She slipped into her warmest clothes and brought Aanon a cup of coffee, black as he preferred. The snow hadn’t hindered his drive to chop cords of lumber, and he turned at her approach with a slight frown. “Briney called and wants you to come work a double shift today.”
“Good, I need the money.”
He took the coffee and sipped a drag. “The weather should hold until tomorrow. That’s when Mother Nature is going to dump a blizzard on us, but still, it worries me that you’re going to town this close to a bad storm.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll keep an eye on the weather station at the bar, and if it comes earlier, I’ll leave for home right away,” she promised. If Briney was giving up shifts as often as he had been, she’d be able to provide for her baby in a way she hadn’t considered before. It gave her hope. The life she could give wouldn’t be fancy by any means, but she’d work to make sure her child never lacked anything important. More shifts broadened her list of options.
“I can’t spare the whole day,” he said, seemingly distracted. Gesturing to her woodpile, only half stocked, he said, “I had enough wood cut for one wood stove this winter, but we’re playing catch up on your stove now. And trust me when I say we won’t want to be going out in blizzard conditions later in winter to try and cut wood. We need to stay on top of it now when we’re able. Besides, you’re going to be out of commission late in the season with the pregnancy. I just don’t want to worry about you being cold out here.”
“Aanon,” she said gently. “It’s okay. You don’t have to come with me today. Do whatever you need to, and I’ll be back later tonight.”
Keys jangled as he dug them out of his pocket and tossed them to her. “Take the Chevy, and I’ll feel better about it.”
His worry was nothing shy of flattering. He wasn’t being stifling or too overprotective. His care for her was showing, and her cheeks heated with pleasure. “Can you call Luna to you when I leave? She always tries to come with me, and I don’t want to tie her up today.”
“Sure. Hey,” he said, jogging to her and wrapping her up in a warm hug. “Be careful. Call my cell if you need me to come get you.”
So great was the temptation to remain in his arms, she didn’t move, didn’t breathe for fear of breaking the moment. Sighing, she closed her eyes and relaxed against his chest. His heartbeat was strong and steady beneath her cheek, and she wrapped her arms around his waist. Minutes stretched and, still, he just held her—they just were. The call of winter birds and the play of the dogs were the only sounds besides that of their breathing. The baby fluttered and rolled against the pressure of Aanon’s taut abdomen. She laughed and retreated a step with her hands over the movement.
Smiling, he dropped his hands under her jacket, and just before his fingertips rested on her stomach, he hesitated. “Does it bother you when I touch you here?” he whispered.
“No, I don’t mind. When you touch me, I feel safe.”
His throat moved as he swallowed, the thick cords of muscle contracting as his palm cupped the swell of her stomach. “You’re so beautiful, it hurts to look away sometimes.”
The baby rotated under his hand, and she brushed her lips against his. “So are you.”
Nothing in her wanted to leave him, especially when he pulled her closer and deepened the kiss. Minutes drifted by. She stalled longer than she should have, burrowing against him and soaking up his warmth as his lips moved against hers.
“You’re going to be late,” Aanon said, easing back with a knowing smile.
With a teasing pout, she nibbled his bottom lip, then headed for his Chevy. Snow crunched under the oversized, chain-covered tires as she pulled away from the homestead. Through the rearview, Aanon leaned on the ax and watched her leave. She waved behind her. He lifted his hand just as she rounded a grove of evergreens.
The man scared her in the best ways. He wasn’t only beautiful on the outside. Who he was, his soul, was wonderful as well. She’d gained her confidence back in the weeks since her arrival. No longer was she mousey and afraid of the future, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt, everything would work out somehow.
Aanon complimented her when she learned new things, and was openly grateful when she worked the homestead with him. He didn’t seem to expect anything and treated every menial thing she did as a gift.
Aanon’s confidence in her made her feel alive again.
He’d brought them both back to life.
Briney’s was abnormally busy, but Burtlebey Miller, one of the bar’s regulars, assured Farrah it was due to the upcoming storm. “Everyone’s out in full force in case they get snowed in for a few days,” he slurred happily as she poured him another beer.
Her mood was downright joyous as she served customers and talked up acquaintances. That was the nice thing about living in a small town again. In New York, she rarely saw a face twice. Here, she was starting to get to know the townspeople in a surprisingly pleasant way. That’s not to say everyone was nice. Many a hermit lived up in the mountains above them, and when they ventured to town for libations, a few of them were lacking in the manners of the well socialized, but most of the people she’d met were accepting and friendly toward her.
The bar was decorated in an atrocious combination of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas decorations, and when she’d asked Briney about it earlier, he muttered that he was too lazy to decorate more than once a year.
Ben, Mayva, and Audrey shot pool with some of their friends, and between bartending and making sandwiches in the back, she was too busy to count the hours. The first shift rushed by in a blur, and the second flew by until the door opened and Aanon stood there. Like magnets, their gazes clashed, and a slow simmering smile took his lips. She lived for smiles like those.
He waved to Ben and the others and made his way to the bar, took a seat, and gave a greeting to Burtlebey.
As soon as she got a spare moment, she moved to his place at the bar. “Were you worried about me?” she asked teasingly.
