This couldn’t be happening...not to him!

For Charlie Wainwright, the only way to live is according to plan. But a corporate layoff and one hot night with Meg Carmichael has thrown him off course. He doesn’t know how to handle the pretty goat farmer, much less the news that they made more than conversation that night.

Suddenly Meg is pregnant, and Charlie wants to do the right thing. Meg and all she’s hiding don’t belong in his world, and his suits and ties don’t belong on a farm. But a promise to do what’s best for the baby might show them what matters most...

“So, um, I suppose this is awkward,” Meg began.

“I suppose,” Charlie returned, wondering if it would be less awkward if she weren’t quite so nervous. Or maybe drunk sex just always made things awkward afterward.

He sighed. At himself. At the situation. At...life. “You know—”

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.

He leaned closer, sure he’d misheard or misunderstood. “I’m sorry. What?”

“I know you don’t have any reason to believe me. We don’t know each other well. It never should have happened, but the very fact of the matter is, the only person I’ve been in any potentially compromising positions with is...you...and my doctor confirmed a positive pregnancy test. So...”

He leaned back. Away from her and words that didn’t make sense. He was thirty-five. He was a vice president of... No, not anymore.

He was an unemployed thirty-five-year-old being told the drunken one-night-stand he hadn’t meant to ever let happen had resulted in...

“I didn’t mean to just drop it on you like that.” She skirted the table of her booth, and that felt like a purposeful distancing. He was on one side, and she was on the other.

Pregnant.

With his baby.

Dear Reader,

Four years ago, I decided to write a book about two farmers and a farmers’ market. When I wrote that first chapter, I was determined it would be a stand-alone book. So many people on Twitter were complaining about series, and I was going to write just one book.

But the heroine, Mia, had a really interesting sister in Cara. Okay, so maybe, given the chance, it’d be a two-book series. But that was it.

I very purposefully gave the hero, Dell, a brother whose name and temperament did not appeal to me at all. Or so I thought.

The funny thing about writing books with complicated family dynamics set in vibrant communities...you can’t help wondering about the people in the background.

I never meant to make Charlie a hero, but the more I wrote about Dell and his complicated relationship with his father in All I Have, the more I had to know what made Charlie Wainwright tick.

Much like Cara, the heroine of All I Am, it took me a few tries to find Charlie’s match. But when tattooed, goat-farming Meg popped into my brain, I knew no one better could help Charlie find exactly who he was meant to be.

I hope you enjoy this final trip to the farmers’ market!

Nicole Helm

www.NicoleHelm.Wordpress.com

All I Want

Nicole Helm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest to the West, Nicole writes stories about people finding themselves and finding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CHARLIE WAINWRIGHT STOOD at the entrance to his brother’s vegetable barn, phone in hand, many, many curse words in his head.

He was about to send his third where are you? text in fifteen minutes but then saw Dell’s head appear, along with a much smaller, darker head leaning against his shoulder.

“You ask for my help and now you’re late? See if I help you again,” Charlie called, keeping the curse words in his head only for his niece’s benefit.

“Mia’s not feeling great. She was going to watch Lainey even so, but the terrible twos are alive and well.” Dell approached, and Charlie had to admit the guy looked exhausted.

“She isn’t two yet.”

“Close e-da...darn-nough.” Dell handed the little girl off to Charlie and then opened up the barn.

“Hey there, Sugar Snap,” Charlie greeted his niece. Maybe he said it quiet enough so Dell couldn’t hear, because maybe Lainey had climbed under every last tough-guy facade he’d ever had since the day she stopped spitting up breast milk.

“Chawie.” She slapped him on the face, her greeting of the moment.

“Lovely,” Charlie muttered, bouncing her till she giggled while Dell loaded up his market truck with vegetables for the day. “So, what’s Mia down with? Not flu season. Sure she’s not just sick of you?”

Dell grinned as he shoved the last pallets of vegetables onto his truck bed. “Nope. Not nearly sick of me.”

Charlie grimaced. His screwup younger brother’s happiness and business success over the past few years were a little salt on the wound right now. He could deal with being wifeless and childless, usually, but with the company he worked for being bought out and rumors that layoffs would happen next week, well, work and success were all Charlie had. The very real threat he could lose them was...terrifying.

But he wouldn’t lose. Couldn’t. Didn’t. He was the best man for the job, even if the company buyout meant cuts were coming. Most likely to people as high up as he was.

Not thinking about that today. Today was helping Dell at the farmers’ market. He’d worry about work at work.

Right, you’re so good at setting boundaries like that.

He flipped Lainey upside down and she screamed with delight. When he brought her back upright, Dell was grinning at him. “What?”

“Nothing. Just never expected you to be Mr. Doting Uncle. Good thing, though, as you’re going to be an uncle twice over soon enough.”

Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. Dell had been married for almost four years now, and his and Mia’s farm business was booming. It shouldn’t be a shock, but even with years to tell Charlie otherwise, he’d still been of the mind-set that he was better off than Dell.

Charlie had attended a challenging school, escaped their tiny farming community hometown. He was a vice president of National Accounts, the youngest one his company had ever had. He lived in an expensive apartment, drove a nice sports car and had a solid retirement plan. He had investments.

But for the first time, maybe because he knew his job and all that success he’d worked so hard for was on the line, he looked at Dell and realized his brother had come out on top.

“Blank stare all you got?”

“No.” Charlie forced himself to get over his own problems for a minute. “Man, congratulations. Really. Although Mia’s the one doing all the work. Don’t know why I should be congratulating you.” Gotta get a dig in, right?

“Same old Charlie,” Dell said, shaking his head as he took Lainey back into his arms. “I’m going to take her to Mom. You want to start up the truck and meet me out front?”

“Sure.” He took the keys Dell handed him. “Number two, huh?” Three years younger, many years wasted and Dell was way out in front.

Christ.

“We haven’t told the folks yet, but God knows Mia’s blabbed to Cara and Anna, so it’s my turn. Cara’s pregnant too.”

“No sh—” At Dell’s finger-to-neck motion, Charlie changed where he was going. “No way.” Mia and her sister pregnant at the same time. Every person he knew who hadn’t made much of himself until long after him, happy and procreating.

Dell rolled his eyes. “She said the F-word the other day,” he grumbled, ruffling Lainey’s feather-fine hair. “Clear as you please. Right in the middle of the grocery store. Needless to say, I was not hailed as a hero that night.”

“Right,” Charlie said, feeling uncharacteristically tongue-tied. “Well.”

“Babies everywhere, man. Watch out. It’s in the air and it might be catching.” Dell slapped him on the shoulder before heading up toward their parents’ house.

Charlie climbed into Dell’s truck and turned the key in the ignition. The feeling weighing down his arms, twisting in his chest, it was all very new. Something he’d never experienced before, so it was hard to pinpoint, hard to label.

His career was being threatened. He had no wife, no serious girlfriend, no chance for kids anytime soon. He had things, but the intangibles, success and love and contentment...well, if he lost his job, they would all be missing.

His chest squeezed tighter, arms feeling heavier. He had a bad feeling it all meant one thing.

Charlie Wainwright was a failure. And that was something he’d never been.

* * *

MEG CARMICHAEL IGNORED the heavy grief in her chest and set up her table at the Millertown Farmers’ Market. She chatted idly about the weather with the woman to her left, who had a table of colorful jellies and jams set out. She pulled out brochures, breathed in the scent of lavender and smiled despite the tears pricking her eyes.

Lavender had always been her grandmother’s favorite.

With a deep breath Meg plastered a smile on her face and looked at the display she’d put together. Baskets of soaps boasting different shapes and scents. The Hope Springs Farm name and an illustration of a poppy and a goat graced her signs, brochures and labels.

Look at all you’ve done. It was Grandma’s voice, because that was the voice that had guided her since she ended her last stint in rehab. She’d been clean for eight years now, sober for six. She had a business, and a life she was proud of, to show for it.

And Grandma was gone. Meg had to keep telling herself that was okay, that was life. Getting high wouldn’t change the fact that her sole familial supporter was gone. Dead.

Nothing would change that, so what was the point in throwing away her life again? The pain wouldn’t go away. She’d have to be her own positive force. Her own support.

That wasn’t scary or overwhelming. It was empowering. Or something.

Meg repeated the word empowered over and over inside her head. Willing herself to believe it as the morning went on. She was powerful. She was strong. Breathe in. Breathe out. Smile. Charm. Sell.

The market was busy, which made it easier. Though her booth that boasted no food products wasn’t as popular as the vegetable stands and the honey and egg stands, she was having a pretty successful morning for herself.

Because she was successful, empowered, strong.

An older woman with a little white dog passed, ignoring her greeting on her way to the organic dog treat table a few spots down. Not to be deterred, Meg greeted the next passerby. “Mother’s Day is just around the corner!”

As she’d hoped, that caught the attention of a man who appeared to be in his thirties, alone and the type to be too busy to remember Mother’s Day. Meg had a knack for recognizing those types.

“We’ve got lots of scents and shapes. Owls, foxes, pretty designs. Perfect for any mother who likes nice, usable things.” She smiled broadly. He couldn’t be much older than her and was only an inch or two taller. Sandy-brown hair that looked carefully styled, the kind of five o’clock shadow that looked cultivated rather than accidental.

He was...actually kind of hot. Which was weird, because she wasn’t usually attracted to men who looked like they belonged in the world she’d grown up in. Except for the jeans. Her mother never would have approved of jeans.

“Owls, huh?” He stepped closer, squinting at her baskets of soaps.

“Owls are scented with lemon verbena. Very cute and fun,” she said, pointing to the appropriate basket. “Goat milk soap has great antiaging benefits—not that I’d mention it to the recipient.”

“No, I don’t suppose I would either.”

“You can buy by the soap for three fifty a piece or a gift basket of five is fifteen dollars.”

“Fifteen dollars for soap?”

He wasn’t the first person to balk at her prices, and he no doubt wouldn’t be the last. Still, her repeat customers didn’t seem to mind. “I promise the recipient will be a convert and won’t blink an eye at the price. Goat milk soap is that good.”

