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“Well, I don’t know,” I say. “I think a girl could run a farm just fine.”
“Me, too,” Knox agrees. She’s quiet for another few seconds before asking, “Is Daddy okay?”
“He’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. Okay?”
She nods. “Okay.”
After I get Knox to bed, I find J.R. in our room, packing his clothes as though he is going somewhere. He’s angry. I can tell by the way he’s slinging his clothes across the room and into his suitcase. I stand in the doorway of the bedroom, leaning against the frame, my arms folded across my chest.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re going home,” he says. “I’m not staying any longer for him.”
“J.R.” I sigh. “We can’t leave. Not over this. It wasn’t him saying those things.”
“It was, Rach. That look. The sound of his voice. I’ve seen that before. I’ve heard it before, and that’s why I left this place back then!” J.R. shouts, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him this angry. Not even when I showed back up unannounced last year.
I push myself out of the doorway and move closer to him. I catch his arms in my hands, and I force his eyes to mine. “I love you,” I say, mainly because I’m not sure what else to say.
He looks down at me. His blue eyes are full of rage, but I watch them calm the longer he gazes into my eyes. Finally, he sighs, and his shoulders drop. He presses his forehead against mine.
“I don’t know what to do,” he says softly.
“We stay,” I tell him, my hand moving through his hair. “He won’t even remember this in the morning.”
“I’ll remember it, though.”
“He loves you, J.R.”
“He only came back because he’s dying. Not because he changed his mind, Rach.”
I know it doesn’t matter what I say; I can’t change his way of thinking. I sigh, and I drop my forehead to his chest. “Okay, fine. Well, I’m going to bed. Knox and I ate half of the cake, and now I’m crashing.”
“You ate half the cake?” He lifts my face to his and smirks.
“I baked a cake, dammit. Someone had to eat it.” I smile back at him.
J.R. smiles at me for a moment and then asks, “Is Knox okay?”
“I just put her to bed, but it wouldn’t hurt to check on her. She was worried about you.”
He nods. “I’ll go.” And he starts down the hall.
“J.R.?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good man.”
J.R. gives me a nod and then disappears into Knox’s room.
I’m in bed, almost asleep when I feel J.R. crawl into bed next to me. He rolls over toward me and drapes his arm over my waist. There’s a faint smell of sugar and icing on him, and I realize that he’s been downstairs eating cake.
“You smell like cake,” I whisper to him.
“It was a good cake.” I hear him chuckle.
“Did you eat the rest of it?”
