With a sincere effort to contain her excitement, she nodded. “Let me get some work clothes on.”
When she reemerged in her heaviest layers, Aanon was topping off the gas tanks on both four-wheelers. Any hope she’d have of riding clutched onto his taut back like a parasite was dashed immediately. Mmm-hmm, she had said they’d be friends, and she’d keep her end of the bargain, but in secret she was going to crush on him so hard. How could she not? He looked like an ancient, sexy Norsemen dropped into modern times. Ax swinging, cattle whispering, machine welding, bear hunting, tattoo hiding Alaskan woodsman. Yep, she was wrong all those years ago to think no man in this country could suit her. If ever there had been a more intriguing man than Aanon Falk, well, she hadn’t found him yet.
Erin had better appreciate every one of his tantalizing qualities, or it was just a waste. On second thought, there was no way Erin was taking Aanon for granted. A man like him made it physically impossible for a woman to ignore him.
Mounted on his four-wheeler, he let out a shrill whistle and Bruno and Luna came running. When Farrah was straddled over the cold seat, Aanon tossed a challenging look behind him and took off.
In the days she’d taken the four-wheeler into town for work and errands, she’d become accustomed to how it drove, but never once had she taken it off road. There wasn’t much choice about it now because there wasn’t even a trail for them to follow, so in efforts to avoid jostling her tiny stomach, she followed in Aanon’s tire tracks. He slowed and waited, and God bless the man, he didn’t even tap his foot or throw her disparaging looks like Miles used to do when she took too much time.
Barbed wire and tools she hadn’t a guess at littered the back of his ATV, and when they came to a downed fence caused by a dead tree that had fallen, he ripped a chainsaw without hesitation and trimmed the branches until it was a smooth log. Section after section was cut until the tree was nothing but a stack of logs for the chopping block. He taught her what each tool did, how not to get pricked by the barbs, and how to tighten and tie the fencing material until it was up and functional once again. When they were finished, he led her down the fence line to repair the next section.
Without coddling her, he made sure to do any heavy work that would put her pregnancy at risk. As she grew more comfortable with the work, it went faster. He could depend on her to know what she was doing without having to over-instruct her, and after a couple of miles of repairs, they didn’t have to talk much. Instead, he would brush her back with the tips of his fingers in some unspoken language they’d invented from trial and error, and she would guess what he needed. She’d hand him a tool or hold a piece of wire in place or duck when he needed to go over her head.
Winter came fast and unexpected in the Alaskan wilds, and they’d been lucky the first blizzard hadn’t held. Standing back, watching this capable man knock a post deeper into the ground with the mountains behind him and rich, green grass poking up through sparse snow drifts, realization struck her like an iron. She could be happy here.
Growing up, she’d dreamed of New York, convinced herself she could only find solace in the anonymity of a giant place. She’d been wrong.
A strange fluttering feeling deep inside her stomach made her gasp. What was that? It was so subtle, like a radio turned to its lowest setting or the brush of eyelashes against a cheek. There it was again, like butterfly wings in her very center.
She pulled her gloves off and let them drop to the ground beside her snow boots. Heart hammering, she unzipped her jacket and pressed her hands against her stomach. Frozen and excited and terrified all at once, she stared at the ground as a small smile pulled at her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” Aanon asked, dropping a pair of pliers and rushing to her. “Farrah?”
“There’s this fluttering in my stomach,” she said, stretching her neck back to drink in the beautiful concern that knitted his eyebrows.
A hesitant smile curved his lip and fell. “The baby?”
“I think so.”
“Have you felt it move before now?”
“Never.”
With a startled glance at his hands, which were now clutching the jacket at her waist, he released her and took a step back. Clearing his throat, he said, “We’d better get you back so you can keep your coffee date with Ben.”
“Right.” But she didn’t want to think about Ben or taking the ATV into town or anything but right there in that moment, where they’d both been excited about the flutter of new life.
Aanon loaded the tools and extra wire, then covered the chainsaw and secured it to the front of his ATV.
“Aanon? I won’t be home right after coffee with Ben.”
“You planning on getting laid after all?” It sounded like a joke, but his gaze was steely, steady.