“Well, you’re quite the saleswoman.” He gave her a sideways glance, his expression changing as he took in her bright and colorful arm of tattoos. “I’ll give you that,” he added, looking away. But she read the expression all the same. Judgment.

Once upon a time, the judgment had bothered her, fueled her. She’d used that judgment to prove the world didn’t understand. She was above the world, its rules, everything. She sought out that judgment.

These days...well, she figured it didn’t really matter what some stranger thought of her choices.

“Mix-and-match gift basket?” he asked, running a long finger over the face of an owl.

“Yup. Name your five, and I’ll even package them up all pretty.” She went behind the table and pulled out one of her gift bags, complete with the Hope Springs logo on the front and a pretty red lace ribbon to tie it up with.

She waited for him to pick the soaps he wanted, but he just stared at her wrist. “Is that...”

“A goat?” She held out her arm to emphasize the tattoo at her wrist—the only one she’d gotten post-rehab. A little goat with a poppy, sitting beneath the cloud design that took up most of her forearm. Her fresh-start goat. “Yup, it’s a goat. I love them.”

“I see that.” Finally he shifted his gaze away from her arm and started looking through the soaps, picking out one of each kind and handing them to her so she could package them. He then pulled his wallet out of his pants—his very expensive-looking leather wallet.

“Don’t want anything for yourself?” she joked.

He glanced around her table of pastels and bows and flowers. Girly to the extreme. “Why not? Not getting any younger. Maybe I could use some antiaging soap. I’ll take the goat to remember you by.” He picked it up with a grin that said he knew he was charming. The kind of grin that usually made her roll her eyes and stick a finger down her mouth in a gagging motion.

His didn’t quite have that effect, though. His made her grin back.

He plopped the goat soap into her palm and she blinked for a second before remembering the routine. Wrap it up. Get yourself together, because you are not sixteen.

“Well, I certainly appreciate your business.”

“I can’t resist a good saleswoman.”

A little flush crept into her cheeks, totally against her will. Oh, he was too charming and he knew it. Somehow, it didn’t dilute her reaction at all. “Keep me in mind for all your soap and lotion needs.” She plucked a card from her table and handed it to him, trying not to cringe at how ridiculous that sounded.

“My...” He cocked his head, gaze running from her table back to her.

His dark eyes met hers, and one side of his mouth quirked up. “I don’t have a lot of soap and lotion needs, but I’ll still keep you in mind.”

He was flirting with her and it had...been a while. Her life was pretty isolated these days. Not so much by design, but necessity. Running a goat farm all by herself was hard work, and she didn’t know a lot of fellow thirtysomethings as interested in cloven-hoofed creatures as she was, aside from the occasional satanist.

He pocketed her card and took the bag of soaps. “I’ll see you around.”

“I’m here every Saturday.” Oh, brother. That was just lame. But he smiled and nodded, and she let herself stare as he walked away.

Really nice butt.

Designer jeans.

Couldn’t win them all. The fact of the matter was, cute and flirting or not, he was the type of guy she’d known all too well growing up. The nice clothes and expensive watch, that serious business resting face.

He was a type—a type she had no interest in.

Oh well. It didn’t hurt to look, especially when the chances of him returning were slim to none. When her phone chimed in her pocket, she stiffened. The text from her mother wasn’t unexpected, but it felt cruel. Mom surely considered it efficient, but the timing, the brevity...

The funeral will be Thursday.

Grandma was gone. Meg hadn’t been allowed to be in the hospital for fear she might “upset people.” Even though Grandma had been the only one to stand by her. Even though Grandma had set her up with the farm after Meg got out of rehab, and even though Grandma had supported her through every setback.

As though that hadn’t been bad enough, every offer of help with arrangements had also been rebuffed. Because it was what they wanted. No one in the Carmichael clan was thinking about what Grandma wanted. Would have wanted. All they could think about was appearances. What people might think.

It had been drilled in them for generations, Meg figured. This strident need to show only perfection and success.

To them, Meg would always be a failure. Always be imperfect.

Meg blinked away tears and forced her lips to curve upward as two women passed. “Good morning! Goat milk soap has many skin benefits. Can I offer you a brochure?”

Suck it up. Smile. Pretend nothing is wrong. Mom would be so proud.

CHAPTER TWO

“OBVIOUSLY WE’LL OFFER you a reference as this isn’t a reflection of your abilities.”

Charlie sat in the cushy chair of his new boss’s office, which had been his old boss’s office, but now...

He blinked, trying to make his thoughts follow a straight line. This wasn’t out of the blue. He’d known this possibility existed. But now it was here and he somehow couldn’t wrap his brain around it.

“We’d like you to stay on for a few weeks, ease us through the transition. You’d be compensated, naturally. Alisha here will go over your severance package once that’s done.” Mr. Collins nodded toward the human resources woman Charlie had never met because she’d come from this new company.

It didn’t matter who she was or what she went over, he was being let go from the position he’d worked his ass off for. He’d poured ten years of his life into this company and what did he have to show for it? A severance package?

“I’m sure you’ll land on your feet. You’re sharp. I’m sorry we couldn’t keep you, but you know how these things go.”

Mr. Collins held out his hand, the same dismissive gesture Charlie had extended to others in the past. But always for performance reasons. He’d never had to lay off a member of his team just because.

But Charlie had been businessman professional too long not to smile politely, take the offered hand and let Alisha usher him down the corridor to her office. An office that had belonged to Marissa, a mother of three, not that long ago.

This new woman’s office was spare and efficient, absent of a million hand-painted drawings with goofy magnets along the edge of the filing cabinet. No giant bowl of hard candy at the edge of her desk either.

Things like this had been happening for weeks, and he was shamed to realize how it’d failed to hit him until he was the one getting the ax. Change usually meant a person’s life was being upended. The changes that had been sweeping through the office hadn’t been voluntary or easy for most involved.

But he’d been too wrapped up in himself, in how much he deserved to stay, to notice how it was affecting people, and that shamed him too, deeply.

There was paperwork to fill out. Alisha spoke in gentle, patient tones, so he nearly felt like he was back in kindergarten, complete with her escorting him back to his office.

His office. His.

“You’ll want to start notifying your clients,” Alisha said in that elementary school teacher voice. “Before they hear from anyone else.”

Right. Work to do. Clients to notify so the company that was firing him—no, laying him off—didn’t lose any business. He would need to prepare everything to turn over to his replacement, whom he’d meet tomorrow. It didn’t matter that he’d been let go, there was still work to do.

For the afternoon, he worked as diligently as he had the previous ten years. Making sure clients understood nothing would change, readying files and binders. He efficiently and methodically worked to make his job something he could simply hand over to someone else.

It was a long day of continuous surrealism; none of it really sank in. Because he had a few weeks ahead of him, of training someone else to do his job. He had weeks of making sure things were “in order.”

So, at the end of the day, when he shut his laptop down, he thought this would feel the same too.

Instead he stared at the blank screen. His usual next step was to snap it shut, slide it into his briefcase, check his phone one last time for emails or messages and then walk out. Most Thursday nights he ate dinner with his parents. It wasn’t a day to stay late in the office, like he did every other night.

But the IT Department had asked him to leave the computer so they could prep it for his replacement. He didn’t know how to walk away from this extension of himself that was going to be handed off to someone else.

His replacement.

He looked around the office that had been his for almost two years. He wasn’t a knickknack kind of guy. There were some awards on the wall, a picture of the Wainwrights from Lainey’s first birthday on his desk next to his Stan Musial–signed baseball.

It would take him ten minutes tops to erase himself from this office, and he didn’t know what that said about him, or his job, or his life; he only knew it felt like it meant something—something not particularly good.

* * *

MEG PACED THE SIDEWALK outside the church trying very hard to breathe through the sobs that racked her body.

She couldn’t hear what was happening inside, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She didn’t want the prayers or priest’s words telling her Grandma was in a better place. What better place was there than here—at Meg’s side?

Meg tried to mop up her face, but she’d neglected to bring tissues, so she had only the collar of her dress and the backs of her hands. And she just kept crying, so it was a completely useless exercise anyway.

She might not want to be in there, but she knew she should be. Grandma would want her in there, would consider it the right thing to do.

But she also wouldn’t want a scene, and if Meg tried to get in a second time...

The broken sob was impossible to swallow down. How could they turn her away from the funeral? How could they ban her? Grandma wouldn’t have wanted that. Grandma had always loved her.

No matter what.

Meg knew, in a way, this was her fault. She hadn’t planned well and the black sweater she figured she’d throw over her tattoos had boasted a giant hole in the armpit when she pulled it out of her closet.

Meg had spent ten frantic moments pawing through her closet trying to find something acceptable to her parents that would also cover her arms and match and be suitable grieving colors and she’d just...given up.

What was the point of scrambling through your closet when your grandmother was gone and your family was going to snub you anyway? To her parents, the tattoos were the visible slap in the face of all Meg had thrown away, all the shame she’d brought to their doorstep. In the world of her parents, appearances were everything.

So she’d accepted that Mom would sneer at the simple black dress that allowed some of her tattoos to be visible. She’d accepted that she’d probably have to sit alone, maybe even toward the back of the church.

But she’d never imagined it possible, not in a million years, that her parents would bar her from her own grandmother’s funeral.

The church bells tolled and Meg felt like she was eight again, alone outside this church, not understanding what was wrong with her—why her parents would rather pretend she didn’t exist than hug her.

She’d run out of church one Sunday, determined to just run. Because the priest could talk all he wanted about God’s love, but it hadn’t been infused into her parents. All they’d ever cared about was what their friends might have said behind their backs, or to their faces. The deals Dad might have lost if certain business partners found out he couldn’t control his daughter. The Carmichael name.

“I won’t go back there,” she muttered aloud, no doubt looking like an insane person. But surely this couldn’t be the worst behavior anyone had ever seen at a funeral.

The stately church doors opened with a groan, and everyone began processing out. Red eyes, tears, handkerchiefs. Some people didn’t look twice at her. A few of her distant relatives touched her arm briefly on their way to the cars that would take them to the cemetery.

But everyone knew not to stop and talk to Meg. Meg the addict. Meg the failure. Meg the giant black splotch on a proud and old-moneyed family.

