“Of course, I don’t mind.” Farrah waved to a beaming Ms. Gretta, and he tossed his napkin on the table before taking three long strides to her table.
She was enjoying dinner with three of her friends, and as introductions were made, his attention was drawn to Farrah. He smiled where he should’ve and shook their hands in turn, but time and time again, he drank in the sight of his son wiggling down from his chair to straddle Farrah’s lap and play with the tress of dark hair that had fallen over her shoulder. They talked with animated expressions like they’d known each other Dodge’s entire life, and both of them had beatific smiles spread across their faces. She was so unforced with him. A natural. She’d make a wonderful mother.
He’d picked wrong. The thought slammed into him like a tsunami.
“Aanon, did you hear me?” Ms. Gretta asked.
“Oh, sorry,” he said sheepishly.
“It’s all right dear,” she said with a forgiving chuckle. “They are quite something to watch, aren’t they? I remember taking care of you when you were your son’s age, and now you’re all grown up with a family of your own. And you’ve made a beautiful family for yourself, Aanon.” The wrinkles deepened under her glasses, and her genuine smile widened.
She’d always been so kind, and her compliment settled inside of him as he lifted his gaze to Farrah and Dodge again. He wished it were true, that Farrah was part of his family. The withheld truth burned like a lie, but he couldn’t force himself to tell Ms. Gretta differently. She would’ve been disappointed if she’d met Erin instead. His ex would’ve likely been sitting at the table, ignoring Dodge to fiddle with her phone, and no way would she have ever offered a friendly wave to a kind stranger like Farrah had.
His failures mounted by the minute.
“You ladies have a good night. And stay away from that fisherman’s punch, you hear?” he told the giggling women with a wink. “Ms. Gretta,” he said, grasping her outstretched hand. “It was truly a pleasure to see you in here tonight. Made my week.”
Her gray eyes twinkled. “Mine, too.”
Clearing his throat, he took a seat across from Farrah and Dodge and clasped his hands across his mouth so she wouldn’t see the shame he felt at fibbing to a sweet old lady. Jesus, he deserved Erin and all of her drama.
“Dodge and I have decided we’re going to share the fettuccini. We’ll get our pasta and seafood fix all in one,” she announced. The menu clacked onto the table and Dodge turned in her lap to reach for his juice.
“So what did you do in New York?” he asked after they’d put their food order in. He’d been wanting to unravel her mysteries for days.
“I was a bartender.”
Of course she was. He’d watched her behind the bar at Briney’s. It was a beautiful sight to behold. The woman could make every single person who walked in there feel like they were the most important on earth. Of course, she’d gained that talent through experience.
“I was actually bumped up to manage a high-end bar about four months before I left. It’s what I’d been working for.” She shrugged. “My timing isn’t the best.”
“Yeah, but you practically manage Briney’s now. I know it’s not the same as a fancy city bar, but I’ve never seen the old man let anyone else behind his bar in all the years I’ve been going there. You wiggled your way behind it within the first couple of hours you were in town. We’ve been telling him he needs to slow down for years, and you’re giving him a break. Maybe you are right where you are supposed to be. Maybe,” he said, dropping his gaze to Dodge who sat contently coloring in her lap, “your timing was perfect this time.”
The look in her eyes was bottomless, and his breath caught at the sudden feeling like he was falling. A blush the color of rose petals bloomed in her cheek, and his fingers itched to touch it, just to see if it was as warm as it looked.
“What’s Briney?” Dodger, the professional moment-squasher, asked.
“You remember Mr. Briney. He was the one who gave you a peppermint when we were shopping at the general store last time you visited.”
“Oh,” he said. He grabbed three crayons and scribbled them across the coloring paper the waiter had plopped in front of him. Huh. He’d figured out how to make the color brown.
“It is definitely a big change from where I used to work,” she said, seeming to recover. “I made a thousand dollars in one night once. It was at the second to last bar I tended. But here, I don’t get stressed. I can hear the customers. I can have conversations with them, and I’m not just go go go all the time. It’s been a nice change of pace. Thankfully, the cost of living is different here, too. I wouldn’t survive on what I make otherwise.”
