’d woken up. The pain of seeing those pictures. The revelations. The fire. The kiss. Going into the bakery.

I suddenly froze, even my lungs seizing as I looked over at the bakery. My mom’s bakery.

That place had been her pride and joy. I hadn’t really taken the time to look around in there given the circumstances, but I’d seen enough to know that it looked almost exactly the same as it used to. The shiny, fancy coffee machine was new, but outside of that, I hadn’t noticed anything that had jumped out at me as being out of place.