When Mom approached, her eyes held more fury than grief, and all Meg wanted to do was leave to find a drink. Find oblivion. It had been a long time since she sincerely wished for something else to take her away, but that wish was so deep, so big, it was all she could think about as Mom bore down on her.

“You are not wanted,” Mom hissed.

“You made me miss the service, but you cannot bar me from the cemetery.”

“Yes, I can, because I care about how this family looks. Do you really think your grandmother would want you here reminding everyone how you’ve continually thrown your life away?”

Meg wanted to speak, wanted to yell, Yes, she would want me here. I know she would want me here. But she couldn’t form the words, not in the face of her mother’s righteous fury. Meg’s decisions as a teenager had been a betrayal to the Carmichael name that Mom would never forgive.

“You are not welcome, Margaret,” Mom said, before smiling at an elderly couple who walked by them.

Margaret. Meg’s hated given name. “All I want is to say goodbye. I will stay out of your way,” Meg said, trying to be strong.

Dad stepped between them, easily clamping a hand over her mother’s elbow. “That’s enough.”

For a brief, blinding moment Meg actually thought her father was standing up for her. All the grief and confusion, for just one second, felt bearable. Like she could handle it if one of them stood up for her.

But then his icy blue gaze landed on her face, and his mouth went into a firm, disapproving line. “You’ve done enough to upset your mother. You ought to be ashamed of yourself making a scene like this.”

“I...” But she couldn’t finish the denial. She didn’t want a scene. She didn’t want to feel like she was fifteen and emotionally bleeding all over the place in front of them while they sneered and pushed her away again, but here they were, making it happen anyway.

Blaming her. Looking down their noses at her. When she was theirs.

“She’d want me here. You know she would,” Meg managed, trying to firm her chin enough to lift it, trying to find strength somewhere deep, deep, deep down. Grandma’s strength.

“Well, we do not,” Dad returned, pulling Mom with him as they walked toward the sleek black car that would follow the procession to the cemetery where nearly a century of Carmichaels were buried.

In the end, Meg couldn’t force herself to go. She didn’t know how to fight them. She never had. She might be an adult, but they could still make her feel as though she was nothing—or worse.

There’d only ever been one way to get rid of that feeling, and she wasn’t certain she could fight it anymore.

CHAPTER THREE

“YOU’LL LAND ON your feet.” Mom pulled Charlie into a firm hug at the front door of the aging farmhouse he’d grown up in.

How the hell had this happened? This whole day was a warped nightmare. First having to hear the words he’d been let go, having to go through the day with the knowledge he’d poured so many years into that company. Outselling every junior salesman, climbing the ranks by sheer force of will and determination to succeed.

“It’s a good severance package, son. And I’m sure you’ll have a new job lined up in no time.”

Charlie tried to force a smile. He appreciated his parents’ support. More than he could fully feel in the numb aftermath of today. But he’d been lucky to grow up here, to have this family, even for all their problems.

Unfortunately he wasn’t in the mood for support and hugs. He wanted to yell. He wanted to punch something.

“Thank you for dinner,” Charlie managed to say with some semblance of a normal voice. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

He knew he didn’t fool his mother at all, but she let him walk out into the night, knowing as she always did exactly what he needed. Which wasn’t support or coddling.

With stiff, heavy limbs he climbed into his car. At least it was paid off. Money really wasn’t an immediate concern. While he splurged on occasion, growing up the son of a struggling farmer, he’d been too practical to waste money. A nice car, a nice watch, a nice place, but he wasn’t like his friends, getting an expensive car every few years, eating at expensive restaurants every night, filling every inch of their lives with stuff.

Money and even finding a new job weren’t the issues. He’d have headhunters calling him next week. It was his pride that lay bruised and bloody on the ground, not to mention the sneaking suspicion he’d somehow failed before he’d even lost his job.

What good was success if it could be unfairly ripped out from under your feet?

Christ, he needed a drink.

Normally that would mean heading back to the city, meeting friends. But heading back to the bustle and lights and his still-employed friends sounded a lot more painful than heading to an old New Benton townie bar.

Maybe he’d be able to remember how good he had it surrounded by people way worse off than him. He drove away from his parents’ house, past Dell’s warmly lit cabin, dissatisfaction uncomfortably digging deeper and deeper.

By the time he got to the Shack, an aptly named dilapidated building with neon lights that only half still worked, he was ready to get so drunk he wouldn’t even know his own name. Something he’d never done, not even in his college days.

Because he was Charlie Wainwright. He followed the rules. Did what he was supposed to. All so he could succeed.

And for what?

Those words kept haunting him. All day. Over and over. For what?

He walked through the smoky bar, low strains of old-time country music twanging in the air. The room was mainly filled with old men in overalls, older women in ill-advised leather and a few people who probably looked a lot older than they’d ever actually be.

He strode up to the bar, ordered two doubles of their best bourbon, which was not very good at all, then situated himself on a barstool.

It might not be the practical, sensible, Charlie way of dealing with a problem, but what did it matter? The practical, sensible, Charlie way of dealing had gotten him here—with nothing to show.

You’re pathetic, Wainwright.

Not something he was particularly proud of, but he’d give himself this weekend to wallow. Indulge in a few un-Charlie-like things. Monday he’d nip all this self-loathing, self-pitying in the bud.

But for tonight...tonight he was going to wallow. He knocked back the first drink, and then the second, before gesturing to the bartender that he wanted another. Once that third drink was comfortably downed, he looked around the dimly lit barroom.

The blonde in the corner caught his attention, first because her hair was a kind of honeyed blond, not the near white of the cougars in leather. Second because her arm, just barely visible, was streaked with color.

Hey, he knew that tattoo. Yes. He got off the barstool and made his way over to her, plopping himself down at her table.

“I know you,” he said, pointing at her. “Goat Girl.” Oops. Probably shouldn’t call her that. That wasn’t very charming.

Fuck charming. He didn’t feel like being much of anything.

“I prefer Capra Crusader for my superhero goat name,” she replied, unsmiling, though he was pretty sure it was a joke.

She was wearing a black dress, which made the colorful arm all that more bright and noticeable. Her forearm was the oddest antithesis to this bar. A sunny blue with white puffy clouds. He couldn’t make out what was above her elbow because the sleeve of her dress cut it off.

In the past he would have made a joke about the tattoos. Maybe not to her face, but at least in his head. I-don’t-want-a-job tattoos.

But her job didn’t require the level of respectability that his did. Oh, wait, he didn’t have a job. “Buy you another?” he said, gesturing to her glass.

She stared hard at the remnants of whatever her first drink had been. Then stared equally as hard at the bar behind him. “You’ve bought my soap, might as well buy me a drink,” she said eventually. “Can’t go back anyway,” she muttered.

He didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t matter. He meandered back to the bar, got two drinks, belatedly realizing he hadn’t asked her what she wanted. So he ordered four different drinks. Couldn’t hurt.

He carefully carried the four glasses back to her table, only sloshing a little over his fingers.

“I bring variety,” he announced, the heat of the liquor quickly spreading from gut to his extremities.

A nice feeling all in all. Kind of numb and tingly. No heavy failure constricting everything. He felt light and fluid. Very nice indeed.

“So, what on earth are you doing here?” she asked, pulling one of the glasses close to her. “Don’t tell me you actually live in New Benton?”

“No. I don’t.” He sipped his bourbon, studying her. Her eyes were almost the same blue as the sky of her tattoo. Wisps of blond hair framed her round face. She didn’t look like she wore makeup except for the slight smudge of black under her eyes.

“Let me guess.” She linked her fingers around the glass. Long, elegant, but with blunt nails painted black. She was quite the contrast. “Central West End?”

“No. Downtown.”

She snorted, taking a big, long gulp of her drink. “Yeah, you’re that type.”

“Type?”

“Mr. Super Yuppie. That’s your superhero name.”

Perhaps sober, practical Charlie would be offended, but relaxed, inebriated Charlie found it funny. And true. It was like this day had separated him from his life and he saw what a joke it all was.

So he laughed and polished off that fourth drink no matter how irresponsible it was. How would he get home? How would Goat Girl, er, Capra Crusader, get home? Eh, he’d figure it out. Later. “Super Yuppie. Well, at least I’m super at something.”

She waved a hand at him. “Oh, please, I’m sure you’re super at everything. Like I said, I know your type. Silver spoon, right? Private school. Mommy and Daddy paid for college. Oh, I know all about your type.”

“If I’m all those things, how did I end up solo at a New Benton townie bar on a Thursday night?” Because for as much of a yuppie as he might have turned into, nothing was handed to him on a silver platter.

She finished off the drink in a quick gulp, put the glass down with a thud and then leaned forward. Her dress was modest, but still, the leaning and the way her arms were crossed under her breasts meant he had a decent view. Meant he wondered if she had tattoos in other places. Meant he wondered...

“My eyes are up here, sir.”

He closed his for a second. “Sorry. Can I blame booze for my lack of manners?” When he opened his eyes, training them on her face, she was smiling.

“Manners are kind of a turnoff for me, so you’re absolved.” She pulled another drink toward her like one might hold a treasured object. “So, how did you get to a New Benton townie bar alone on a Thursday night? Decide to slum it a bit?”

“I grew up here.”

Her eyebrows drew together, her nose wrinkled. “Oh.”

“On a farm.”

Then her eyes went wide. “I...can’t picture you on a farm.”

“No, I don’t suppose you can.”

“So, you hated it?”

He shrugged. “Hate is a strong word. I didn’t love it. My father, the farmer, really didn’t love it. So I worked my butt off to do something better with my life.”

“My farm is the best thing that ever happened to my life,” she said vehemently, reminding him much too much of Dell.

“Yeah, well, different strokes and all that.” How had they gotten to talking about farms of all damn things? He didn’t want to talk about farms. “Why are you here? What sorrows are you drowning?”

“My grandmother’s funeral.” She pointed to her modest black dress. “I got kicked out.”

“Oh. Well, you win.”

“Don’t I just?” She downed the shot, exposing the slim column of her throat, a blue light casting an eerie glow to her pale skin. “What are you drowning?”