“Yes.” His stoic expression dared her to continue the taunt, but the butterflies in her stomach turned her serious.
“What’ll you have?” she asked.
“You going to drive us home?” he asked, his eyebrows arched in question.
Her hands had drifted protectively over her belly, as they did more and more these days. “You know it.”
“I’ll just have a beer. I don’t feel like drinking tonight but if I don’t nurse something, ol’ Ben over there won’t ever leave off me.”
“One beer, you got it. Hey,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning over the top. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“Briney pulled me in his office before my first shift to talk to me. He wants me to manage the bar and work five days a week. He said he’d give me time off when the baby comes but he’s got his sights set on retiring, and he wants me to help with the transition. He wants me to run the bar for him. I’ll be taking care of inventory, shipments, all of it.” Her grin was so big, her face hurt.
“Farrah, that’s awesome. It’s what you want?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “It really is. I feel like everything is coming together for me here.”
Nodding his chin toward the small fridge behind her, he said, “Grab a water, we need to toast.”
She poured herself an orange juice instead and clinked it against his beer bottle.
“To you running the bar,” he said. His lips parted like he wanted to say more, but Mayva took that moment to stomp her foot beside Aanon and growl out his name.
“I’ve said your name three times. Are you ignoring me on purpose?” The blond-haired girl stared at their toasting glasses with a slight frown.
“Why would I ignore you on purpose, Mayva? I just didn’t hear you.”
“Come on,” she said, gripping his elbow. “Ben wants to play doubles against us, and it’s our turn.”
“All right, I’m coming.” As he paid for the beer, he brushed Farrah’s hand intimately before he left his seat. His eyes burned with delicious promises, and her stomach clenched at the effect he could have on her body with just a smoldering look. The man was nothing short of delectable.
No better distraction existed on earth than a pretty blond throwing back shots of tequila and hanging onto Aanon’s arm like a bot fly. Another half hour, and Mayva might as well just crawl into his sweater with him. A sense of satisfaction trilled through her as she watched him try time and time again to detach himself from Mayva’s attentions. And on two occasions, he looked back at Farrah with a face nothing short of comical. She stifled a laugh when he mouthed the words
help me
.
When Mayva stumbled to the bar top a fifth time, ankles bending in her impossibly high heels, for yet another round, Farrah shook her head. “Sorry honey, but you are officially cut off.”
“What?” she slurred indignantly. “I want to talk to Briney. I’ve never been cut off in my life.”
“You’re cut off,” Briney called from down the counter.
An inhuman little screech ripped from her throat, and she whacked the bar top with her pink, faux alligator-skin purse.
“Look, you can stay here as long as you want,” Farrah said. “Go play some pool with your friends and sober up a little.” She plopped a glass of water in front of her. “The more water you drink now, the better you’ll feel in the morning.”
“I don’t need life advice from some”—she rolled her eyes heavenward as if she were searching for the perfect insult—“skank.”
“Lovely.” This night was shaping up nicely.
“I’m taking my business somewhere else.” Jabbing a finger in the air, Mayva nodded to punctuate how serious she should be taken.
“For the record,” Burtlebey said to Farrah with a belch. “I don’t think you’re a skank.”
“Definition of a skank,” Mayva said, pointing her pesky finger in the air again. “Scrumbody named Farrah who opens her legs and impregnates herself of different men.”
Suddenly, Farrah wanted to go to bed and be unconscious. She heaved a sigh. “Even if that made any sense at all, you still can’t have another drink, Mayva. Do you need me to call someone to give you a ride home?”
“Nope,” she said, popping the
p
at the end of the word. A keychain with a miniature magic eight ball and stuffed panda bear dangled from her hand. “I’ll drive myself home, skank.”
“What’s going on?” Aanon asked.
Mayva stumbled as she turned, and he caught her by the arms. With a drunken smile, she closed her eyes and her head flopped forward onto Aanon’s chest.
“Did she just go to sleep?” Farrah asked.
“I just googled the definition of skank,” Burtlebey said with a frown at the glowing screen of his phone. “Mayva wasn’t even close.”
“Did she call you that?” Aanon asked, struggling to keep the girl upright.
“Can you find someone to take her home?” Farrah asked. “I really doubt she would be safe on the roads right now.”
With a tossed look over his shoulder, he lowered Mayva to a swiveling chair and patted the top of her head with a lot less care than he would give to Bruno. “Ben’s three sheets to the wind and so is Audrey. It’s the last hoorah for most everybody here until after the snow dies down. Who even knows when that’ll be? I’m the only one close to sober in this place besides you and Briney.”
“You just had the one beer?”
“Yeah. I finished it an hour and a half ago. You want me to take her?”
“You know where she lives?”
“Everyone knows where everyone lives in this town.”
Visions of Mayva drunkenly groping Aanon in the cab of his Chevy almost made her stubborn enough to make her find her own ride home, but the girl was no threat to her. She’d watched Aanon try to escape her all night.
“I swear, Fennel,” he said, hoisting the petit woman over his shoulder with a grunt. “If she pukes in my truck, you owe me big time.”
