“She’s made breakfast. You need to go eat,” he said.
I wanted to go eat. I was starving. But did she want me there? “Doubt she made it for me,” I replied.
Jeremy spit out the window, and I wondered how she dealt with the fact that he dipped during the day when he was working. That shit was gross. “She hasn’t made breakfast since her daddy got too sick to eat it. She didn’t fix it for me.”
Hope rose up in my chest and I couldn’t keep from grinning. She’d made me breakfast. Hot damn. “Then I guess I better go eat it,” I replied.
“Yeah, I guess you better.”
I threw my shovel back in the truck and stuck my work gloves in my back pocket. Jeremy drove off and headed back to the house. Guess he was going to go eat too. I was hoping he’d sit this meal out and give me time alone with Eva. As long as they didn’t kiss, I could do this. She also hadn’t been wearing her ring this morning, just like she hadn’t been wearing it yesterday. That was a good sign. It also helped me stay calm. Seeing another man’s claim on her did things to me. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.
* * *
Just like I figured, Jeremy’s truck was at the barn. I could smell the biscuits and bacon from the front porch. I’d missed my woman’s cooking. She could pretend this wasn’t for me, but I knew better. Jeremy had already cleared that up. Smiling, I opened the door and walked in.
Maybe it was the way the sun was shinning in the room from the window or maybe it was just because I’d walked in here thinking things were different. That this meal meant something. But the diamond sparkling on Eva’s left hand mocked me silently. The good mood I’d been in was gone with one simple flash of a diamond. So was my appetite.
Jeremy was already sitting at the table, eating. He glanced up at me then went back to drinking his coffee. “Pecan crop was good this year. It’ll be better next year. I’ve never had to do the harvest without Wilson. I’m learning. If you want to pay for an extra crop dusting this year, we can afford it. I think it’ll pay off with the crop.”
Eva glanced at me nervously and twisted her hands in front of her as she covered her left hand with her right one. She had put it on. Now she was trying to hide it. “Uh, yeah. . . I guess. We’ll talk about it later,” she said, shifting her gaze from Jeremy to me and back again. “Help yourself. Plate’s on the table,” she said without looking at me.
I pulled out the chair across from Jeremy and watched as she hurried over to the coffeepot, poured a cup, and then set it beside my plate. “I, uh, y’all go ahead and eat. I think I’ll just go—”
“Have you eaten?” I asked, cutting off her attempt at escaping.
She shook her head.
“Do you get sick in the morning?” I asked, suddenly realizing I didn’t know about that part of her life now. Did our baby make her feel bad in the mornings?
She shook her head again. “No. Not anymore. That goes away. . . ,” she trailed off.
I stood back up and pulled out the chair to my left. “Sit down, Eva.” She stood there and stared at the seat like she wasn’t sure if she needed to bolt or if I could catch her.
“If you don’t sit down and eat, I’ll go back out there and work. I’m starving and your biscuits smell incredible, but if my being in here is keeping you from sitting down and eating, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit here. You need to eat.”
She lifted her eyes to meet mine, and it took every ounce of control I had to keep from grabbing her and kissing that surprised and confused looked off her face. Did she not get that I still loved her to distraction?
“Okay,” she said, sitting down while still holding my gaze. I pushed her chair in for her then went and sat back down.
“Good. Because this smells amazing,” I told her before reaching over and taking a biscuit and putting it on her plate before I got my own. I did the same with the bacon. “You want me to butter it?” I asked when I picked up the butter.
She sat there watching me like she wasn’t sure what to do with me. “No, I can do it. Thank you,” she replied, and took the butter from me.
“So, what’s this about the pecan crop?” I asked, looking at Jeremy.
He was slowly chewing a piece of bacon and watching me just as intently as Eva was. He swallowed. “Crop was good this year considering I’d never done the harvesting without Wilson and it’s been a few years since I was around to do the harvesting. We need to look at paying for an extra crop dusting. Will cost a pretty good penny, but it’s worth it.”