“I’m going to go visit my mom.”
His brows lowered over troubled eyes, and he leaned against his ATV, facing her. “I didn’t know your mom still lived here.”
“I’ve been putting off seeing her. She’s a big reason I came back, though. I think if I talk to her, I can start to make a decision about whether to keep the baby or give it up for adoption.”
His lips pursed in thought, and he plucked a long blade grass before folding it over and over itself. “Do you want me to come with you to see her?”
His offer was more chivalrous than he knew. Mom was as mean as a badger and a lot less sober. As much as she enjoyed the idea of Aanon standing up to Mom in that fearless way of his, there were some things in this world a woman had to do on her own.
And facing down her demons was one of them.
Farrah clutched the bear roast tighter to her chest and glared at the door to the mobile home. Honestly, she was surprised it was still standing. The packaged meat was heavy and cold from its brief stay in the big freezer, but maybe an offering of food would sweeten Mom up enough to answer the tough questions honestly.
Aanon had insisted she take it over. She hadn’t a guess how much he actually knew of her family or situation, but every town had its rumors, and little towns most of all. He had been in the process of loading small cardboard boxes of different cuts to take to the neighbors when she’d left for town.
The coffee date with Ben had been uneventful, and she’d had trouble keeping half an hour’s worth of conversation going as her stomach fluttered away, and her thoughts steered toward the internal. Maybe if she bored him enough, he’d quit pestering her. Her pants were closed for the season. Maybe he got the hint after thirty fun-filled minutes of uninteresting conversation with her.
She was stalling.
Knock, knock, knock.
A treacherous little piece of her wished Mom wasn’t home, but then she’d just have to come back another day. Best to do this now while she still had her nerve.
At the silence, she stood back and read the dilapidated name plate across the mailbox again. Yep, it definitely still read
Fennel
. If Mom didn’t live here anymore, the next owners were seriously lazy.
She knocked again.
“I got it!” yelled an angry sounding man on the other side of the door. “What?” the balding man asked her when he opened it up six inches.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you, but does Brenda live here anymore?”
“Brenda!” he yelled so loud she jumped.
Mom poked her head around the towering man and blinked like a barn owl. “Farrah?”
At least someone in this town recognized her.
“Yeah Mom, it’s me.”
“What are you doing here, honey?”
Rocking uncomfortably, and sure the roast was freezing itself to her arms, she asked, “Can I come in? Or can we talk somewhere?”
“Oh! Come in. What’s that you got there?”
“It’s a bear roast.” She handed it over awkwardly and tried to smile against the thousand memories that assaulted her as she stepped through the door of her childhood.
The old trailer was shocking on the inside. Clean, with gleaming hardwoods and coasters on the table. It wasn’t littered with liquor bottles and old cigarettes like the home she remembered. The couches had been replaced sometime during her seven year absence, and the kitchen tiles had been upgraded from the dingy old peeling linoleum she had done her homework on when there wasn’t room on the table.
“This place looks real nice, Mom.”
“Oh, thank you, honey. We like to keep it clean, and Bob is a handyman. He done most of the work on this place, himself. Bob, go put this roast in the freezer.” Mom’s green eyes were clearer than she remembered, focused. She didn’t even smell like boxed wine when she gave Farrah a small hug and pat on the back. “You let your hair grow out and get dark. Looks real pretty like that.”
Okay, this was not at all what she’d expected. Maybe she’d walked into the wrong house after all. “Are you and Bob married?” she asked. Geez, she was the worst at small talk.
“Oh, no. We just go together. I have no interest in hitching myself to another man after your father.” Her smile fell. “Though, I’m sure he had his reasons for being unkind.”
Bob disappeared into the back room with a goodbye grunt and Farrah sat carefully on the recliner to protect herself from getting too close to her mom. She felt like a stranger in that tiny living room, and the walls were coming for her, inch by inch.
Clearing her throat, she lifted her chin. “I have some questions for you, and I wanted to ask them in person. A phone call just didn’t seem right after everything before.”
“I’m sober now. Two years,” Mom said with a smile that begged Farrah to be proud of her.
