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“If you think I’m going to let one of my brothers be the one to care for you, you’ve got another thing coming, woman.”
His house comes into sight, and I gape at it. I saw it from a distance on the tour, but up close, this place is gorgeous. Andhuge. What in the world does he need all this space for? I’m still staring at it open-mouthed when he gets out of the truck and comes around to my side.
“Please don’t fight me, Poppy.” His arms cage me into the truck, and I can’t help but breathe in the fresh scent of him. And I notice for the first time that he looks tired…and worried?
“I’m not sleeping with you,” I tell him.
“Momma set up the spare.”
“Oh.” Why am I sad about that? Did I really want him to insist I sleep with him? In his bed, in his room, in his house? Where his kids are? Because that’s just stupid. How would we even explain that to them?
“So, you’ll stay?”
I sigh. “Fine.”
“Good.” A wide smile breaks out across his face. “Because the kids have been a wreck since Momma carted you off to the hospital. They’re gonna be waitin’ at the front door for you.”
That makes this very large pill a bit easier to swallow.
“Alright. And then I get a shower and a couple of those pain pills. Yeah?”
He tugs me out of the truck and into his arms. I let him. Partly because I’m too tired to walk and partly because I just want to be close to him.
“Only if you promise not to get all loopy and tear off my Wranglers again. Wouldn’t want to take advantage of you in a weakened state.”
I groan.
“Shut up.”
She’s right.I have been avoiding her. When I left that day, I wanted to meet with her later, or at least sometime this past week. I wanted to talk to her and kiss her and touch her all over again. But the second I got home and those two kids came runnin’ up the front porch, reality hit me like a brick in the face.
She is twenty-six years old. A whole-ass decade younger than myself. And I’m supposed to just…what? Date her? Introduce her to my kids as my girlfriend? Shit. No twenty-six-year-old wants this kind of life.
“You’re takin’ that choice away from her,” Hayes told me the other day in the barn. I hadn’t spoken to either of them about what happened, but they obviously knew. I had taken his truck home, and I’d taken Poppy with me. It was easy to guess from there.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Because you’re ruining your own damn happiness. And hers. You should let her choose.”
I knew I couldn’t avoid her forever. I had planned on giving the kids over to Momma one night this weekend and going over to talk to her. But then I saw Joey and Wade runnin’ up over the hill, screaming and crying with Wells joggin’ right behind. The look on his face said it all. Someone was hurt, and the only person he was working with all day was Poppy.
My stomach had dropped through my ass.
“She got bit,” Joey had stuttered out between tears. “And it was all my fault!” She screamed and cried and carried on, with Wade joining her, even though I don’t think he fully understood what was happening.
After I got them settled, I knew I needed to go get her. Wells had said it looked pretty bad and that she wasn’t able to walk right because she had managed to twist her ankle on the way down. So I gave the kids over to Wells and headed to the hospital.
Momma tried to warn me that Poppy wouldn’t be pleased to see me, but I wouldn’t hear any of it. I was worried sick, pacing the floors at home until it was time to go get her. No matter how stubborn she was, I knew she’d give in.
And now, with her in my house and in my bathtub, I know I made the right decision. I know she’s safe. I know if anything happens, I’m here. Literally, I’m right here. I’m sitting on the bedroom floor with my back against the bathroom door, listening to her soak her pains away.
She took some pain meds right before I drew her the bath, so I know she’s got to be feeling the effects by now. She’s in there humming to herself, and every once in a while, I hear her sigh. Damn, it feels nice to have her in my home. It feels right.
I knock softly on the door.
“Y’alright in there? Ready to get out?”
She groans. “I guess.”