“You made a thousand dollars in one night? Like, an actual grand?”
“Yeah.” She laughed. “It was surreal taking the subway back to my little apartment with that much cash in my pocket.”
“I bet. Did you leave friends behind?”
“Yeah.” Sadness tugged at the corners of her mouth just before she looked away. “My best friend, Avery, I met through Miles. We were inseparable. But then this happened,” she said, pointing to her stomach. “I can’t tell her without the fear of the news making its way to Miles. So Miles got New York and Avery, and I got a heap of big decisions to make. I talked to her once on the phone to say goodbye and cut ties right before I hopped on the plane. The Landing has to be a brand new beginning. Dwelling in the past will get me hurt even worse.”
He shook his head slowly and fingered the napkin he’d been shredding. How hard it must have been to leave the life she’d spent years building to start over with nothing in a place that hadn’t been kind to her. The more he learned about her, the more questions he had. He wanted to know everything. The reason for each smile, every story from the last time he’d seen her at high school graduation until now, every hurt and triumph she’d endured in her childhood—everything.
Her work ethic around the homestead and at her job already proved she was a strong woman, but hearing a taste of what her life had really been like made him think she was made of steel. She wasn’t a sniveling person who complained about the unfairness of the world or dwelled on her mistakes. She took responsibility for her decisions and reinvented her life when she couldn’t salvage the old one. He’d never met anyone like her.
The food arrived, and he leaned back as the waiter set a plate of grilled halibut and clam chowder in front of him.
Farrah leaned forward staring at his chowder as she forked seafood fettuccini onto a smaller plate for Dodge. “That looks good.”
He pushed the bowl of soup toward her with “Eat as much as you want,” and then cut a piece of the halibut and set it on the side of her plate.
Without a word, she spooned creamy noodles and shrimp onto his, then began to eat the food they were sharing in comfortable silence.
God, he could watch her the rest of the night. She cut up the noodles for Dodge in between bites, and even though it was his place to do it, she never looked at him as if she was annoyed or put out. She just saw a need and filled it.
Dodge chattered happily on, urging smiles and laughter from Farrah. The boy was well on his way to earning griddle cakes again in the morning.
Determined to draw out the night, Aanon asked, “Do you want to order desert?”
His cell phone vibrated in his back pocket, still on silent from the movie theater, but he ignored it. Work came a really distant second to the beaming look in Farrah’s eyes right now.
“They’re kind of expensive.”
His phone vibrated again. “It’s the last time we’ll be doing anything like this before the snow hits us like a brick. Better enjoy it now.” At her hesitant nod, he said, “We can all share one if it really bothers you.”
“Okay.”
She had said it so quietly, he almost missed it. But maybe that was because of the incessant buzzing in his pocket. Geez, his boss must be hard up for laborers if he was calling him twice in a row.
“What
sounds good to you?” she asked, eying the dessert menu.
Apologizing, he yanked the phone from his pocket. His heart sank to his toes as he read Erin’s name across the caller ID. He’d seen one of her friends, Carrie, sitting at the café earlier, but he could’ve sworn she hadn’t seen them before they’d ducked into the movie theater. Of course, Erin had spies. The temptation to ignore the call was so great it stopped ringing before he answered. Today had been perfect, better than perfect, and Erin’s phone calls brought nothing but destruction.
It vibrated again against the palm of his hands.
“Do you need to answer that?” Farrah said, worry streaking through the forest green of her eyes.
“Yeah,” he said in a strangled-sounding voice. “I’m not picky on deserts. Order whatever you and Dodge want, and I’ll be right back. I have to take this.” Snatching his jacket from the back of the chair, he accepted the call and blasted through the front door of Captain Pattie’s.
“Dodge is fine,” he said.
Sobbing filled the other line.
Shit. This was going to suck.