“That’s good, Mom. Really good.”
“You want to know about your father? Is that why you’ve come?”
“No. Actually, I’ve come to ask about the family who wanted to adopt me.”
Mom pursed her lips. She looked so much older now with gray hair and lines and signs of age. “How did you hear about them?”
“From you. You used to tell me you wished you’d given me to those fancy dancy do-gooders who wanted to adopt me.”
Mom shrunk back like she’d been slapped. “I said that?”
“Many times. I’m not mad, or here to get an apology for the things that happened, though. I need you to answer questions so I can make important decisions about my own life.”
“Okay,” she said in a frail voice. “Doctor Jansen and his wife stepped up when I put out an advertisement about adopting you out. Your father had just left me, and I was pregnant and alone and didn’t have any money, and I thought, what can I offer a baby? So I was going to just have you, then give you to some well-off family who could provide better for you than I could, and that would be that.”
“But Doctor Jansen has a daughter. Maisy. She’s almost my age.”
“They adopted her a year after I backed out of our agreement. She knows it.”
“Why couldn’t you give me up?”
“Well,” Mom said, struggling with the tremor in her voice. “I thought I could, right up until I held you for the first time. I maybe shouldn’t have, but I was stupid enough to think I could handle it. I held you, and I just couldn’t stop holding you. And no matter what happened after that, I started out with good intentions. I was going to make something of myself and give you a good life. It just didn’t work out that way.”
This was so much harder than she’d expected it to be. Farrah had been prepared for combative Mom who never did anything wrong. Even for drunk Mom who laughed in the face of her somber hurt. This new Mom was a different puzzle altogether. It physically hurt to feel bad for the woman. After all of the names she’d called her, after all the neglect, hunger, and public embarrassment—and now Mom seemed sorry about her mistakes.
Farrah had forgiven her long ago, but not for Mom. She’d done it for herself, so she could move on and have a chance at a better life without an anchor of hurt, distrust, and anger at the unfairness of life noosed around her neck.
“But Mom, didn’t you ever think when things got too hard to take me back to Doctor Jansen and his wife?”
“No, honey. I loved you. Now, I might not have shown it much, I don’t know, I don’t remember, but you were the best decision I ever made. The only one that made a lick of sense in my life.”
Farrah’s insides felt like they were being shredded. It was hard not to lash out. What Mom was saying was selfish, and she couldn’t even see it. And what if Farrah kept this baby and made the same mistakes? What if she neglected the child, and then years later told it “Hey, it was all worth me hurting you for eighteen years because I enjoyed the ride”?
Mom dropped her gaze to Farrah’s hands clamped over her stomach. “Why are you asking about adoption?”
“Because I’m pregnant and trying to decide what would be best for the child.”
“You’re pregnant?” A tight smile and faraway look took over Mom’s face. “I’m going to be a grandmother?”
“No, Mom. I don’t know. Look, I’m not with the father anymore—”
“Who is he?”
Farrah opened and closed her mouth like a landed silver salmon. “Miles. Miles Anderson.”
“Oooh, that sounds like a fine name to give a child. Anderson.”
“Mom.”
“I’m going to write that down so I remember.”
“Mom! Stop. I said I’m not with him anymore. He’s down in New York, and I’ve moved back here.”
“Where are you staying? Do you need a place to live?”
“No, I’ve got a job and a place up at a homestead. Aanon Falk runs it now, and I rent a cabin on his property.”
“Oh, I know Aanon. Upstanding young man. He’d be great to raise my grandbaby around.”
Praying for patience, Farrah took a long, calming breath. “I’m not with Aanon, nor will I be raising a baby with him. If I decide to keep this child, and that is totally up to me, I’d be raising it on my own. No man, just me.”
“Well, I raised you and look how you turned out.”
That argument was completely invalid. How Farrah turned out had nothing to do with Mom’s talent for raising children. It had everything to do with Farrah’s drive to survive her childhood and try to eke out some semblance of normalcy in adulthood.
“Raising the baby with a man would be best, and you should try to work things out with Miles Anderson if you can. For the baby’s sake.”
