One Man and a Baby Read online

  Pulling on a winter jacket to stave off the cold November air, she ran out her front door, jogged down the steps and began walking to the guesthouse. She wouldn’t take her car. She didn’t want to alert Rick that she was coming and have him lock his door or something ridiculous like that. Plus, she also needed time to plan what she would say.

  When she finally reached the guesthouse, she remembered what Toby had told her about letting Rick have his pride and she realized this had always been about pride. He wanted the job. He wanted his privacy. He wanted the chance to raise his own child. He simply wanted what other people got naturally, but what he could never seem to get. Respect. Since his first visit into town with Ruthie had resulted in a fistfight, Ashley suddenly saw what Rick had been warning her about all along. The people of Calhoun Corners simply would not let him forget the past.

  Her dad would tell her the fight probably meant Rick hadn’t changed. Ashley didn’t believe that. She knew Rick in a way few people did. He had bared his soul with her, bossed her, planned with her, eaten with her, cared for Ruthie in front of her. She knew he wasn’t the same guy. Though in some respects he had the same cocky attitude, his confidence was tempered with maturity. And that meant there was a good reason for that fight.

  She took a quiet breath before knocking. Rick came to the door looking tired. At first it appeared as if he wouldn’t let her in, but finally he opened the screen door to her.

  Realizing he wouldn’t be forthcoming with information, Ashley simply said, “What happened?”

  “I hit Bert.”

  “I know that much,” Ashley said, tamping down the hurt that he was back to saying as little as he could get by with in their conversations.

  “He accused me of having Ruthie so I could get some money.”

  “Bert? Sweet, nice Bert?”

  Leading Ashley back to the kitchen, Rick said, “Sweet, nice Bert has always been my nemesis.”

  Ashley stopped walking. Though she remembered Toby had said something about Rick stealing one of Bert’s girlfriends, the situation didn’t quite mesh. “But you defended Bert. When I had my big plan to get some new suppliers, you said we needed to support the people in our town. You even used Bert and the hardware store as your example.”

  “My mistake.”

  “No! Not a mistake! The right thing to do.”

  “Yeah, well, you see how far the right thing got me. First chance he got Bert pushed me and I reacted badly.”

  Her guess was right. This was about pride. Unfortunately, since he’d reverted to his old behavior the tables had turned and this was no longer about the lack of respect the town had for Rick. Now, he didn’t even respect himself. He believed he’d forfeited that right when he punched Bert. Still, if she handled this properly, she could push him beyond this.

  “It doesn’t matter what people think.”

  He spun away from the counter. “Really? Is that why you locked yourself up on this farm?”

  “I didn’t lock myself up here. This is my home. This,” she said, spreading her arms wide to indicate the farm, “is what I want. It’s what you want, too.”

  He sniffed a laugh. “Great. Even you think I’m here because I want part of what you have.”

  Even more pieces of the puzzle fell into place for Ashley. Rick wasn’t angry that someone had accused him of having Ruthie as a way to get money. He didn’t want anything from the senator and he could easily prove it. All he had to do was show people his bank account. But his motives for his relationship with her weren’t so easy to prove. If they married, he wouldn’t merely live in her house. Half of everything she owned would be his. But she had a way to reassure him about that, too.

  “I didn’t say you wanted part of what I have. I said that you want a home. You and I want the same thing. That’s not conning somebody. That’s working together, building a team, learning to trust.”

  “Right. You’re about the only person in town who sees that.”

  “Why do you care?” she demanded, suddenly weary and desperate because he wasn’t responding to her reassurances the way she had expected he would. “I love you. I trust you. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Enough? It’s what I want more than anything.”

  “So what does it matter what anyone else thinks?”

  “It matters because being in love, making a life is more than the romance. There are tough years. There are lean years. What will you do two years from now, when some new woman moves into town and the rumor starts that I flirted with her just because I talked to her?”

  “I trust you.”

  He shook his head. “You make it sound so easy but you don’t yet know what it’s like to go into town and have everybody snickering behind your back.”

  Ashley stared at him. “Have you forgotten I lost half my trust fund?”

  “All the more reason for you to steer clear of me! If you don’t, you’ll soon see what real gossip can do. If we marry, you will constantly hear bits and pieces of things I did or was supposed to have done and eventually mistrust will set in. You won’t believe that I’m where I say I am. You might even check up on me.”

  “I would never do that.”

  “Then, honestly, Ashley,” Rick said, combing his fingers through his hair in frustration, “it will be worse. At least if you check you’ll know I’m not lying. If you don’t check, you’ll always wonder.”

  “You don’t have very much faith in me.”

  “The problem is I do have faith in you. I believe you love me. I believe you love me enough that you’d hold everything in, rather than tell me, so I don’t get angry. And that’s why I have to leave.”

  Panic set in then, stiffening Ashley’s muscles and freezing her lungs with fear. “You’re leaving?”

  “Ruthie and I will be out of here tomorrow.”

  “You’re not going to fight?”

  “Fight what? Fight who? Don’t you get it? This isn’t about one person who hates me or even about me proving myself. This is about an attitude, a perception. I will always be Calhoun Corners’s bad boy and if you marry me you’ll always be Calhoun Corners’s loser.” Leaning his head back, he took a long breath. “Look, please leave. Okay?”