“Hold on. How...how does someone get kicked out of her grandmother’s funeral?”

* * *

MEG KNEW THIS was all wrong. Grandma would not approve. She wasn’t popping pills or snorting anything, but alcohol had led to drugs on more than one occasion. Not that someone like Mr. Super Yuppie would have any idea how to get his hands on illegal substances.

So, really, what did getting drunk matter? It was the lesser of two evils, and if she didn’t have something loosening the tightness in her chest, she was afraid she would just...stop breathing. Drown on land.

How had she gotten kicked out of Grandma’s funeral?

“Apparently daring to show my tattoos was grounds enough to be told I couldn’t be in the church. Then I was informed I was deeply upsetting my mother, you know, by existing. So I couldn’t go to the burial site. At least not without causing a scene and...that wouldn’t be right. They aren’t right, but neither would that be.” It wasn’t anywhere close to the full story of her parents’ disdain for her, but she didn’t have years, and this man wasn’t her therapist.

She stared at the drink. Three in. She didn’t feel numb or light or any of the things getting high used to do for her. She just felt heavy and sad and she couldn’t erase the look on her mother’s face, the hurtful words from her father.

Their little failure. She meant nothing to them. A stain to the Carmichael name, the worst thing two proud, conceited, powerful people could produce.

At thirty-two she should be over it, and on the day-to-day she was, but the fact they couldn’t take a break from protecting their precious image for her grandmother’s funeral...

It made her feel like nothing and, considering that was what had shoved her into the drug scene in the first place, considering she was sitting here getting trashed, was just pathetic.

“So, what’s your story?” she demanded of the man in front of her.

“Not as bad as yours.”

“Good. I want to hear all about it. So I can feel less pathetic. Spill. Every lame detail.” Even though it was wrong, she finished off the second drink and pulled the third one toward herself.

“I got fired. Sort of.”

“You? You look like a guy who spends Saturday night responding to work emails.” Just as her father would have been doing twenty-some years ago.

“Something I would do, yes. It wasn’t... I mean, I shouldn’t have been let go. But the company I worked for was bought out and I was axed to make room for their staff. Since I’m high up on the food chain so to speak, there wasn’t really room for me anywhere else.”

“Yeah, I definitely win.”

“If it helps, I’m having kind of a premidlife crisis over it.”

“That does help, actually. Tell me, Super Yuppie, what’s so terrible about losing your job? If you’re so great, don’t you just get another one?” Anytime Dad had bought out some mom-and-pop, he waved away the damage. Oh, those people will find jobs if they’re any good.

“Well, jobs at that level don’t just sit around. But you’re right, I’m not too worried about unemployment.”

“So why the crisis?”

He took one of her empty glasses, clinked the melting ice around before crunching a piece in his mouth.

She watched his throat move. He was dressed up in his yuppie best from the waist up. Striped polo short-sleeved shirt. Though his hair looked less perfectly mussed tonight, and the five o’clock shadow looked a little more accidental.

“Let me get one more. You want?”

She nodded, watching him head back up to the bar. She had no idea why she was attracted to him. The square jaw? The brown eyes with flecks of lighter brown and maybe gold? Or maybe the way he smiled without showing any teeth, like he was always holding back, which made her want to make him not hold back.

Or maybe she was just lonely and any guy would do. With alcohol thickening in her limbs, she didn’t care about the answer.

He returned with two drinks instead of four this time, which was good. She was going to need to call a cab to get home regardless, but anything beyond one more drink might lead to passing out.

Or other really bad choices.

“All right, you have your drink, tell me your sob story,” she demanded. Maybe whatever his lame crisis was would make her feel better about hers.

“That company, that job, it was everything I’d worked for. One more promotion and I would have been exactly where I wanted to be to start focusing on my personal life. You know, the wife-and-kids thing. Now I have to start all over, and I’m thirty-five. I’ve worked my whole life...for nothing.”

Even though it wasn’t as bad as losing her grandmother and being kicked out of her last chance to say goodbye, Meg did feel sorry for him. Because for all the ways he surprised her by not falling into type, he’d obviously wrapped his identity in his job, and he’d lost it.

She understood that. She’d wrapped her identity in being a screwup. She’d never lived up to her parents’ exacting standards, so why not thumb her nose at said standards at every turn? That had been the hardest part of getting clean, finding her real self, not how other people viewed her. “We’re pathetic.”

“So. Much.”

She looked around the smoky bar. It was getting late and a lot of the sturdier crew had disappeared a while ago. “You got money for cab fare?”

“Um. Sure. If we can catch New Benton’s one and only cabdriver.”

“I’m sure we can flag Dan down. Eventually. Let’s go,” she said, grabbing his hand. “I want to show you my goats.”

And that was only a little bit of euphemism.

CHAPTER FOUR

CHARLIE WOKE UP praying to every available god that he would not throw up. Or maybe he was praying that his head wasn’t going to roll off his shoulders and then throw up.

Why did it smell like...he didn’t know, but not his apartment, not the farm, not any smell he was familiar with? Kind of flowery, but not quite floral.

What had he done last night?

Gearing up for the onslaught of pain, he slowly squinted his eyes in a semiopen position. Then, despite the headache slicing through his skull, he opened his eyes completely, because he had no idea where he was.

Something moved next to him. He jerked, cursed at the sloshing of his stomach, eyes involuntarily closing again. He took a deep breath and let it out, willing the nausea away. And then opened his eyes to the woman next to him. In what he assumed to be her bed...

Goat Girl. That colorful arm of hers a shock of memory. The bar. The cab. They’d...

He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to remember, but everything was so blurry.

Goats. He remembered goats. Feeding them?

Christ.

He took another deep breath and tried to focus. The important thing, the most important thing, was that he still had pants on. And Goat Girl still wore the black dress she’d been wearing at the bar.

So, hopefully, whatever idiocy their drunken selves had been up to, it wasn’t sex. Because surely if they’d had a drunk hookup, he’d (a) remember, and (b) not have pants on. Surely.

“Damn.”

He dropped his hands, glanced sheepishly at... God, he didn’t even know her name, did he? Had he asked and forgotten? Surely they’d at least exchanged names?

But you didn’t have sex, so it’s fine. It’s totally fine.

Tell that to all the panic hanging out with all the ill-advised liquor in his bloodstream.

Her blue eyes met his gaze tentatively. She shook her head and covered her face with her hands, repeating the F-word approximately ten times.

“Please tell me you’re not swearing because you remember something I don’t.”

She peeked at him through her fingers. “What do you remember?”

“The bar. The cab ride. Goats. I remember goats.”

“I remember kissing.”

“In the cab?”

She nodded.

Yeah, he kind of remembered that. Kissing and laughing in the back of old Dan Riley’s cab. He really hoped that didn’t get back to his mother. Making out with some tattooed goat farmer in a cab.

Actually Mom would probably get a kick out of it. Dad, not so much. And Dell or, possibly worse, his little sister? He’d never hear the end of it.

“There was some...bra removal on my couch and subsequent...touching,” she added, her face all wrinkled up.

“But...actual...” He made useless hand gestures, not at all sure why he couldn’t spit out the very simple word.

“Sex? I don’t remember any. Do you?”

He shook his head, too hard, and had to take another few deep breaths to settle his stomach.

“Okay, and you have pants on. And I...” She patted herself down. “No bra, but underwear intact. Surely if we were so drunk we don’t remember, we wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to put our clothes back on.”

“Agreed.”

She let out a long breath. “So we didn’t. And...” She pressed a palm to her forehead. “God, I need some water and a time machine.”

“I need to get home.”

“Right. Yeah. Totally.”

He gingerly slid off the bed, then stopped in his tracks. Ohhhhhhh, shit. “Um, I don’t suppose you keep condom wrappers on the floor for fun?”

Their gazes met from opposite sides of the bed. She looked about as crestfallen as he felt. She skirted the bed, then started swearing again.

“On the bright side, we used a condom?” Which was not much of a bright side. He certainly didn’t pride himself on drunken sex he couldn’t remember with women whose names he didn’t know.

It was sleazy. Irresponsible. So not him.

“You’re right. If we used a condom and don’t remember it and...stuff, then, really, it’s like it never happened. Right?”

“Right.”

Right. They would just pretend it never happened.

“I should probably find my shirt, then.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

* * *

SHE WAS PRETTY. Even the morning after a bender, her skin a little pale and her hair all rumpled, she was pretty. What he could remember of their night had been, well, maybe not fun, but easy. Companionable.

But she wasn’t his type. Not even a little bit. Tattoos. Goat farming. He was getting to be the age where he couldn’t casually date anymore. He needed to find the right woman to settle down with.

There was nothing about this woman that fit his idea of that. Nothing. So he took his shirt from her outstretched hand and pulled it over his head. “I should go.”

She nodded, then put her palm to her head again. “Yeah, you need some water or anything for the road?”

“No. No, I’m good.” He could practically hear his head and stomach laughing at him, but he was starting to feel panic set in and he didn’t want to stick around for it to blow out of control.

Control. Ha. What a joke. “Um, shoes?”

“I think outside, maybe? I feel like we...”

“Danced barefoot on your porch.”

“With a goat.”

He started laughing because he could kind of remember that, in a fuzzy unreal way. But it had been real. He’d gotten drunk, danced barefoot with a woman whose name he didn’t know, a goat at their feet, then apparently had forgettable sex.

This was a pretty epic premidlife crisis if he did say so himself. In fact, if he told anyone who knew him any of that, they wouldn’t believe him. Not for a second.

He followed her out of her room, through a little hallway and into a bright kitchen. It was full of stainless steel equipment, spools of ribbon and herbs hanging from the exposed beam rafters above.

The house itself looked cozy and well lived-in, but a little worse for the wear, much like his parents’ own century-old farmhouse.

She opened her front door and stepped into the bright sunshine of the morning. She used her arm to shield her eyes as she stepped outside and he followed, already squinting.

He found his shoes and tried not to lose his tenuous grasp of his volatile stomach as he bent over to pick them up.

From the front of her house, he couldn’t see her goat operation, but he could hear their sounds in the distance.

So. Damn. Weird.

“Well, you know, thanks for the commiseration.”