Lowering the tailgate of his old Chevy, he sat with a perfect view of Farrah and Dodge through the restaurant window. Balls, it was cold, and he pulled his jacket on as best he could without dropping the phone in the mud.
He counted fifteen steamy breaths into the autumn air before Erin calmed enough to speak coherently. “You’re with h-her, aren’t you?”
“Yes. She needed to come into town for some shopping, and she doesn’t have a car.”
“I told you I don’t want you spending time with her,” she wailed. Classic Erin.
“Erin,” he said, lowering his voice and praying for patience. “If Farrah bothers you so much, why did you drop our son off with her? You just dumped your kid onto a stranger, and then you can’t handle it when he spends time with her? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I t-told you I’m not ready for you to move on yet. I love you, Aanon. You made this decision, not me. We were supposed to be married. A family, living in Anchorage in the house we found, and now my life is ruined. I’m stuck living in Homer now. Homer! This is never, ever where I saw my life going. I’m a single mom, and now the insensitive prick who left me is judging my parenting?”
Aanon pressed thumb and forefinger to his nose in an attempt to relieve the headache building behind his eyes. “I didn’t leave you. My dad died, and I took over the homestead I inherited. I wanted you and Dodge there with me. I understand it’s hard to watch me move on, but you have to understand, I’ve been watching you move on since the week after you left. You can’t date other people and forbid me to get on with my life at the same time.”
The beat of silence was so foreboding. “That’s exactly what I can do, Aanon.” She spat his name like a curse. “You don’t move on until I am good and ready for you to, or you don’t see your son. We’ve gone over this ten times. I swear you’re so fucking stupid. Am I really having this discussion with you again? I will not have my son around whatever red-necked rebound whore you decide to stick your dick in. I won’t!”
“But he can be around the men you date? And Farrah’s not a whore. Call me names all you want to, Erin. Farrah’s done nothing wrong.”
“She’s knocked up, you idiot. And I talked to her mother. The poor sap she trapped is unaware, sitting in New York probably pining away for his mistress.”
Dread choked him, rendering him mute as he watched Farrah load up a spoon of pie for Dodge. “How? How did you know she was anyone’s mistress?”
“Because I talked to Miles Anderson. And if you don’t play your cards right, Aanon Daniel Falk, I’m going to fuck up both of your lives beyond recognition. I’ll tell him. I’ll even pay for his plane ticket out here and you—you’ll never see Dodge again.”
“You can’t do that,” he said in a ragged whisper.
“Can and will. Put your dick away and think about your family. Don’t give me a reason to talk to Miles again because I will spill the dirty little secret you two are sharing, and you’ll spend the rest of your days miserable and alone in that wilderness hellhole you call home. You pushed me into this.” She sniffed. “I’m coming home from my weekend trip early. Have Dodge ready by ten tomorrow morning.”
“You don’t have to do that. I just got him, and he’s having fun. He’s happy. Just give me the full weekend with him, please. Erin, please.”
“Sorry Aanon. I can’t trust you not to expose him to bad influences.”
She didn’t care. Not at all. If she cared about Dodge like a mother should, she’d never use him as a pawn or keep him from his father. His gut clenched, and he leaned forward to relieve the ache. It made him sick to play these games. Just sick. He always lost. Dodge always lost. He dragged his eyes to Farrah, who laughed easily as his son made goofy faces. Farrah would lose in the wake of Erin’s destruction. In the wake of his.
“All right,” he said on an exhale.
“Can’t hear you,” Erin said in a voice as cold as winter.
“All right,” he said, louder. “I’ll have him ready to go in the morning, and I’ll stay away from Farrah. You have my word.”
Her voice dripped with smug satisfaction when she said, “Good.”
The phone went dead as she hung up.
Chapter Eleven
“I’m full,” Dodge said around a yawn.
“Me too, buckaroo,” Farrah said with a frown at the door. Aanon had been on his call for a while. She and Dodge had polished off two thirds of the dessert and packed leftover seafood fettuccini into an oversized Styrofoam box the server had dropped off with the check. And Dodge was starting to fidget.