“I owe you anyway because that,” she said waving to the snoring figure tossed over his shoulder like a sack of flour, “is a mess.”
“And you’re not a skank,” he said before he left.
“I told you!” Burtlebey exclaimed.
****
Tonight had included the longest three hours in the history of the universe. By the time Farrah closed the bar, split tips with Briney, cleaned the place spotless, and locked up, Aanon still hadn’t returned. As she stood outside the bar awaiting her ride, her worry flared to discomfort. She would have just taken the four-wheeler back home, but apparently Aanon had already loaded it in the truck before he’d gone to escort Mayva home.
When he finally pulled to the front of the bar, she was dead on her feet, starving, and half-frozen. His apologies were many. Apparently Mayva had tried something with him when he took her inside her house, and he’d had a sit down with her to explain he didn’t feel that way about her. Farrah was tempted to point out the girl was wasted and likely wouldn’t remember how to spell her first name, much less any rebuff from him, but she refrained. In his own way, he’d claimed her by telling Mayva he was unavailable.
So maybe it wasn’t exactly intelligent to let something so unassuming bring such a rush of pleasure, but this was about as public as they were able to make their relationship, thanks to Erin. The admission that his heart was taken was an unexpected gift Farrah gladly accepted.
Now, she sat in the warmth of her cabin, staring at the screen of Aanon’s cell phone, just as she had been for the last ten minutes. Why did the thought of talking to Miles scare her so badly? He was an ocean away.
“Come on,” she growled.
After all the work she’d been doing, after all the confidence she’d built, she was going to let a man cut her off at the knees? Heck no. With trembling fingers, she pressed the number from memory, held the speaker to her ear, and prayed that he would pick up so she could get this over with. Then again, she was calling him at four in the morning New York time in simultaneous hope that he wouldn’t pick up, so she could go another day without Miles’s taint upon the life she was building.
“Hello?” he answered in a sleepy voice.
Damn.
“Hello, Miles.”
He lowered his voice, a note of hope ringing in his tone as the sound of fabric rustled against the speaker. “Victoria?”
Seriously? He’d told her his wife’s name was Laura. Cheating rat bastard.
“No, this isn’t Victoria. It’s Farrah.”
He cursed softly into the phone and said, “Hang on.” The sound of a door shutting echoed through the line and moments later he apologized for making her wait.
“I see you haven’t changed at all,” she said, disappointment filling her at how much time she’d wasted in ignorance.
“What do you want, Farrah?” he asked.
“I have something to tell you. Something I probably should’ve told you a long time ago, but I was hurt and angry with you, and I didn’t want you involved in my life. But now it’s not just my life.”
Oh God, oh God, here it goes.
After a steadying breath, she said, “I’m pregnant.”
A beat of silence stretched between them.
“Who’s the father?”
“You. Of course.” Why would she be calling him if he weren’t? Apparently, she’d dated a cheater and an idiot. “Look, I’ve had plenty of time to come to grips with this, so if you need time to mull it over, I completely understand. I just wanted to let you know about the baby, and also that I don’t want anything from you. No child support or financial help of any kind. The baby and I will be fine on our own.”
“Why wouldn’t you want me to help financially? You know I have the means to pay. I want you comfortable. Where are you? I think we should meet up for lunch and talk about this.”
She imagined the miles that stood between them and was grateful for the distance. She had to tell him. That was the point of it all, right? To take the power away from Erin and take control of her own life?
“I’m in Alaska.”
“Ha ha, funny. No really, where are you?”
“I went home, Miles.”
“Your home is in Alaska?”
“I told you where I grew up countless times. How did you not get that after four years together?” She glared at the crumpled picture of them still sitting half hidden under the bedside table where she’d thrown it.
“Holy shit, Farrah!” He lowered his voice again and said, “You’re really in Alaska? With my child?”
“No. I’m in Alaska with
my
child. You haven’t earned the right to be a present father. What would I tell the child about you? That daddy can’t visit this month because his real wife doesn’t know he or she exists? I’m not doing that. This is a courtesy call, Miles. You’ve got Victoria and Laura to keep you entertained.”
“You know Laura and I have been trying for a child for years, Farrah. You can’t keep my own flesh and blood from me.”
“I can if you sign over your paternal rights. I don’t want money or support of any kind from you. I just want to be free to raise my child. Go back to your life, keep trying for a child with someone you actually respect. Someone you can start a family with. Let me go.”
“Is there someone else?” Desperation tinged his voice.
“That’s none of your business. You lost the right to keep tabs on me when you admitted I was your mistress.”
“Where in Alaska are you? I think we should talk in person and work this out. The child needs a father, and you need to be in New York where he could have a future. There’s nothing for my child in Alaska.”
“I don’t want you visiting. I don’t want to work things out. You ruined my life, and if I’m going to make the best out of this situation, I have to do it without you. You’re poison Miles. I feel sad and guilty about your wife all the time, but that isn’t on me. That’s on you. Does she even know about me? Does she know about Victoria?” She spat the name. “You aren’t ready to be a father any more than you are ready to be a husband or even a decent man. If you ever cared about me at all, you’ll forget about me and the baby and let me live my life in peace. Goodbye, Miles.”