"A mid-life crisis, you mean."
"Shut up," she says, punching me in the arm. "I'm not middle-aged."
"Hey, you're the one who keeps going on and on all the time about how old you are," I point out.
"I was having a shitty week. Not a mid-life crisis."
"Must have been some week to land you in West Bend."
She laughs, but there's no joy in the sound this time. "You could say that."
Then she tells me about her ex-husband and how she walked in on him and his secretary the same day her father died, just when she was going to tell him about her pregnancy. And all I can think about is what a total asshole that guy must be, how fucking blind and stupid you have to be to miss what you have right in front of you when the woman with you is someone like Autumn.
"I just walked out," she finishes. "I didn't have a plan. Everything in my whole life has been planned out – the right schools, the right experiences – and I've never deviated from it. That was the first time I've ever not had a plan." She looks at me for a long moment. "Except for now."
I've never had a plan for jack shit in my life, and Autumn was sure as hell not a part of my non-plan. "Why the hell did you buy an orchard?"
"I ran out of gas right down the road from here," she says, grinning. "And June, this girl – she owns a bed and breakfast near here – gave me a lift down to the gas station. When I saw the orchard, I made her pull over."
"So you just up and bought an orchard?"
"Well, when you say it like that, it sounds crazy."
"You're slightly more spontaneous than I thought you were."
"Thanks," she says, her tone sarcastic. Then she's quiet for a minute. "I needed a change. My father left everything to my brother and I – my mother passed away a couple of years before. We didn't agree on how to run the company anyway. I let my brother buy me out. He thought that my coming out here meant I'd really had a nervous breakdown or something, that I'd honestly lost my damn mind."
"Do you regret it?"
"Coming here? No. I don't know anything about cider, or about orchards, not really. But my whole life, I never took a leap of faith before that. I'd never had to close my eyes and just… jump."
Close your eyes… and jump.
"Besides,” she goes on, “this place just gets under your skin after a while."
I look at her for a long time before I reach out and brush a piece of auburn hair off her shoulder. "Yes," I agree. "You try to get away, but it never leaves you."
Autumn laughs. "That just sounds creepy."
"It can go either way," I say. "Good or bad."
"I don't know. I like it here. So many people are leaving, getting their properties bought up by that mining company, you know? I thought about leaving, taking Olivia and going back to Kentucky, but this place feels like my home."
"Yeah, they tried to buy my mother's property too."
"But you're holding onto it," she says. She doesn't ask anything else about my family, has the sense not to probe into things.
I exhale heavily. "It's complicated."
"Things are never simple."
"My family is about as complicated as it gets." I don't say anything else. I don't want to bring her into my bullshit. I don't want to contaminate her with my family and whatever the hell is going on with this town. She thinks of West Bend as this oasis, this perfect place isolated from the rest of the shit that happens outside of here. She ran from enough bad shit in her life that she doesn't need mine.
I don't want to poison her. My family is poison and I know it.
In fact, the best thing for her – and for Olivia – would probably be if I stayed way the hell away from her. The trouble is, I’m not sure staying away from her is something I can do.
19
Autumn
Sunlight streams through the windows, bathing everything in the room in a warm midmorning glow.
Midmorning.
I bolt upright in bed, pulling the sheets around my naked body, my heart racing. It’s midmorning and I haven’t heard a peep out of Olivia??
Scrambling out of bed, I throw on a t-shirt and pull on my pajama pants that were previously crumpled into a pile on the floor. There's an empty spot where Luke was last night, and the initial twinge of disappointment I feel when I see it turns to panic when I check Olivia’s room and see her empty crib.
I race down the stairs two at a time, mentally running through every possible catastrophic, terrible scenario in my head.
My thoughts are irrational and crazy, but I can’t stop them. This is like the beginning of every episode of one of those horrible news shows. I'm going to be a cautionary tale, something people tell about the mother who stupidly slept with a man who kidnapped her child.