“Yeah, yeah, you too.”

She still had her arm over her face. Against his will his eyes were drawn to her chest; the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra was quite obvious.

Seriously how could he not remember having sex with her? Maybe they hadn’t. Maybe the condom wrapper was a fluke. Maybe...

He pushed the thoughts away. Didn’t matter. Last night was the fluke. His one and only foray into self-pity and irresponsible behavior. It was a blip, had to be, and he needed to be on his merry way.

He patted his pockets, then remembered he didn’t have a car there. It was still sitting in the Shack’s parking lot, along with hers.

“Huh,” she said, clearly realizing the same thing. She let out a gusty sigh. “I guess I’ll call Dan so we can go get our cars.” She moved to step back inside, the storm door squeaking in its frame. “I’ll get you some water. And some toast?”

“Toast sounds...edible.”

She nodded and disappeared. Charlie stayed on the porch, taking a seat on the railing and slowly pulling on his shoes.

So he had to have the awkward morning after without even remembering the sex. Cruel and unusual punishment. And a really good reminder that he was not the kind of guy who got rewarded for being irresponsible.

He only ever got punished for it. Of course, he’d been punished by responsibility too. And with a hangover threatening to kill him, he didn’t have the energy to figure out what that meant.

* * *

MEG JUMPED WHEN the toaster popped, then cursed because thirty-two-year-old Meg was a total wimp when it came to hangovers.

She was about 65 percent sure she was dying. And 35 percent sure she was going to die of embarrassment if she had to serve...so and so...toast on her porch.

She didn’t even know his name.

Hanging her head in shame, she pulled the toast out of the toaster and dropped it onto the paper plates she’d retrieved. It would be at least half an hour before the cab got here.

Bully for her.

Unfortunately she had to face the guy. She brought the plates of toast out to the porch, handed him one, then put the other on her swinging love seat. Another trip to the kitchen and she retrieved two bottles of water.

“The cab should be here in about twenty. Hopefully.”

He nodded. “Thanks. For that. And for this.” He held up the toast and then took a careful bite. She guzzled some water and they sat in silence, only the sounds of insects and goats in the air.

A pretty spring morning, and she needed to get to work before the cab got here, but first she had to feel human. Or at least like her head wasn’t going to explode every time she moved.

After an awkward silent breakfast, Meg forced herself to stand and smile. “Um, so, I need to go milk the goats.”

“Milk the...? Right.”

“You can come watch if you’re curious.” She wasn’t sure where the offer came from. It would have made more sense to ask his name. But he hadn’t asked hers. So either he knew it and she was the sole uninformed participant, or he didn’t want to know hers. Which meant she didn’t need to know his. In fact, the less she knew about him, the better.

Fantastic idea inviting him to watch you milk the goats, then, yeah?

“Sure.”

She tried to smile at his agreement and not hate him for following her. Although hate was too strong a word. She didn’t hate him. Surprisingly she didn’t even hate herself. Sure, this was embarrassing and uncomfortable and stupid, but she’d done a lot worse. And in about fifteen minutes it would all be over.

Or so she hoped.

She went inside while he waited on the porch. She sped through changing into jeans and a sweatshirt and tried to ignore that that guy existed. But the sooner she got her goats milked and him out of here, the sooner that could be accomplished.

She went back outside, and there he was. She walked down the porch steps, realizing she hadn’t grabbed socks, but was too tired and nauseated to care. Besides, he was following her; there was no way she was turning around.

She collected the containers from her sanitation station outside the barn, then shoved her bare feet into the work boots she kept outside the doors.

Her stomach was still sloshing, her head still pounding, but the goats didn’t care. That was why she loved them. They needed her to be responsible. To do something the same way every day. It kept her on the right path. So, even with last night’s slipup, she hadn’t totally screwed herself and her life over.

She entered the barn with a shadow for the first time ever. What was she supposed to call him? Ugh, she didn’t want to call him anything. So she talked him through the process of milking: bringing the goat to the stand, offering it grain, cleaning, milking.

He watched, asked a few questions, and it was almost comfortable. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, talking about goat milking and the soap she made tabled some of the weirdness between them.

Just as she was loading up the containers to be refrigerated, a honk sounded from out front.

“If you go ahead and meet him, I’ll be there in a second.”

He nodded and she took the milk to storage, then hurried inside her house from the back to find some socks and shoes.

She walked to the cab, sliding her purse over her shoulder. A few more awkwardly silent moments and this would all be over. She would probably never see the guy again, and she could maybe even convince herself it had been a figment of her imagination.

Fall down seven times. Get up eight. How many times had Grandma said that to her? And yes, Meg was pretty sure she’d exceeded seven, but as long as she kept getting up, she’d be okay. Getting up was the only option.

Besides, she had some people to prove wrong. People who’d never have to know about this lapse in judgment.

CHAPTER FIVE

AS DAN’S CAB idled at the stoplight, Charlie could feel the man’s stare. He knew what had happened, and he was going to say something. Oh, not to Charlie’s face, but probably within earshot of someone related to him.

It was amazing—truly—how life could turn you around in a complete one-eighty. No warning, no clues how to handle it, just here—your life isn’t what you thought.

Now what are you gonna do?

He’d always known the next step. Since he’d been a kid. He’d known the exact next step to take to get what he wanted, to do what was wanted of him. He’d always known.

Now he didn’t have a damn clue, sitting here in a cab, after some bizarre one-night stand with a goat farmer. With tattoos.

He couldn’t decide what next step to take. The only thing his mind seemed capable of doing was recognizing the smell of lemon, on her skin, in her hair.

“That’ll be twenty-eight fifty,” Dan said through a mouth of chew.

The woman dug through her purse, some fringy thing that looked completely out of place against the jeans, ratty sweatshirt and frayed tennis shoes she was wearing.

“Tell you what, Meg, you just put together a nice soap basket for wifey and we’ll call it even.”

Meg. So she had a name. Meg. A simple name for an incredibly complicated moment in his life. And now that name would probably haunt him for years to come. Lovely.

“That’ll be fourteen twenty-five.” Dan’s eyes met Charlie’s in the rearview mirror as Dan brought a bottle to his lips and spat some chew into it.

Charlie’s stomach turned and he had to close his eyes to keep from losing it completely. Still, he dug into his pants, pulled out his wallet and handed over a credit card without meeting Dan’s accusing glance.

Dan wasn’t known in New Benton for his kindness. Small-town cab work wasn’t for the faint of heart. He’d had more than one brawl with a man over cab fare, to the extent that most knew not to mess with him. He might’ve been getting on in years, but he’d as soon bash you over the head with the Louisville Slugger he kept in the passenger seat as he would offer you a smile.

But he’d called this woman Meg and offered her a barter and a smile. Charlie was beginning to think she was a fictional creature. Like some kind of siren or goddess.

It’d make this premidlife crisis a hell of a lot easier if she was. But he was too practical to even allow himself the fantasy. She had a name. She was real.

Dan returned the credit card. No receipt offered, but Charlie started to push the door open anyway.

“Oh, and, Charlie?”

Charlie raised his eyebrows at Dan’s pleasant tone. “Yeah?”

“Added tip for ya.”

Tip probably meant doubled the fare. Charlie couldn’t bring himself to care, so he nodded. He’d consider this penance. He closed the door of the taxi behind him, breathing through the dizziness and blinking against the bright sun. His car was parked in the corner lot, the Shack looking particularly worse for the wear in the daylight.

The only other car in the lot was an old truck. No, not just old. Antique. But it was more recently painted a bright blue, the words Hope Springs Farm painted in red, with an illustration of a goat.

Seriously. Alternative dimension he’d fallen into.

It wasn’t one he wanted to face. He didn’t want to look at Meg, or offer a lame goodbye or lamer apology. He wished he’d never heard her name. He only wanted to go back to his downtown apartment and find normal again.

But as mixed-up as his world was, if he had anything left in this new version of his life, it’d at least be that he was a decent person.

He was a decent person, right? Maybe he’d been a little ruthless at times, a little hard, a little unbending, but...

“Well, it was certainly an interesting turn of events,” she said.

When he looked up, she was already inching toward her truck, forcing her mouth into some approximation of an awkward smile.

“That it was,” he replied, following her lead and taking a few backward steps toward his car.

“And, um, good luck with the job thing. I’m sure you’ll land on your feet.”

“Thanks. And I’m sorry for your loss.” Odd to find it wasn’t just a rote thing to say; he meant it. She was nice enough, and loss was always hard.

“Thanks,” she replied, her voice tinged with surprise. But then she lifted her hand in a little wave and turned away from him.

He found himself watching her. The confident way she walked to her truck, the way the tasseled, beaded colorful purse shimmied and glinted in the sun. She was a conglomeration of things that didn’t make sense.

He turned to his car but then just stared at it. Funny, it didn’t seem to make much sense either. It fit the man he’d thought he was, but wasn’t anymore.

Charles Andrew Wainwright. Oldest child. Successful businessman. Always in control, always responsible and always serious.

That felt like another person. A stranger. But he didn’t know what to do with that feeling when it was who he was, who he’d always been.

So all he could do was go home and hope the feeling would pass.

* * *

MEG WORKED HERSELF to the bone. She ignored her aching muscles, her pounding headache and her rumbling stomach and worked with the soap molds until she’d lost the light.

She’d made up more than a little basket for Dan’s wife. Part embarrassment, part because Meg was one of the few people who knew Dan’s wife was going through chemo right now.

Which oddly made Meg wonder about Charlie. Charlie. So odd to hear a name after the intimacies they’d shared if not remembered.

He didn’t look like a Charlie. Of course, he didn’t look like a Charles or Chuck either. She wasn’t sure what he looked like; she only knew that watching Dan scold him in a roundabout way had made her even more curious about him.

A man who so obviously belonged in her father’s world but had been born into this one. She didn’t know people like that. Her family, the people she’d grown up with, they’d all been the same kind. They hadn’t all been bad people, though she’d desperately held on to that belief as a teenager. It just had been a world she couldn’t get comfortable in.