“We use the same crop duster every year? Is there one Wilson prefers or should we shop around and see if we can get a better price?”
Neither of them spoke, so I took a bite of my biscuit. Eva put the knife down from buttering her biscuit and I reached for her plate. “Gravy?”
She simply nodded. I gave her the portion she normally preferred and set her plate back in front of her. “Way I see it is, we should do what Wilson would have done. He did all the trial and error. His method would be the safest bet. How many crop dustings did he do a year?”
Again, crickets. I stood up and got Eva a glass of orange juice and sat it down beside her plate.
Jeremy finally cleared his throat when I sat back down and I leveled my gaze on him. “Yeah, I agree. When the crop was good, he did extra dustings. They paid for themselves that way.”
I turned my attention to Eva. “You feel good about that? Doing it the way your daddy did?”
She was cutting her biscuit up into little pieces, but she hadn’t taken a bite yet. “I, uh, yes, of course.”
I reached over and slid my finger under her chin to tilt her head up so she could see my face when I said the next thing. “If you don’t eat, I’m going go back to work. Please eat.”
She swallowed loud enough for me to hear her. “Okay,” she replied.
I dropped my hand and went back to eating. My talking apparently left them both in such shock that Jeremy didn’t know what to say and Eva couldn’t eat, so I stayed silent until I was satisfied with how much she’d eaten. Then I stood up and took my plate to the sink to rinse it and put it in the dishwasher.
“Thanks for breakfast. It was the best thing I’ve put in my mouth in a long time,” I told her before grabbing my hat and heading outside. That hadn’t been easy, but hopefully she was getting the hint that I wasn’t leaving.
Chapter Eighteen
EVA
“I don’t think he’s leaving, Eva. Y’all need to talk,” Jeremy said once we heard the truck crank back up outside.
“But. . . he has school. Baseball starts soon. What. . . Has he lost his mind? He isn’t making any sense.” I set my fork down. I’d had to force myself to eat because I wanted Cage to eat.
“He’s not leaving,” Jeremy repeated. “I ain’t figured this out yet, but I do know he ain’t leaving,”
I stood up and took my uneaten food to the garbage and scraped my plate clean before walking to the sink to watch his truck rumble to the back of the property like he belonged there. “I thought he’d be headed back to school today. He has to have exams coming up.” This was his way of telling me he was okay with me and Jeremy. He was going to be a part of Bliss’s life the best he could. He didn’t know how to tell me, so he was showing me. “He’ll be gone tomorrow. He has to be heading back by then.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Jeremy said as he set his plate in the sink and headed for the door. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere, Eva.”
I stared out at the barn, wondering what Cage was thinking. The screen door banged as it closed behind Jeremy. He thought Cage was staying.. . . But why? For what? He would have to leave eventually.
* * *
Three days later, and Cage was still showing up at six in the morning and still acting like he belonged there. I continued to cook breakfast. He continued to eat and talk like he was there to stay. Somehow he always managed to leave before I could stop him and talk to him. It was like he was dodging my questions. If I wasn’t afraid to call Low after all this time, I would call her and ask her if she knew what the heck he was doing.
Jeremy stood on the porch, sticking another dip in his lip three hours after we’d had breakfast. It was his normal break time. I walked outside to talk to him. We hadn’t talked much this week. Cage being there had consumed my attention.
“I wonder if he plans on leaving this weekend?” I asked, realizing I was scared that that was exactly what he was going to do. In three short days I’d grown accustomed to him being there again.
“Nope. His ass ain’t leaving,” Jeremy said, shoving his tobacco in his back pocket.
“What about his classes?”
“Don’t think he gives a rat’s ass about his classes.”
“Why?”
Jeremy looked over at me and grinned. “Because, Eva, he’s proving himself to you. He isn’t making excuses and explaining what he did. He’s handling it like a man. That’s what he’s doing.” He shook his head and walked down the stairs then stopped. “Damned if it don’t make me respect his sorry ass,” he said, then walked away.
