A Forever Love (9 page)

“Think I might bring Estelle in sometime next month for dinner.” He pressed his Stone Feed cap back and scratched his nearly bald head.

“You’re welcome anytime. You just let me know.”

Bob didn’t come to The Red Barn for a meal often, said the whole place made him nervous, what with the fancy food and the rich people and all the waiters serving him.

“It’s our forty-year anniversary.” The stone-faced farmer smiled, an almost sheepish look on his face. “Want to do something special for her, and she likes this place, likes the food. Says it makes her feel fancy, and she always did like a good excuse to get dressed up.”

“Oh, Bob, congratulations!” Aubrey clapped her hands together. Estelle was a dream of a woman. She’d been friends with Aubrey’s mother, and when Mom passed Estelle had been over at the house nearly every day checking on her and Nina and Dad and Max. “Just tell me what day. Oh my goodness, yes. I’ll check with Nina. I know she’ll want to fix something special that night.”

“Now don’t go to any trouble for us. Okay, only reason I’m telling you is because, well, I’m telling ya. Seems you should know why I’d be asking for a spot in that fancy restaurant of yours. I know them people you serve pay you a pretty penny for a spot.”

“What night?”

“Well the anniversary is the twenty-fourth. Would that work?”

“Of course it will. Oh Bob, congratulations. What are you getting her?”

His eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped open. “Getting her? Well hell, I’m taking her to dinner … I thought that was what I was getting her.”

Aubrey smiled. Bob was a good man—he loved his family, his country, and his wife—but Bob was Midwestern farm stock to his bones. He was taking his wife out for their anniversary, letting her get all fancied up, and he’d do so too. Never crossed his mind that he needed to also get her a gift for their fortieth anniversary.

“I’m sure she’ll love it. Dinner at The Red Barn is the perfect anniversary gift.”

“We’re set then?”

“We’re set. Early seating or late?”

“Like you have to ask, Aubrey? I got to be up the next day by four a.m. to milk this herd. Not staying up late, not even for your famous sister’s famous food.”

“Got it. I’ll put it in the books.” Aubrey started to back away from Bob.

The herd circled around him. Scout was low and in his herding stance as he prowled toward a calf who was straggling to the side, away from her mother. They didn’t wean the calves early at Rockwater; instead they let the calves stay with their mothers. The females became milkers like their mothers, and the males? Well, they lost their balls and became beef.

Today that seemed particularly appropriate, as there was one man whose balls she might like to take, and if not slice them from his body at least give them a good hard squeeze. Hints of anger pulsed through Aubrey. She’d shaken her feelings of shame earlier and was now appropriately pissed over how Justin had behaved last night. But then again, she’d easily fallen into that trap, and she was a grown woman with a mind of her own. Those feelings of lust and desire and that attraction to Justin had never died and had hit her like a two-by-four across the head. Of course there were occasional times when she wondered “what if.” And yes, she
should
have told Justin about his son, but when Aubrey considered what that would have meant for her life and Max’s life?

A tremble passed through her belly. Telling Justin would definitely have meant she wouldn’t be traipsing around a muddy lot in Wellies, discussing sweet butter grass and artisanal cheese. Nope. This would not have been Max’s childhood. His childhood would have been stuffy private schools and summer camps with all the right offspring of all the right people.

Her head hurt just thinking about that life in the center of the city where everything was money and status and power. This was a better existence for her boy, a better childhood. A place where a solid foundation could be formed, and then when he was older he could choose which life he wanted to live.

Fear trickled through her chest. Later. Older. Not now. She looked off toward the timber where she’d seen Justin disappear an hour before. He wasn’t an outdoorsman, and while there wasn’t anything dangerous in the timber, you could lose your bearings, get lost, if you hadn’t spent a lifetime exploring the land. Scout bounded up to her and nudged the palm of her hand. His tail wagged.

She’d leave Justin in the woods a few more hours. If he didn’t find his way out of the woods by afternoon, she’d be more generous than Nina and
maybe
send a search party in after him.