Frigid air blasted through the restaurant as Aanon blew in on the chilly wind. His eyes were downcast, but he couldn’t hide the green pallor of his skin. His hands shook as he pulled them from winter gloves, and a grimace tugged at the sensual corners of his mouth.
He sat without a word and plucked at a thread that dangled from his glove.
“We saved the last part of the pie for you,” she said.
Abruptly, he asked, “Are you ready to go?”
“Was it work?” she asked, leaning forward. “Is everything all right?”
“No.” He dragged emotionless eyes to her. “And it’s none of your concern.”
The syllables reached across the space between them, farther and farther as the distance seemed to expand, until it felt like a slap of frost against her skin.
Embarrassed by the tables quieting around them, she shrugged into her jacket and helped Dodge into his. She looked anywhere but at Aanon, who busied himself with paying the bill.
Dodge teetered over to Aanon and crawled into his lap. Farrah shifted her weight from side to side, desperate for escape from the eyes upon her. Maybe she should just go out to the truck.
He signed for the tip and hoisted Dodge, then followed her out the front door and to the parking lot. The passenger door was unlocked, so she climbed in and waited for him to finish buckling his son into the car seat.
When the truck rocked under his weight and the door slammed, he blared an oldies station, successfully snuffing out any potential conversation.
His jaw was clenched, hands on the wheel in a grip that made her pity the steering wheel. His eyes were a careful mask of aloofness that cut an Aanon-sized hole into her heart. What had she done to deserve his anger? Maybe he didn’t like that Dodge had chosen to sit by her during dinner. Or maybe he had gotten fired from his job. Perhaps, he’d simply changed his mind now that the night had come to an end. She really was as uninteresting as she’d been in high school, but that wasn’t her fault. He was the one who hugged her and showed her what it could be like with a caring man.
Gritting her teeth, she leaned against the window and watched the blur of Homer whiz by. She’d warned him of the danger of pretending they were normal and free. His not listening was on him.
The little boy fell asleep after an hour, and the second hour was do
used in uncomfortable silence that seemed to thicken like yeasty dough until the entire cab was suffocating. When finally he pulled the Chevy in front of the big house, she couldn’t open the door fast enough.
“Wait,” he growled.
With one foot in the mud and one planted on the dusty floorboard, she hunched her shoulders under the fire in his voice.
“I was wrong today at the theater. That’s not what I want at all. I got swept up in the moment and shouldn’t have led you on.” He ripped his gaze away from the windshield, and the empty glare he bestowed upon her singed. “I have a family. Erin and Dodge are it for me.” He swallowed hard and looked sick. “You’re letting me make you a mistress, just like you did with Miles. You’re stronger than that.”
“But, it’s not the same. You aren’t really with Erin. I don’t have feelings for a married man or even a taken man. You’re single. Don’t you dare pin weakness on me, Aanon.” Her voice shook. “I didn’t even want to go with you today, but you pushed it.”
“I support Erin and Dodge. All of my paycheck goes to them. It’s why I have to work so much. She can put whatever price she wants on me seeing my son because she knows I can’t afford the fees to take her to court. She keeps child support high enough through our mediation that I can’t ever save enough to fight for joint custody.” His hands relaxed on the wheel, and he leveled her with a devastatingly sad look. “This is my present and my future. Begging for time with my son, appeasing his mother. You don’t fit into my life.”
The worst part was she got it. His words cut like a gut hook, but she understood. He was trapped in a life completely out of his control, just like she was.
“You don’t have to explain to me,” she said. Mortified her voice cracked, she squeezed her eyes closed until she thought she could keep the moisture soaking her lashes from spilling onto her cheek. “I completely understand.” Biting her lip against the traitorous tremble, she slid out of the truck.
“Farrah.”
God, just the sound of her name on his lips was so beautiful it hurt.
Slowly, she turned. The paper bag with the trio of mugs was held tight in his hands, an offering. “You forgot this.”