Cleaning up her workroom, she frowned. Was it the world, or was it her? What was it about her family that kicked her back to a place where she’d lose herself? She wanted to blame them, and she couldn’t count them blameless, but she was too old to ignore her own role in this.

Grief and pain were hard, but that was life. She could build this goat farm and build her business, and grief and pain would still touch her. But if she allowed it to fell her every time...well, things could quite easily get worse than a bender and a beyond embarrassing one-night stand.

She couldn’t let things like loss do this to her, or she’d lose so much more. What was the point, really, when she could mourn Grandma in her own way? She didn’t need the Carmichaels’ permission for grief.

She didn’t need anyone’s permission to feel or act. It was easy to forget that when Mom was so intent on crushing her like a distasteful bug. Mom would never understand that Meg was made from a different mold; she’d always hold Meg at fault for her inability to shape herself into what a proper Carmichael was supposed to look like.

Meg was too old to let that knock her down, too far into recovery, into rebuilding her life. She had to be better than this, and she would be.

Workroom clean, she grabbed the fancy basket of soaps she’d made up for Elsie and decided not to wait to deliver it. The world was dusky, but it was early yet.

She forced herself to grab an apple so she’d at least have something in her stomach and ate it as she drove into town. Though she was embarrassed by the reason for needing to pay off Dan in soaps, she was glad for something to do tonight that would hopefully keep her mind off what she’d done last night.

When Meg arrived, Dan’s cab was in the drive and he opened the front door with his version of a smile. He ushered her in, and Elsie eased off the couch, where she’d been watching TV, to ooh and aah over the soap basket.

Meg realized she needed to do more of this. Not just sell, but give. Not just build, but enjoy the moments of joy and simple pleasures.

Elsie fussed over her, though she was bone thin and gray. Meg did her best to allow some of the fussing, and curb some of it. She tried not to think too hard about what it might have been like to have parents like this.

“Now, Elsie, you’re worn to the bone.”

Elsie huffed out an irritated breath. “Get a little cancer and this tough rock of a man turns into a fawning worrywart.”

“It’s important to keep your strength up, though. I so enjoyed visiting with you, Elsie.” Meg patted her knobby hand, knowing Elsie looked and probably felt much older than she actually was.

Life was oddly harder here. None of the comforts of what Meg had grown up with. None of the luxuries. Dan and Elsie looked like they could be her grandmother’s age, but she was pretty sure they were only in their early sixties.

“I’ll walk you out, Meg,” Dan offered as his cell phone bleeped. “You get in bed, Elsie, so I can take this fare, or you’re going to be in big trouble.”

Elsie muttered something that sounded like a creative string of curses, but she took her basket and eased her way into the dark hallway.

“She seems to be in good spirits,” Meg offered as she walked outside their seen-better-days tiny postage stamp of a house.

“That’s my Elsie.”

Meg smiled. Dan was a crusty old codger, but the love for his wife always shone through and that warmed Meg’s heart.

“You know much about Charlie Wainwright?” Dan asked, his segue less than smooth.

Meg tried not to blush, but she couldn’t manage it. Though she’d been in far more embarrassing situations and faced them with don’t-give-a-crap aplomb, something about Dan and Elsie and the way they’d taken her under their old, withered wings in this tight-knit community made this humiliation burn through her.

“He’s slick, but he’s not a bad kid.”

Kid. Meg wanted to laugh. They were adults and people still called them kids.

“I like the Wainwrights,” he continued. “Good family.”

“Okay.”

He shifted, then spat. “But if he ever gives you any trouble, if anybody does, just know, Elsie and me, we got your back. Got it?”

Meg didn’t know why it hit her so hard. Maybe it was because he was mostly a stranger, an odd little friendship built because he thought his wife might like her soaps. “You’ve always been so nice to me,” she managed, her voice more than a little raw.

Dan shrugged, looking out into the starry evening. “You know Cornley House?”

Meg stilled. It wasn’t the recovery center she’d been in, but a friend of hers had ended up there. Was she that transparent? After all these years?

Still, what did it matter if Dan knew? If everyone knew. It was part of her, and she was healing. “Yes.”

“Our daughter is there now.” He nodded at Meg’s shoulder where a bright orange-and-yellow sun poured light onto the blue sky and white clouds of her forearm. “She’s got that same sun thing, but on her back, and her hair used to be just your color.” He shrugged and spat again. “You remind Elsie of her. But last time she was home she trashed the place, took all the cash we had on hand.” He let out a breath. “Elsie’s had a rough life. I think it’s good for her to see you and think Hannah’s got a chance. She needs some hope.”

Meg swallowed. So much pain and grief in the world. And people like her who did it to themselves, and their families—at least the people in them who cared. No, she wasn’t going to fall back into that. “I’d like to come visit once a week. Bring some soap, maybe some food. What day would be good?”

Maybe she couldn’t make up for anything she’d done, and she couldn’t completely eradicate the feeling she was worthless, but she could put some good out into the world. She’d start here.

CHAPTER SIX

“YOU BETTER GET IT together before Mom calls a therapist.”

Charlie tried to grin and bear it, but it was hard. His acting skills were failing him. Hell, what wasn’t?

He’d been unemployed for a month. He’d grown a beard. He felt like a ghost of himself, and his family was tiptoeing around him like he had some kind of communicable disease.

But he didn’t know what to do. Who to be. He’d finished out his last two weeks at Lordon, ever the dutiful employee working to ease the transition for all those who got to keep their jobs.

He’d been offered interviews by a few headhunters. There were companies interested in his experience in sales, in his years as management.

He couldn’t muster up the energy to make the calls. A decade ago he would have jumped at the chance to move to Chicago, California, Denver. But sitting in the middle of his niece’s second birthday party, he thought relocating was the last thing he wanted to do.

The whole love of the farm thing might be Dell’s shtick, and Charlie might have moved downtown to get out of the small-town atmosphere of New Benton, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love his family. He wanted his mother close enough to make him dinner and tell him he’d land on his feet. He wanted to watch his niece grow up. He wanted to be here.

Lainey was running around dressed up like a princess. His baby sister was talking intently with Mia’s baby sister. Except Kenzie and Anna weren’t babies anymore. Both had graduated from college, Kenzie was going on to get her master’s and Anna was taking over her father’s dairy farm operation. Mia and Cara were fussing over a table full of cupcakes while Dad, Cara’s husband, Wes, and Mia’s dad were standing around the grill. Dogs ran all around the spacious green yard, yipping happily.

He liked this. This right here.

“Dude, seriously.”

Charlie slanted his brother a look. “I’m reevaluating my life.”

“Reevaluate faster. You stay unemployed much longer, Dad is going to have a stroke and Mom’s probably going to sign you up for one of those online dating things.”

“I’ve had offers,” Charlie muttered.

“So take one.”

He let out a sigh. His relationship with Dell hadn’t always been an easy one, and it’d certainly never been one where they shared much of anything too deep. It would be easy to clam up, to say something snide and walk away.

But Charlie didn’t have the energy for that either. “So far the only jobs I’ve been offered are lower positions, less money, and...require relocation.”

“I’m guessing that means...far?”

“Yes.”

Dell was quiet for a minute. “And you don’t want to move?” he asked as though he’d chosen each word very carefully.

“I’m certainly not going through the hassle of changing my life for a job that isn’t up to my standards.” He sounded like a douche. He knew he sounded like a douche, but he didn’t know what this thing inside him was, just that it’d been there for a long time.

It was like he’d built armor over his real self, a shell the outside world, and even his family, could see, but it was impenetrable. He could only give people what they expected, because underneath this shell...he really wasn’t sure who he was.

Maybe he did need therapy.

Suddenly he thought about leaving. Ditching the party. He could go to the Shack. See if Meg would be there, still drowning her own sorrows. Why was that a fantasy? It wasn’t like he remembered much of what they’d done together. It wasn’t like he knew her.

He’d certainly made a very careful effort to avoid the market the past month. So, why did he still think of her at all?

“We’d miss you, if that’s what you decided to do.”

Charlie looked at his brother. They hadn’t always gotten along. In fact, there’d been some times they’d probably both felt they hated each other, but something about Dell having a kid had smoothed a lot of that over.

Still, the sentiment surprised Charlie, and maybe that was on him. So he’d offer some honesty even if it made him uncomfortable. “I don’t want to move. I’m not in dire straits quite yet.”

Dell gave a nod, looking over where the Wainwrights and Pruitts mingled in the yard. “Good. I mean, I’d offer help, but—”

“I’d tell you to shove it.”

Dell’s mouth curved. “Exactly. So...” He gestured to where Lainey was trying to ride one of Wes’s dogs. “I better get in there.”

“You’re lucky, man.” It felt odd to admit it aloud, to let some of that envy show. He’d spent so much of his life convinced he was better off than Dell, never made any bones about Dell’s choices being beneath him.

But Charlie had been wrong, and it felt imperative to say it. Out loud. To Dell.

Dell stared at him, a kind of deer-caught-in-headlights, who-abducted-my-brother look. But then he glanced back out at the yard, daughter and wife with another kid on the way. Then Dell simply shrugged. “Yeah, I am.”

“How’d you do it?” Charlie said, knowing it sounded like a crazed demand but not being able to help it. He wanted to know. What steps did he need to take? How could he build his own version of what Dell had?

Eyes still on the yard, Dell seemed to consider the question. “I figured out who I was. Who I wasn’t.” His smile went soft as Mia approached. “And I let the unexpected happen.”

Mia took the stairs of the porch before Charlie could answer. She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at them. “Are you two going to come help, or stand here and gossip all afternoon?”

Dell’s arm slid around his wife’s waist easily. “Just talking about how lucky I am.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

“He’s not lying. We were,” Charlie returned. Seriously, probably way too seriously.

Mia cocked her head, looked at him, then Dell, then back again. “Well, that’s...nice. I’ll feel a whole lot luckier if I can get something into my stomach before I feel like puking.”

“All right, let’s get you some food, sugar.” And they walked off, but not before Charlie heard Mia murmur to Dell, “Is Charlie okay?”

No. He wasn’t. Because he didn’t know who he was, or how to find out. And he certainly didn’t know how to let the unexpected happen.