He was proving himself? Now? Why? I sat down on the stairs and then studied my bare left hand. I hadn’t been able to put my ring on for two days. Normally I just needed a break for a day, but just picking it up felt wrong. Like I was intentionally being cruel if I wore it. To Jeremy because he loved me a way I would never love him and to Cage because it was a symbol of us being over.
“I keep waiting for our girl to move. Is she ever gonna move for me?” Cage said as his shadow fell over me. I looked up, and his twinkling blue eyes were smiling down at me.
“You’re never around when she does,” I replied, moving both of my hands over my stomach.
Cage nodded to the spot beside me. “Can I sit down?”
Could he sit down? Yes, he could, but could I handle being that close to him? I managed to nod, and he pulled his hat off and took the spot next to me, leaving no room between the two of us. Our bodies touched hip to knee.
“Can I talk to her?” he asked, studying my stomach. I often stood naked in front of the mirror and wondered what Cage would think of my body now. I looked so different than I had the last time he’d seen me naked. Seeing him study my swollen stomach so carefully made me nervous.
“I guess,” I said, not really sure I wanted him to, but how could I tell him no?
He shifted his body so he could cup my stomach with both his hands. I couldn’t help the small shiver than ran through me. It had been so long since Cage had touched me like this. His thumbs moved gently over my stomach in a caress. There was no mistaking the tremble in my body. I knew he felt it, but he wasn’t teasing me or mentioning it.
“It’s time you moved for me, baby girl. I’ve been waiting all week. I wanna feel you inside your momma.” He was talking to my stomach. I was going to cry. I bit my bottom lip as hard as I could to distract my hormonal emotions from the sweetness of what I was witnessing.
“What do you normally do to get her to move?” Cage asked, looking up at me.
“I sing to her,” I admitted, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. Emotion flashed in his eyes so quickly that I almost missed it.
“What do you sing?”
“Lullabies mostly. Maybe a little Adele. She likes Adele.”
Cage’s lips curved up slowly and then he chuckled. “She likes Adele, huh?”
I nodded, and he laughed a little louder.
Then Bliss kicked. His eyes went wide before he dropped his attention back to my stomach. She kicked me again, and his hands moved over me. “She’s in there,” he said in awe. His eyes lifted back up to stare at me with a mix of worship and amazement. “Our baby is in there,” he repeated.
All I could manage to do was nod.
Bliss decided to show off as if she knew she had this beautiful man’s complete attention. She moved and pushed against his hands, causing him to grin even bigger.
He touched the hem of my sweatshirt and looked at me. “Can I?” he asked. He wanted to touch my bare skin. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to see me. I had stretch marks. “Please, Eva?” he begged.
I closed my eyes tightly and nodded. My sweatshirt moved up over my stomach and his hands slid over my bare skin, causing me to jump from the heat of his touch. My skin felt like it was sizzling where he was touching me. He held his hands on my stomach and didn’t move for a minute. I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t know what he was thinking.
Then his hands began to run over my stomach slowly. I was real close to embarrassing myself. This was about him and Bliss, not my crazy hormones. Bliss gave him another kick and he chuckled, causing her to move again. I needed to brace myself. I put both hands behind me and leaned on them, giving Cage more access to my stomach. When I felt his body move my knee to open my legs, I snapped my eyes open to see him kneeling down between my legs.
His eyes were on my face as he eased between me and kept my stomach in his hands. This was not a position we should be in. I was engaged. It was wrong. But I trembled. Cage’s eyes snapped shut and his nose flared as he took in a sharp breath. Too much. This was too much.
“I can’t,” I said, and pushed him away as I scrambled to get up. He wanted to get close to Bliss, but he was getting close to me. He’d been between my legs like that on more than one occasion, and that’s all my body could think of when he was kneeling there again. He might not have been imagining his head between my legs, but I was and it was wrong.