My mother smiled. “The new doctor in town. We wanted to welcome him and his family to Mason. Your father and I know the doctor’s wife. She went to school with us. It will be good to see her again.”
I nodded my head and cut up a few more apples before my father walked up next to me.
“Garrett, we need to talk.”
He motioned for me to head outside. I set the knife down next to the apple and followed my father down to the barn. We walked in, and he pointed for me to have a seat.
“So, what is this I hear about you running around with Anna King?”
I looked up at my father. “Excuse me, sir?”
“Garrett, I’m not stupid. I was your age, and I did the same things you’re doing. I’m not going to sit here and preach to you about how you can’t have sex until you’re married. Hell, I was fourteen when I lost my virginity to my sister’s best friend.”
I rolled my eyes and looked away. “Dad, did I really need to know that?”
My father let out a chuckle as he sat down on a barrel and looked at me. “Garrett, don’t be running around with the town whore. She’s gonna end up getting pregnant, and the poor schmuck who ends up marrying that girl will be struggling for the rest of his life because she is like her mother. They come from money, and Anna’s gonna want the world on a silver platter.”
My father was sitting here, talking to me about our school tramp, and all I could think of was how in the hell he knew I’d had sex with Anna.
“Dad, how did you know?”
My father smiled. “Billy’s daddy saw you and Anna sneaking off. He followed y’all and saw you going into her house. He knew her parents were gone for the weekend.”
I instantly felt my face go red.
“It took me so long to talk to you about it because…well, honestly, son, I just didn’t know how to talk to you about it. I do want you to be careful. Son, someday, you’re going to meet a girl who will change everything. She’ll make you want to be a better man.”
My father shook his head and smiled. I knew he was thinking about my mother.
“She’ll be the reason you wake up every morning and push through another day. She’ll be your everything.”
I nodded my head and kicked the dirt. “How will I know it’s her, Dad?”
He smiled so big. “Trust me, you’ll know. You won’t be able to think clearly when she is anywhere near you. You’ll find yourself having a hard time breathing when she walks into a room. You’ll think about her all the time, and you’ll want to do nothing but make her happy for the rest of your lives.”
“When did you know Mom was the one?” I asked.
The light in his eyes danced. “The first moment she ever looked at me, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I knew right then.”
I thought back to yesterday when I’d walked into the drugstore, and my reaction had been the very same when Emma looked at me. I cleared my throat and got the nerve to ask the next question. “How old were you and Mom when you first met?”
He chuckled and winked at me. “I was fifteen years old.”
“Fifteen? You knew you were going to be with Mom for the rest of your life at the age of fifteen?”
He nodded his head and stood up. “Garrett, love doesn’t know age.” He turned and walked out of the barn.
I sat there for a few minutes and thought about Emma. She was so sweet and innocent, such a firecracker. I smiled and shook my head, remembering how she’d reacted when she thought I had kissed another girl.
Next time I see Emma Rose Birk, I’m asking her out to eat.
I heard a car pulling up, so I stood up and walked over to Mary Lou—my paint horse I’d gotten for Christmas from my parents. I gave her a good scratch before heading out to meet the new doctor. I turned the corner and started making my way back to our white clapboard house, and then I stopped in my tracks.
Emma?
What is Emma doing on our ranch? Oh shit. She’s fixin’ to eat dinner in my house…at my kitchen table!
I just stood there, unable to move. She was dressed in a purple poodle skirt and white collared shirt. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail with a purple-and-white piece of fabric tied in her hair. She was smiling as our parents were greeting each other. My father looked up, and when his eyes met mine, I was almost one hundred percent sure he saw the fear in my eyes.