* * *

MEG WOKE UP in a cold sweat. She grasped around in her bed for...for...what? She stopped, realizing she had no idea what she was trying to reach. She had no idea why she was breathing so heavily or why her heart was pounding.

“A dream,” she said aloud. “Just a dream.” It felt steadying to hear her own voice in the pitch-black of her room.

Three nights in a row. Ever since the little niggle of worry had sprouted in the back of her head. Every night it had grown, every night the dreams had grown more vivid and more disturbing.

Stress had always brought on nightmares for her, long before she’d understood what stress was. But now she understood, and she couldn’t keep pretending that idea wasn’t looming in the back of her mind...waiting.

She couldn’t put it off any longer. She couldn’t keep hoping it would go away. It wasn’t going to go away, and her psyche was going to drive her absolutely bonkers until she sucked up all her fear and acted.

She forced herself out of bed and into the little bathroom. She’d shoved the offensive box under the sink after running errands in Millertown yesterday. She’d been so determined and hopeful it was unnecessary, and that the moment she purchased the test and brought it home she wouldn’t have to use it.

But if she was going to get any sleep before milking the goats, having breakfast with Elsie, followed by an afternoon meeting with a local store that might want to sell her soaps, she had to suck it up and do it.

She pulled the test out of the box with unsteady hands, read the instructions and then followed them to the letter.

She waited the three minutes feeling exactly as she had upon waking up. Shaking, heart beating too fast, breath coming too hard. It just couldn’t be.

Except when the timer went off...there it was.

Pregnant.

Her breath whooshed out of her. Pregnant. Pregnant. She had fallen not just off the wagon, but utterly, completely. The condom wrapper either a false promise, faulty or possibly drunken user error.

It didn’t matter. The results were the same. She was pregnant with a stranger’s child. All those years she’d punished her body for some foolish insecurity inside herself, but she’d kept herself out of this kind of trouble.

Clean and mostly sober, for years, and now, at thirty-two, she’d made this mistake too.

She swallowed at the nausea that swam up her esophagus. But it wasn’t a mistake, was it? It was a life. She’d created it in bad choices, but that was hardly the thing growing inside her’s fault.

Meg squeezed her eyes shut. Dear Lord, she was pregnant.

Needless to say, she didn’t sleep. She tried, lying there, staring up at the ceiling in the dark, but then her alarm went off and the goats needed milking, and dawn slowly rose on a new day.

A new day in which she had to start facing the consequences of her actions. That was scary, because all the options felt wrong and hard and overwhelming.

She got ready to go to breakfast with Elsie, determined to keep her problems to herself. Elsie’s chemo was showing promising results, but she was still weak and frail. The reality of the situation was Meg had come to rely on the company probably more than Elsie did.

Funny, Meg thought she was finally getting her life together, and now it felt unraveled and pathetic.

But she was going to keep that to herself. She would be cheerful and encouraging with Elsie. She ordered their food at Moonrise, took the bags from the waitress and smiled the whole time. She was fine. She could handle this. Tonight, when she got home, she would figure out what she was going to do. Alone.

Because she was alone.

When Elsie opened the door, Meg burst into tears. Elsie didn’t hesitate, didn’t ask what was wrong; she bustled her onto the couch, took the bags of food and plopped a box of tissues next to her.

“Eat, please, eat, while I get myself together,” Meg croaked, trying to breathe, trying to cope.

Elsie pulled out her foam container of food, and then she handed Meg hers on the little TV trays that more often served as a dining table for Dan and Elsie than their actual kitchen table.

“Now, I’m not taking a bite if you don’t spill what’s troubling you.”

“That’s mean.”

“Darn straight it is. I’ll use a little meanness to get my way.”

Meg swallowed, tried to manage a wobbly smile. “Take a bite and I’ll talk.”

Elsie gave her a suspicious look, but she unwrapped the plastic cutlery from the bag and cut a bite of pancake before lifting it to her mouth.

Meg waited for her to chew a few times, and then she knew she had to be honest. When she was honest with Elsie, Elsie was honest with her, and Meg liked to believe it had helped at least a little in these weeks Meg had been visiting with her.

“I... It’s...”

“Spit it out, child.”

“I’m pregnant.”

Elsie’s eyes widened and she set her plastic fork down. “Well, didn’t know you was seeing someone.”

Miserable, Meg shook her head. Her own pancakes made her stomach turn, and she didn’t think it had anything to do with pregnancy. It had everything to do with Elsie being disappointed in her.

She wanted someone to be proud of her. Someone to look at her and see success instead of failure.

Maybe she should stop failing.

“Now, I don’t condone getting the sheets sweaty with someone who you ain’t married to, let alone not well acquainted with,” Elsie said primly. “’Course, I can’t exactly judge either, as I’m not a hypocrite.”

Meg wanted to laugh—leave it to Elsie—but it just came out like more of a sob. “What am I going to do?” she asked in a hushed whisper. Elsie pursed her lips and studied her sternly. “Don’t have any people, do you?”

Meg swallowed. It sounded so harsh when she put it that way, but it was true. Even her friends who’d gotten clean had a hard time being around each other; it dredged up memories of how they’d wasted their youth. And then, of course, her family pretended she didn’t exist, and it had been hard to make new friends with the hours she poured into her business.

Charlie Wainwright was the most non-business-related interaction she’d had—besides Dan and Elsie—in years.

And now she was carrying his child.

“Well, you’re my people now.”

Meg shook her head, afraid she’d cry harder. “You have so much on your plate already.”

“That may be true. But if my daughter was crying on some other old, sick woman’s couch, I’d hope she’d do the same. Now, first things first, you should tell the father. Unless he’s not a good sort.”

“I think he is. Not bad anyway.”

Elsie nodded. “Then you tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

“The truth. Easy as that. You give him a chance to have half a say—half, mind you, as you’re the one doing the carrying and the laboring.”

Oh. God. Labor. “But...what if I don’t know what I want?”

“Doesn’t matter, honey. You got a life growing inside you.”

That she did, and while there were options in that regard, options she’d supported a friend through when they were only teenagers, Meg didn’t think she had that option in her as a solvent adult. A solvent adult who’d always wanted to be a mother someday—in some abstract world when she had it all together. But...maybe she was never going to have it all together. Maybe she had to jump in, not quite ready. More than a little scared that she’d be terrible at it.

Which meant she had to admit something exceedingly scary for someone who’d failed at almost everything until her farm had come along. She’d have to admit she wanted to do it, and that she was scared of screwing it up. She’d have to admit a lot of things she usually faked her way through.

“You need to call yourself a doctor, honey, and then the Wainwright boy.”

Meg jerked her head to face Elsie, who merely shrugged. “Dan’s got no secrets from me.” She then reached over with a frail hand and patted Meg’s knee. “But we’ll keep yours, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about that.”

Don’t worry. Yeah, she didn’t think she’d be able to follow that advice anytime soon.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHARLIE WASN’T HAPPY to be at the market. It wasn’t that he minded helping Dell. Especially after Lainey’s birthday party when things had felt... Well, he’d been a mess, but it had been nice that his family and Dell had voiced some kind of concern over him leaving.

It was a starting point to this new life he had to figure out. He wanted it to be here. Well, not here here. He could take or leave New Benton and Millertown, but St. Louis and the areas better suited to him were only a forty-five-minute drive from home and these people.

So it wasn’t the loading and unloading of vegetables, it wasn’t even the forced smiles, it was that when he stood in a particular spot, he could see Hope Springs Farm’s booth and his gaze seemed to drift that way no matter what.

Which was stupid. If he was still thinking about the woman, the least he could do was ask her out. Just because they’d had an awkward, drunken one-night stand didn’t mean it had to stay that way. Maybe, despite all outward appearances, they would be compatible while sober.

It was possible, and maybe if he at least tried, all the guilt dogging him over that incident would finally go away.

It had been weeks, though. Over a month. Maybe it wasn’t that out of the ordinary for her. Maybe the guys all blended together for her and she wouldn’t even remember him.

Of course, then her embarrassment and awkwardness that matched his own didn’t make sense, but he needed to move on. Figure out his life, not where he stood with his one and only ungentlemanly drunken exploit.

He needed to stop looking down the aisle, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Except the next time his eyes drifted that way, despite his brain’s express admonitions not to, there she was. Walking toward him.

He straightened. Maybe she would walk right on by. But before he could duck out of sight, she stopped in front of him, a completely unconvincing smile on her face. “Hi, Charlie.”

It was the first time she’d said his name, and he definitely had some kind of internal reaction to it.

“Hi. Meg.” It was a name he’d likely said before in his life. He knew Megans. Yet saying her name felt...weighted.

Yeah, therapy, that was a thing he really needed to look into.

“Well, well, well,” Dell said under his breath, and damn Meg’s timing because there were no customers to keep Dell’s attention off whatever reason Meg had for coming over here.

When Charlie made no effort to introduce anyone, Dell stuck his hand between Charlie and Meg. “I’m Dell,” he offered, the I-know-how-to-piss-off-Charlie grin firmly in place.

Meg smiled. It occurred to Charlie that she had a unique one. That it always seemed to light her up with a mix of mischief and joy, even when there was sadness behind it. Or nerves, as there seemed to be today.

“The Naked Farmer. Yes, I know. You’re...” Her brow furrowed as she looked between him and his brother. “Related,” she said, sounding weirdly put off by that.

“He’ll try to tell you his brother isn’t the Naked Farmer, but he’d be lying,” Dell said. “Hope Springs is yours, right? My wife loves your soaps. Do you do any fun shapes for kids?”

“Um, well, we have a few animals. Owls, goats.”

Dell nudged Charlie. “Lainey’d love that. Why don’t you go pick some out for me.”

The not-so-subtle verbal nudge was no more effective than Dell’s physical one. And Meg’s clear nervousness was off-putting in its own right. Charlie wasn’t sure he wanted to find out the source.

And are you a timid coward or a grown man? “Sure.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, because for the first time in his life he didn’t have a clue what to do with them. He didn’t know what to say, or how to manage this situation.

What an incredibly odd feeling for a man who’d prided himself on always being in control, or if not in control, well on his way toward it.

