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“Does she like you back?” he asks. He keeps on poking around the shed like he’s trying to keep his hands busy, checking behind me, although I know my work is perfect.
I shrug. “She says she does. But I’m not sure.”
“Well, keep at it,” he says. “Any woman worth having needs some bringing around.”
I stop what I’m doing to stare at him. “Beg your pardon?”
“I’ve always hated that expression. I’d a whole lot rather someone just ask me what the hell do I mean than hear them beg my fucking pardon.”
I bite back a grin and my surprise, holding my lips closed tight for a moment. Then I say, “What the hell do you mean by ‘keep at it’? It was you who warned me away from her, the first day she arrived.”
He grins. “Well, when Jake was a young man, I knew he’d always do the opposite of what I suggested, so I learned that one of the easiest ways to help a young man find a path is to warn him away from it.” He chuckles. “Ta-da. It worked.”
I scrub my hand across my nose, trying to hide the grin that’s tugging at my lips. “I think I might just be immune to your brand of persuasion.”
He laughs. “Sure, you are. It took you less than twenty-four hours to find your way to her. I’d say that was a job well done on my part.” He pretends to pat himself on the back.
He thinks I went to Abigail just because he told me not to? That’s not the case. Not at all. “So you told me to stay away because you thought it would send me in her direction?” The dodgy old coot.
“Well, it wasn’t because I think you’re shady or damaged or not good enough for her. I don’t know much about her, but everything I’ve seen about you has impressed me.” He chews on the toothpick. “You show up on time, you work hard, you’re smart as all get-out, and you care about people, son. Nobody impresses me more than an honest man.”
Suddenly, I have a lump in my throat that I can’t swallow past, and I have to blink hard to clear my vision. “Thank you,” I finally say when I can speak.
“Don’t you let those people in town get to you. Small-minded people are quick to carry a grudge. And when you have a town as small as Macon Hills, it’s easy for a hive-mind to develop, meaning that if one person thinks it, they spread it to everyone else. I’d wager that as soon as one influential person starts to pull for you, the rest will stop giving you such a hard time.”
“I don’t particularly care if they like me. I’d just like for them to leave me alone.”
“That boy of yours,” he says. “He’s going to come and live with you?”
“The jury’s still out on that one.”
He turns to face me, and he looks straight into my eyes. “Why?”
I fidget for a moment and shove my hands into my pockets. “I’m afraid,” I admit.
“Of what?”
“That his association with me will do him more harm than good.”
“What will do him more harm than good is losing his father,” he says firmly. “When Jake’s mama died, I wanted to crawl in a hole and die with her. My goddamn heart was broken, and I felt like every day was a chore to get through. That lasted for a few weeks.” He fiddles with the loose end of a tie-down strap, running it back and forth across his palm. “But that boy of mine, he needed me. So I had to get my shit together and be his father rather than a big old ball of sorrow.” He points his thumb at his chest. “I had to remember that even though she was gone, I wasn’t. So I got my shit together and I kept it together.”
I nod, unsure what kind of response he’s looking for.
“You’re worthy of being that boy’s daddy,” he says slowly and succinctly, while staring straight into my eyes. “Don’t you ever let anyone convince you different.”
My nose suddenly clogs, and my eyes burn as I walk to the open door of the storage building and look out at the darkening sky.
“Ethan,” Mr. Jacobson says quietly.
I lift the tail of my shirt and swipe at my nose where he can’t see me. “Yes, sir?” I say without looking back.
“You’re worthy of raising that boy,” he says again, and he says it so clearly and directly that I feel like something breaks inside me.
“What if I’m not?” My nose is suddenly stuffy again, and I feel like an idiot. But Mr. Jacobson pays me no mind and he keeps messing with those straps that don’t need fixing. “What if the people in this town can never forgive me? What then?”
I feel his beefy hand clamp onto my shoulder. “See, Ethan, that’s the thing. The town doesn’t need to forgive you. You need to forgive yourself.”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure I can.” I finally turn to look at him. He doesn’t blink when he sees how full my eyes are. He looks at me l