Okay, Mom had drifted into lala land. Reality had left the building and waited just outside the door. She hadn’t even asked why they’d split up. He could be an ax murderer for all she knew, and here she was telling Farrah to go back to that cheating, pathological liar. If she did decide to keep the baby, she was taking an extensive course on proper advice for offspring.
“I’ve got to get going—”
“Come see me again,” Mom begged, a cold hand clutched around Farrah’s elbow. “It’s been so good to see you. Please.”
Nothing in her wanted to repeat this little reunion. She had hours of stuff to sort through just from the short conversation they’d had. A bitter childhood clung to this place and to escape it again, she needed space. But Mom was pleading, and tears streamed down her face like she thought she would never see her again.
“Okay. I’ll come and visit again.”
“Promise me.”
“Promise. Bye Bob, it was nice to kind of meet you,” she called out to no answer.
Mom stood on the porch and waved until Farrah couldn’t see her in the rearview mirror of the Chevy anymore. She didn’t know how to feel, and by the time she pulled up to the big house, she couldn’t do more than slump in the cushion of the driver’s seat and grip the steering wheel.
She was happy, proud even that Mom had sobered up, but why couldn’t she have made the effort at any time during her childhood? Why had she waited to become a decent person until she was long gone? Why had Mom hidden that soft part of herself all those years? When Farrah was young, she used to wish Mom would do something—anything normal. Read a bedtime story or tuck her in. Help her with homework or even look at her report card before she signed it. Cook meals for her, grow a garden with her. Geez, tell her she loved her! Anything would’ve been better than nothing. And now suddenly Mom’s eyes were open and clear for the first time she could remember, and she hadn’t done it for her. She’d done it for Bob, the beer-gutted bald man with atrocious manners and a penchant for belching in front of house guests.
Yeah, she was proud of her mother. But the bigger emotion swimming inside of her was anger.
A tiny fluttering filled her stomach and she relaxed. “Don’t worry, little one,” she whispered with a pat. “I wouldn’t ever treat you like that. If I’m meant to be your mommy, I’ll tell you I love you every day and give you everything you need. I’m not her. If I’m meant to be yours, you’ll grow up knowing how special you are.” A warm tear slid down her cheek, and she wiped it away as fast as she could. If she was quick enough, the tiny drop of pain didn’t exist.
The truck door creaked as she shut it, and her boots made slushy sounds against the snow-melted mud.
“So?” Aanon asked from his seat on her front porch. Elbows on his knees, his hands were clasped in front of his face, and his leg shook in nervous rhythm.
“It was fine,” she muttered. Not about to cry in front of him, she stalked to the door.
“Hey,” he said, standing.
She tried to sidestep him, but he moved with her.
“Stop,” he drawled before he pulled her into his arms.
If she had any chance of not losing it in front of him before, it evaporated when his strong, immovable, safe arms wrapped around her shoulders. With her cheek against his chest, a sob escaped her, and she closed her eyes against the world.
“Shhh,” he said. “You did it. It’s over, and now you can get some closure.”
He was right of course, but it wasn’t so easy. It wasn’t as if one sober discussion with Mom erased all of the hurt.
His hand stroking the back of her hair was a really decent start, though.
“So, here’s the plan.” His deep voice vibrated against her cheek. “I have stew slow cooking right now, and if you help me get some of the bear meat to the neighbors, it should be done when we get back. We’ll eat in the big house tonight. Are you game?”
“Is this your way of pumping me full of iron before you leave for your job in the morning?”
“No. But it’s an added bonus.” Pulling back, he ran the pads of his thumbs over her cheeks until they were dry. “Friends do this, right?”
Laughing thickly, she stepped back. “Sure.”
“Good. So how was your date with Ben?”
With a heavenward roll of her eyes, she trudged toward the cardboard boxes of bear cuts to help load the truck. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
****
Watching Aanon with his neighbors battered her defensive walls until they were nothing but ash and ruin beneath her heart. Courteous, he introduced her right away. There were four stops and four families, including Billy’s, and every single one was so obviously grateful, it welled up a confidence in her that there were good people in the world, and Aanon Falk was one of them.