“So, um, I suppose this is awkward,” Meg began, twisting her hands together as she walked next to him on their way to her booth.

“I suppose,” he returned, wondering if it would be awkward if she weren’t quite so...vibrating with anxiety. Or maybe drunken sex just always made things awkward afterward.

He sighed. At himself. At the situation. At life. “You know—”

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered so quietly he leaned closer, sure he’d misheard or misunderstood.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“I know you don’t have any reason to believe me. We don’t know each other well. It never should have happened, but the very fact of the matter is the only person I’ve been in any potential compromising positions with is...you, and my doctor confirmed a positive pregnancy test. So.”

He leaned back. Away from her and these words that didn’t make sense. He was thirty-five. He was a vice president of... No, not anymore.

He was an unemployed thirty-five-year-old being told the drunken one-night stand he hadn’t meant to ever let happen had resulted in...

“I didn’t mean to drop it on you like that.” She skirted the table of her booth in what felt like a purposeful distancing. He was on one side of this frilly, feminine table, and she was on the other.

Pregnant.

With his baby.

“I only meant to set up a time to talk, but it just...” She waved at the air around her, pacing under the tent that shaded her inventory of soaps.

He couldn’t think of anything to say, or do. He couldn’t wrap his head around this at all.

Someone cleared their throat—an older woman, looking between the two of them as if she could read between the lines.

How could she? He couldn’t even read the actual lines here.

“You have a customer,” he managed, when it was clear Meg hadn’t noticed.

She jerked, and for the first time in the ticking minutes between her dropped bomb and now, he finally saw something he recognized.

It was a look that accepted life was not what you wanted to be, and the acceptance you had to move forward anyway.

He’d seen that look on the face of just about every person he was related to, except maybe Kenzie. God knew he’d never seen that look in the mirror, because when life didn’t give him the things he’d wanted, he’d forced himself to want something else.

He’d never accepted that things might not go his way. Never rolled with a punch, knowing or accepting he was felled. No, he’d kept punching. Kept fighting. Kept fooling himself into thinking he was exactly where he wanted to be.

He’d called all that strength. Sense. Determination.

But it wasn’t. He could see it so clearly as he wordlessly watched Meg help her customer, dull smile firmly in place.

He didn’t know her. Had very few clues about the life she led day in and day out, aside from milking goats. But he could tell the acceptance—worried and freaked-out as it might be—was far stronger than the fight.

Far, far stronger than pretending failures didn’t exist, or were only steps leading you where you wanted to be.

He didn’t want to be here, now, with this information, but nothing could change the fact that he was. He couldn’t keep moping around, acting like some version of a whiny teenager, with or without a child. A child.

That’d never been him. He met challenges. He crushed them. But this wasn’t one he could carefully maneuver around or through. It involved people. It involved a child. His child.

Single. Drunken one-night stand. Tattooed goat farmer. He felt more than a little dizzy over the whole thing, and the next time he glanced at Meg, she was looking at him, big blue eyes solemn, but there was also something in them he didn’t understand.

“I’ve had some time to think about it. You should take some time too.”

“To think about it?”

“Yes. How involved you want to be. If you want to be involved. Like I said, I’ve had time to think about it, crunch the numbers. I can raise a kid.” She said it almost defiantly, chin raised, just daring him to argue with her.

But why would he argue with her? What did he know? Clearly he knew very, very little. Life had decided to finally show him just how little.

“So, if you’re not interested, that’s your choice. But it is your kid, so I wanted to give you a choice.”

“A choice.”

“Yes.”

“In how involved I want to be. With my...” He couldn’t form the word. Not with his mouth, not so it echoed down the aisle of a crowded summer afternoon at the farmers’ market. He didn’t belong here. He took a deep breath. It didn’t matter. Nothing about the self-centered pity party of the past month really mattered, not when he was faced with this.

“It’s a lot to process. Take some time, and when you’re ready...” She offered him a card, which he stared at without taking it. Because she’d handed him her card before. He fished his wallet out of his pocket, flipped it open and thumbed open the crease.

There was the card. He hadn’t been able to throw it away. So it had sat there. In his wallet. Like a very weird omen.

“I’ve got it,” he said, his voice sounding rusty and out of place.

When he looked up from the card to her face, her lips were curved. But she didn’t say anything, just gave a little nod.

“Moonrise,” he blurted, shaking his head at the total lack of finesse he was doing this with. “What time could you meet me at Moonrise Diner?”

She glanced at the delicate watch on her wrist. He’d held that hand, had sex with this woman—made a child, and he only remembered bits and fuzzy pieces. He’d been struggling to accept that before, but now?

“One thirty? But I’ll only have about half an hour before I need to get back to the farm.”

“It’ll be a start.”

It would have to be a start.

* * *

MOONRISE DINER WAS one of Meg’s favorite places in New Benton. While she’d had this picture of idyllic small-town life growing up in well-to-do suburbia, New Benton hadn’t lived up to most of it.

It was old and run-down, and a lot of the people weren’t sweet, quirky characters from a sitcom. They were rough, they were hard and they didn’t much give a damn who you were or where you came from.

But Moonrise was like something out of a movie. A diner still firmly planted in the past that did a bustling business to locals and very little else. The waitresses weren’t overpolite, more harried than charming, but she stepped into the bustle and felt like she’d found something.

Community, in a loose way. The waitresses knew her name. Some of the ladies would ask her about her goats or her soap. If she saw Dan, she always bought him a cup of coffee, and while she didn’t feel that sort of warm bloom of instant belonging she’d hoped for when she set out on this road, she didn’t feel like a stranger either.

So much of her life had been about feeling like a stranger. In her own home, to herself when she was high, to the friends who didn’t want out of that ugly cycle and to the friends who didn’t want to look her in the eye because they might remember and want a hit.

Meg blew out a breath as she slid into an empty booth. Between Grandma and pregnancy, all the old crap was getting stirred up and she needed to get a handle on it.

It hit her then, like a bolt of lightning straight through the diner roof and into her chest. She’d lost Grandma and created a life within the same week.

She placed a hand over her belly, where everything she read told her what was growing inside her was barely larger than a speck.

She’d lost one light and been given another. She had to believe that. It solidified her resolve, the choice she’d made. And if you’re a girl, your name will be May. Which was more than likely getting ahead of herself, all things considered. But it was only right. It had to be right.

She blinked at the tears, hoping to have them under control before Charlie arrived. She was going to have to come to terms with the fact that tears would be part of the next eight months. That was okay, but for the next however long Charlie wanted to talk, she needed to be in control.

She didn’t know Charlie. The kind of man he was. If he’d want a piece of this responsibility. She thought it might be easier if he didn’t, but that was easier for her and she understood that some of the choices she was going to have to make in the next few months were about her child—not her.

She had a responsibility to protect both of them. It had to be the mantra she held on to while she navigated some really tricky and unknown waters. She wouldn’t let that spiral her back to where she’d come from, and she wouldn’t let a few mistakes break her down.

She had to be calm, rational and above all...a mother.

A mother.

Better than my own. I will be better than my own. She would love this child no matter what he or she looked like, or acted like, or wanted out of life. She would always love them so much more than she cared about her reputation or image. Always.

If that was the thing that kept her going, so be it.

She glanced at her watch, trying to calm her nerves and her worries with the prospect of the business at hand. It didn’t surprise her that just as the second hand hit the twelve to make it one thirty exactly, Charlie walked through the front door.

He seemed like that kind of man. Prompt and responsible and dutiful. At least in business. Her father’s ethics and morals had lacked plenty, but he’d never been late to a meeting. Never shirked a business responsibility.

She hoped against hope that Charlie was a better man than her father.

He gave her a slight nod and walked to the booth, all seriousness.

He was handsome. The nice jeans, the preppy fashionable sneakers, the T-shirt he’d probably bought from some high-end department store—none of it detracted from the way his face was put together. Strong jaw, sharp nose.

He didn’t ooze charm like his brother had at the market, but there was something attractive about his self-assurance. The way he moved like he knew exactly where he belonged.

It disappeared the moment he sat down, and she found that endearing too. Because God knew she was working with a big old question mark. The least he could do was feel the same.

“Hi,” she offered.

“Hi. Are you eating?”

She glanced at the counter, where Mallory was chatting with some customers. “Maybe.”

He gave a slight nod.

And then there was nothing but silence.

Meg waited, searching her mind for some way of bringing up the pregnancy in a way that would be fruitful instead of “what the hell are we doing?” and “how did this happen?” Because her brain had done enough of that, and she was ready for the part where they moved forward.

“It’s a lot to take in. If you need more time—”

“What are your plans?” he asked, and she might have gotten offended by the demand in his voice if he hadn’t winced after he said it.

“My plans?” she repeated, because even with the wince she wasn’t quite sure what he was after.

“I mean, insofar as you’ve had more time to think about this than I have, what is your current plan of action?”

Plan of action. She wanted to be calm. She wished she were the type of woman who could hide the look of disgust that passed over her face, but it was a part of the reason she’d never fit in her parents’ world. She didn’t have a poker face. She didn’t have a coat of armor to put on over herself when the vultures were circling. Everything she was or thought was there, and she didn’t know how to hide it.

“So you haven’t thought that far ahead,” he said gently.

A gentleness that made her stomach turn. It reminded her of the teacher in school who assumed she was dumb. You just don’t understand. That’s all right.

No, she understood. She understood this better than him. She had a plan of action, but it was her own and her own way, and hell if she’d let a stranger wreak havoc on the sliver of confidence she’d built for herself.

“The plan of action, Charlie, is to spend the next eight months growing a life inside me. And then push it out my vag—”

He held up a hand, the expression that passed over his face so very much like her father she really thought she might puke.

“That’s not quite what I meant,” he continued in that frustratingly even tone. “I meant—”

“I know what you meant, and what I mean is that this is the plan. To have this baby. That is my action plan. That is the only plan of action. This isn’t some kind of business merger we’re going to bang out the details to in a few calm and prepared meetings.”

Charlie didn’t say anything to that. He sat opposite her in the booth, his expression blank and a little hard.

She didn’t know him. She didn’t know him at all. She’d created a child with him, but she didn’t know him, and that hurt.

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