*

Travatis didn’t get lost. Justin stood in the center of a group of giant trees and looked up at the sky. He held up his phone and slowly turned. No bars. Where the hell in the entire world, aside from the basement of a parking garage, did one get no bars of service? Just outside Hudson, Kansas, that was where. He tucked his phone into his jeans pocket. Where was the sun? He wasn’t a complete waste of space when it came to the outdoors. He’d heli-skied in Alaska, climbed in the Himalayas, even trekked through the outback. He planted his hands on his hips. He’d accomplished all those outdoorsy events with a guide. A guide who kept wealthy urban men safe while letting them feel like they actually knew what the hell they were doing when they didn’t. Obviously. He couldn’t even tell which direction the sun was.

Was the Kaw to the east of Rockwater Farms? Or west? What the hell, he was smarter than this. If he found the river, he could find his way back to the farm. He’d only been looking for … two hours. Shit. He was lost. This Travati was lost. Not a very good survivalist—no water, no food, no trail out of the woods. Nope. Not good at all.

Damn. Give him a subway system and a city of ten million anytime. This, being in the middle of nowhere with no idea how to get out of these godforsaken trees, was the reason the outdoors was overrated. He felt a stinging sensation on his neck and smacked his hand against his flesh, then pulled it away. Little bastard. A mosquito. He was getting eaten alive out here.

Anger tightened his chest. He should have known better than to wander into the woods without so much as a calorie of food or a drop of water. Such fucking hubris. Damn. He was here now. He wouldn’t find his way out by standing here staring at the sky.

He walked over a fallen tree and toward the direction where he thought the river should be running. Sure, this morning, looking out at the view from his window, he’d thought this was a good way for a boy to be raised, wild and open and free, but now he realized it was a good way for a man to get killed. Of for fuck’s sake, he wouldn’t get killed. He’d die of thirst before he was killed. He stopped and heard the trickle of water.

He swallowed. His mouth was parched. He walked toward a tiny stream that flowed over a bed and smooth rocks that glistened beneath the water. Clear. Cool. Refreshing. God. He just needed some of the water. He placed his hand into the stream, cupped his hand, and lifted the water toward his mouth.

“Wouldn’t drink that if I were you.”

For an instant the sound of dueling banjos played in Justin’s mind. He let the water in his hand drip to the ground and turned toward the voice.

An older man, maybe sixty-something, stood just up the hill with a stick in hand. His hair was gray. “Get yourself a bad case of giardia if you drink that untreated. Then you’ll have the shits for days. Might even end up in the hospital.”

Shits for days? Nope he didn’t want that.

“You lost?” the man called.

Justin’s chest tightened. Admission of defeat wasn’t really in the Travati playbook, but damn, he was. “Yes. I think I am.”

“You from New York?” the man asked.

Justin nodded. “Accent?”

“Not as thick as some, but it’s definitely there.”

“I’m staying at Rockwater Farms. Have a suite there.” Justin surveyed the forest. “Any idea which way I need to go to get back?”

The man nodded. “Follow me.” He turned and walked away.

Justin scrambled up over another rotting log and toward the spot where the gray-haired man had disappeared. The man grunted as he moved through the forest on a path Justin couldn’t see. Finally he stopped in a tiny clearing where there was an axe and wood.

“Need you to help me get these back. We’re going to load these into that.” The old man pointed at the logs of chopped wood in varying shapes and sizes and then to a modified wheelbarrow. He looked at Justin.

“Well, you’re burning daylight, better get yourself started.”

Justin paused for an instant. When was the last time he’d taken orders from anyone? Most likely before his father died. Only Max Travati had been able to order his boys around without any blowback. Not a stitch. They did what the old man ordered without question. This guy in the worn work shirt and jeans and boots looked to be cut from a similar cloth as Justin’s father. He eyed Justin until Justin started to move, and then the old guy wandered toward a tree. He pressed his hand to the trunk, looked up, and then pressed his ear against the bark.

What in the hell? Justin pulled his eyes away and continued to load the cart.

“You from around here?” Justin called.

“You got breath to talk then you’re not working hard enough,” the old man yelled back.

Good enough for Justin. He straightened his spine, then dumped an armload of fresh-cut logs into the back of the wagon. He didn’t need to make small talk with this fellow; all he needed was to complete his part of the bargain so that he could get back to Rockwater, take a long shower, and get some work done. He lifted the final five logs and carried them over to the cart. Heaped with wood, that wheelbarrow would be heavy.