Then I hear Olivia's laughter, her high-pitched squeal, and I burst into the kitchen to see them. Olivia sits in her highchair, clapping as she presses a spoonful of yogurt against Luke's nose. He looks at her with wide eyes, his nose dotted with yogurt, and she collapses against her highchair in hysterics again until she's nearly breathless.
"Did you sleep?" He looks up at me casually like he does this every freaking day. As if he's in the business of entertaining toddlers.
"What are you doing?" My voice comes out harder than I intend it, but my heart is racing, pounding in my chest so hard I think it's going to explode. I look at them together, Olivia delighted with her new playmate, his nose covered in yogurt. For a second, I want to walk over there and kiss him.
"You were sleeping so soundly, and you were so tired, I figured it's probably been a long time since you got to sleep in, so when she cried, I brought her downstairs. There's coffee over there if you want some. Bacon and eggs, too."
"How long have you been awake?" My voice is still clipped with an edge I can’t quite seem to control, and I’m not sure why I’m so annoyed by this. I watch as Olivia applies more yogurt to Luke's nose and collapses into hysterical laughter again.
"A couple of hours."
"You've been entertaining her for a couple of hours?" He’s trying to be nice, I tell myself. The rational part of me knows that. But the protective mother in me thinks, you slept upstairs while some guy was alone with your child for a couple of hours?
"I figured if she got really upset, I'd just come up and get you."
"You should have gotten me anyway," I say, my tone clipped. "Unless you have vast childcare experience I don't know about."
It just comes out. I know I’m being mean, but I'm still on edge, worked up by the fact that I thought something had happened to her.
And by the fact that I feel suddenly vulnerable, finding him down here laughing with Olivia and taking an interest in my child.
You’re scared because he’s taking an interest in you. Because maybe he isn’t just a fling.
When Luke looks at me, his jaw is clenched. "I didn't realize you'd have a problem with it," he says, standing up and wiping the yogurt off his nose with a napkin.
I keep my tone level, my voice quiet, aware that Olivia can hear us. "You didn't realize I'd have a problem with a strange man in my house alone with my child?"
Holy shit.
I don’t even mean to say it. The words just come out, and I immediately want to take them back. I regret them instantly.
A hurt look flits over his face and then disappears behind a stony one, and I feel terrible.
"You're right," he says, his voice flat.
"She's my kid." I don’t try to put into words how I’m feeling this morning in the wake of what happened between us last night. I’m feeling panicked and skittish and not at all like myself.
His jaw clenches, and he looks at me, his expression hard. "No problem," he says. "I should get going anyway."
He calls Lucy, who pads over to Olivia's highchair and licks her toes, causing Olivia to giggle with delight.
"Luke, I – " I start, but don't know what the hell to say. I could say a thousand things that would make this situation better. I could ex
plain that I didn't plan to wind up dealing with a morning-after breakfast with anyone anytime soon. And that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.
Instead, my mouth goes dry and I stand there stupidly, tongue-tied, saying nothing. For once, words completely fail me.
"No worries," he says, avoiding eye contact with me. He starts down the hall, calling Lucy, who trails after him.
"Luke, you don't have to go," I say weakly, as I unbuckle Olivia from her highchair. "I didn't mean anything – "
"It's all right," he says, giving me a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "We're still friends, right?"
He gives Olivia a little wave before he walks out the front door. And I let him go. I let him drive away, even though I could easily have asked him to stay, apologized for being an idiot.
But instead, I stand there with Olivia in my arms, telling myself that I'm in the right.
Even after I walk back into the kitchen and look at the breakfast he cooked for us – that he cooked for me while watching Olivia and letting me sleep in – because he was trying to be nice.
Damn it. Why can't I let someone just be nice?
"It's nothing," I say, trying to sound casual, but my voice betrays me.
"Obviously," June says. We're sitting on the back porch at her house watching the kids play in the sandbox. It's not our regular play date; it's the emergency Saturday morning play date I called an hour ago.
"I mean, it just happened," I go on. "It was stupid. Irresponsible. I shouldn't have brought him over. It's one of those things that you're not supposed to do, right? Isn't there some kind of rule about that? A recommendation from experts or something?"
