“C’mon, Dad. You never let us go back there unless we’re with you, which is never,” Seth moaned. “All it is is a bunch of woodlands and hills. Heart was telling us all about these fossils and got Stevie all hyped. We promise we won’t go near the pumps—”
“I said no.” His eyes swung to Heather. “They know they can’t go back there. They got fifty acres of woodland up front they can roam all day if they want, but—”
“Just not back there,” Seth groused. “Why?”
“Not up for discussion.” His gaze met Seth’s.
“Oh, another one of these dictates where you refuse to tell us a reason? Or is there no reason and you just like being a control freak?”
Tyler braced his hand to his forehead and exhaled harshly. “Not now, Seth.”
“Stop fighting, Seth,” Steven muttered sarcastically, face to his plate as he pressed his finger into a glop of custard that had fallen from his pastry. “God, it’s like you can’t shut up.”
“Fine. Come with us.” Seth folded his arms across his chest. “Even though we’re not babies anymore. At some point, you gotta let us grow up.”
What the hell does that mean?He’d never thought he wasn’t. Seth drove the tractor for him, both boys rode horses like experts and helped out on the farm. They were leaps and bounds ahead of their public school peers academically. They’d raised their heifer, learned the birds and bees growing up with livestock. They had access to and could use properly his array of tools. Read any book they wanted well beyond their age, had everything from music lessons to summer camps to freedom to roam, knew how to treat a snake bite, pitch a tent, bait a fishing line, had a level of common sense uncommon among most kids their age. He’d scoffed many times when Seth had argued he was sheltering them.
But in his efforts to create a good life for them, shield them from pain and publicity, had he created, not so much a physical bubble around them, but an emotional one? No, his gut was right on this. He hadn’t liked Heather working out in that region since the beginning with the slump not reinforced. And he didn’t like that, no matter how innocently she’d done it, she’d put curiosity in their heads about it.
“I was going to say no,” Heather said, glaring at him as if she didn’t appreciate the assumption he’d made.
“What? You’re on his side?” Seth argued. Tyler inhaled deeply to intervene again. This whole new dynamic of his kids involving another adult in their arguments was a frontier he hadn’t anticipated.
“The area where I’m working might be a little dangerous. He doesn’t even like me going back there, but it’s my job so he has to let me.” She was smiling at Seth as if teasing with that last line. “I just think it’s best if you, you know, listen to your dad on this one.”
But now the seed of interest was planted in Seth’s eyes. Tyler could see it, plain as day, and because Seth seemed to have inherited his uncle Toby’s defiant streak, he wouldn’t put it past the kid to pull some sort of stunt. He could see concerns in Heart’s eyes that she wasn’t voicing.
“Babe, what’s on your mind?” Tyler asked.
Heart shook her head and patted his pectoral as she passed him like she always did when she didn’t want to say what she meant, going around the table. “It is not my place to get involved.”
“But you got something you wanna say,” he pressed, following her.
She tossed him the glare she always did when he was being pushy. “Yeah, later.”
“C’mon. Let’s go have a talk,” Tyler insisted.
“Gawd, one of his ‘talks’?” Seth and Stevie frowned at the same time, Seth using finger quotes.
Stevie whispered knowingly. “He’s gonna run her off right when we just got her.”
At this, Heart laughed and squeezed an arm around Stevie’s shoulders, planting a kiss atop his head. Tyler felt that pinch in his chest again at whatever was happening between his children and his girlfriend.
“Stevie, your dad’s bullheaded. I’m not easily run off.” Wasn’t she? She straightened and looked at him squarely as she dished eggs onto the plates, decidedly not going with him to have a talk, and Seth snorted at her remark about his bullheadedness.
“I’ve got to get back out there,” Heather replied as she returned to her flurry of setting out food like the most seasoned parent. “How about you meet me out there one of these days so I can talk to you about something?”
He furrowed his brow. Wide amber eyes bounced back and forth between the kids, then back to him, as if to tell him she didn’t want to talk about it in front of them. He ran his finger down her cheek. “Okay.”
Seth interjected. “If you’re going, can’t we at least ride in the truck—”
“No,” he and Heather said in unison this time.
Their eyes met over Seth’s head as Tyler returned to his seat, as the kid scoffed and plopped on the bench with annoyed resignation and a massive sigh. She cracked a smile. So did he.
“Also, Ty, I need a couple helpers at the science open house this week and I’ve enlisted the boys and they’re already excited so you can’t say no.” She tilted her head toward each boy to indicate her helpers. Stevie grinned. Seth suppressed a smile with his hard-edge.
Maybe this letting go thing wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe this would take the sting off of wanting to know things about Isabella that he couldn’t tell them. Maybe this was what they’d all needed all along.