“Now we head back.” The old man started walking uphill.

Justin looked around. What the hell? Who was pulling this cart?

The old man stopped and turned. “Grab the damn handles and let’s go. You got some desire to be out here after dark? You’re not one of them alien watchers come out here to try to spot a spaceship, are you?”

Justin’s eyes narrowed. “No, sir, I’m not.”

“Good, because them people about as wackadoo as they get.” The man turned away. “Almost as bad as all them New Yorkers want to live on top of each other.”

Justin ignored the comment. He lifted the handles of the wheelbarrow. Lucky for him, the one thing he wasn’t was out of shape. He might not do manual labor, but damn if he didn’t work out six days a week. Today he was thankful for every kettlebell he’d ever lifted. He strained to push the wheelbarrow forward. Sweat dripped over his temples. He heaved and pushed and heaved one more time and finally the wheel turned. Slowly at first, he kept pushing forward with every muscle he had. He glanced up at the old man ahead of him. He sure hoped the guy didn’t need to go far.

Rockwater Farms and The Red Barn were embarrassingly close. So close that if he’d walked for another five minutes up a hill and around a bend he would have ended up in front of the big white farmhouse. Damn. What an idiot, but he didn’t let on. He kept himself leaned forward as he pushed at the wheelbarrow and followed the old man past the restaurant, up the hill, past the farmhouse, and around the corner to a shed that wasn’t really a shed but more like another barn. The man threw open the door and waved Justin and his wheelbarrow into the wide-open space.

“You can unload the wood there.” He pointed to a spot at the end of a long workbench. On the other side were carvings from wood of varying sizes. Some were giant bears and horses, and even an eagle, while others were miniatures with intricate designs that he couldn’t make out from across the room.

The old man lifted one piece of wood from the cart and set it on his workbench and then sat on the stool beside the bench. Hands on either side of the giant hunk of wood, he sat there and stared. Justin kept unloading wood. What the hell was this guy doing? Obviously he was a craftsman and he worked at Rockwater Farms.

Then it clicked in Justin’s mind. “You’re Roy Hayes.”

The man turned to him with angry eyes as though he’d forgotten there was anyone in the room aside from himself and that piece of wood he was staring at.

“You about done?”

Justin nodded. This was Aubrey’s father and Max’s grandfather. He set the final piece of wood on the ground beside the now very large pile. He turned toward Roy, who still sat at his workbench but instead of staring at the piece of wood was running his hands over the bark and looking at the ends.

This man had been the primary example for Max of what a man was supposed to be. He glanced from Roy to his work. Could have been worse. The man had talent, dedication, and he obviously knew what the hell he was doing. What else did this man know?

“I’m Justin Travati.”

“I know exactly who you are,” Roy said. He lifted the piece of wood and pulled a piece of bark from its side. “Why the hell you think I made you carry my wood?”

The muscle in Justin’s jaw tensed.

“Lucky I didn’t leave you to rot in the timber.”

“And you’re lucky I don’t fight with old men.”

Roy set the piece of wood on the table. He stood from his seat. “I may be old, boy, but I can guarantee you I’d get some licks in before you knocked me down. Wouldn’t be near what you deserve after what you did to my family.”

Justin spun on his heel. “What I did?” He took two steps forward and stopped just on the other side of Roy’s workbench. “I didn’t steal a man’s child, Mr. Hayes. No indeed, that was your daughter.”

“Steal?” Roy leaned forward over the workbench, his eyes hard as stone. “More like you done the worst thing any low-life, scum-sucking man could do. Took advantage of a young woman in the city, got her”—Roy’s nostrils flared as he fought his temper—“got her in the family way, and then wouldn’t do the right thing. Just sent her packing. Back here. To me and her sister and her mama to take care of what you done.” Roy picked up the piece of wood. “Boy, you’re lucky I didn’t take a log to your head out there in the woods.”

“That’s the story you got? Mr. Hayes, no disrespect to you or your family, but I think you better check with your daughter on those facts, because I can guarantee you that the story you just told me, the way you think this happened, was not the way it went down, sir.”