June laughs. "Rule about what? Having a little bit of fun for a change?"
"A rule about bringing a man home when you're a mother," I clarify. "About not bringing some random stranger and exposing your kids to a… to a creep or something."
June purses her lips and frowns. "Oh, so now you're saying Luke is a creep?"
"No, he's not," I say adamantly. "He's not."
"So what's the problem?"
"I hooked up with a guy – on my kitchen floor," I hiss, keeping my voice low and out of earshot of the kids. "I'm a terrible parent."
"She was asleep," June says, waving her hand dismissively. "You think Cade and I haven't gotten it on in the kitchen when the kids are asleep?"
"It's different. You're..."
"Please don't say married," she moans. "You've not been on a single date since you moved here. That's two years, Autumn. I think that's a long enough mourning period."
"I'm not in mourning!"
"Well, then stop acting like you are," she retorts. "You're not a nun. You didn't take a vow of celibacy just because you became a mom."
"You think it's totally fine?"
"I think you're doing a great job making it not fine."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It was good, right?" she asks, sipping her glass of water.
I exhale heavily, heat rising to my face at the thought of it. It was more than good. It was... mind-blowing. Fantastic. The best sex I've ever had.
"Yeah," she says, laughing. "Exactly. It's written all over your face."
"I don't know him, June."
She looks at me for a long time. "How long were you married to Edward?" she asks, not waiting for an answer. "Seems to me like you didn't really know him either."
We sit in silence, listening to the kids playing, until I finally speak. “Damn it, June. Why do you have to be so… reasonable?”
The sound of male laughter interrupts us, and I turn to see June's husband Cade standing behind us holding Callie. “Reasonable?” he asks, grinning. “Really?”
“You shut your mouth, Cade!” She reaches for the baby. “I’m totally reasonable.”
“I’d be afraid of whatever advice you’re getting from June here.”
“How long have you been eavesdropping?” I ask.
Cade puts his hands up in mock surrender. “Not even a little bit,” he says. “Whatever you two had to talk about that was so important this morning is not at all my business.”
“That’s a smart man,” June says, smiling. “I’ve trained him well.”
Cade kisses the top of her head. “I have to go in to the shop for a little while. Can you handle the two heathen children?”
“I think I’ll manage.”
I wait until Cade leaves to speak. “You and Cade are good parents,” I remark.
“Yeah, we are.” She leans forward, her voice dropping to a whisper. “But we’re not saints, Autumn. You have no idea how far from saints we are.”
I can’t help but laugh. Yeah, right. Because June, the sweet little bed and breakfast owner, is totally a badass.
“Seriously, Autumn,” she insists. “Go have a wild one-night-stand – or a few nights. Or make him your boyfriend if you want. And if you need Cade and I to babysit Olivia so you can have an actual, real-life date, we will.”
My eyes go wide. “I’m not making him my boyfriend,” I sputter. “He’s just… a fling. At most. Maybe not even that.”
“Uh-huh. If he’s just a fling, then why do you care what happened this morning?”
Damn it. I swallow hard. June is right.
“Exactly,” she says, as if she can read my mind. “You know I’m correct. And don’t eff it all up just because you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” I protest automatically, obviously lying.
“Of course you are. You like him.”
“I can’t like him. I don’t know him.”
“Well, you can remedy that part of things, now can’t you?” She nudges me. “Getting to know someone is easy enough.”
“Easy for you to say.” I cross my arms and give June a sullen glare, aware I’m being ridiculous, but she just laughs.
“I’m quite sure you’ll manage just fine,” she says.
20
Luke
“Where the fuck have you been?” Elias’ voice greets me even before I get out of the truck.
I don’t answer and don’t look at any of them standing there in my damn driveway because I don't want to deal with them right now. Lucy starts to run excitedly toward my brothers before getting distracted by a squirrel and running off in the opposite direction.
“I don’t need shit from you, Elias, so lay the hell off.” I’m