  Flabbergasted by what he had said, Ashley stayed where she was. “You think I’m a loser?”

  “I think people will think you’re a loser.”

  She shook her head. “No, Rick, that’s what you think. Otherwise the notion wouldn’t have even popped in your head. You think I’m an easy mark because I fell in love so quickly? Or maybe you think you’re so worthless only a loser would love you. Whatever it is, the real bottom line is that you don’t think much of me.” With that she turned and ran out of the house.

  The next morning, Rick came to the barn and left copious instructions with Toby. He didn’t come to the house to say goodbye to Ashley and Ashley didn’t go to the barn. The next time she saw him, he was driving up the access road to the main highway. She stood by the fence, watching him, tears brimming in her eyes.

  “It’s what he feels he has to do.”

  Hearing Toby behind her, Ashley swallowed. “You know, right now, it’s ridiculous for me to be worried about him. I should be upset for myself.” She faced Toby with a watery smile. “He thinks I’m a loser.”

  “Nah,” Toby said, sliding his arm over her shoulders companionably. “He thinks he’s a loser.”

  “And anybody who loves him is a loser, too.”

  “Honestly, Ashley, for Rick this is a no-win situation. That’s why he’s leaving. He’s tired of fighting.”

  Watching Rick’s pickup leave her property, Ashley took a long breath. She would cry tonight. She would beat her pillows, kick at least one wall and cry her eyes out. But she wouldn’t do any of that in front of the farmhands.

  “I guess we’ve got work to do.”

  Toby said, “Yep.” He began to lead her to the barn, but he stopped suddenly and said, “You’ll be fine.”

  “I know,” she said,
but she didn’t mean it for a second. If Rick thought he was tired of everybody seeing him as an opportunist, he should see how tired she was of people leaving her. It was the one thing she could no longer tolerate and the one thing he should have known. But he didn’t. And it proved he was right. He didn’t love her.

  Because if he did, he would know that he had more than one option for resolving his problem. Even if he genuinely believed he had to move on, he didn’t have to move on alone. But it had never even entered his mind to ask her to go with him or even to share his plan. Just as her father had changed his entire life without ever once considering her, Rick had decided to go, not worried that he was leaving her alone. Not considering that there was no turning back. Because there wasn’t. It would be a cold, frosty day in hell before she trusted another man. Even him.

  Especially him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Rick drove his pickup down the lane of his parents’ farm, telling himself that this time was different. He wasn’t leaving forever and for good. Sure, he would make a home elsewhere, but he would come back to his parents’ to visit. There was no reason to feel sad over leaving a town that didn’t trust him. The logic and common sense of starting over somewhere else, maybe even going back to Tuscarora now that his mother and Tia had taught him to care for Ruthie, made him feel good. Smart. Capable.

  And as for the pain in his heart, he did not regret leaving Ashley. He’d trained her. He was leaving her with Toby. Her dad would always be her backup. And she’d find another man. So Ashley was taken care of. What he hadn’t resolved was her accusation that he thought she was a loser.

  Unfortunately there was no help for that. If he told her he thought she was probably the most wonderful person he had ever met, then she’d convince him to stay and he couldn’t. In some ways her believing that he thought so little of her actually worked in her favor. As angry and hurt as she was with him, she wouldn’t regret that he was going. She would move on and look for a guy who deserved her. Somebody in her social circle. Somebody who wouldn’t drag her into a pit of gossip.

  His mother met him on the front porch and immediately took Ruthie from him. “How’s my girl?” she crooned, walking into the house.

  “Mom, stop. Don’t take her inside. We’re only here to say goodbye.”

  His mother turned. “Goodbye?”

  “Ruthie and I are moving on. Not only does everybody in town know she’s Senator Martin’s granddaughter, which means I’ve more or less broken my promise to the senator, but I want to go somewhere where I can be myself.”

  As Rick spoke, his father came out to the porch, but Rick didn’t stop talking. His story wouldn’t be any different for his dad. “The real me. In Calhoun Corners I’m just a bar fight waiting to happen.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  Rick looked his dad in the eye. “Yes. We both know I’m different. We both know I’ve changed. But I get tired of proving it. In another town I won’t have to.”

  For a few seconds Rick’s father said nothing. When he finally spoke it was quietly. “Why do you think your mother and I said nothing when we picked you up yesterday?”

  “Too embarrassed?”

  Ben shook his head, laughing slightly. “No. We didn’t even ask what had happened because we didn’t think there was any need for you to explain. We trust you. You don’t have to tell us every thirty seconds that you’ve changed. If you hit Bert, we know there was a good reason.”

  “He more or less accused me of getting Jen pregnant so I could extort money from the senator.”

  Elizabeth gasped, but Ben laughed. “You must be very good at this con artist stuff.”

  “You can tease, Dad, because it’s not you constantly being condemned. I can have changed from here to tomorrow and it won’t make one damned bit of difference in Calhoun Corners. I’ll always be one push away from exploding.”

  Ben shrugged. “So what?”

  “So what?” Rick asked, suddenly incensed. Though he knew his father had also changed, it appeared he hadn’t stopped pushing his son. “Do you think I want my daughter to grow up thinking I got her mother pregnant as some kind of con?”

  “When the time is right you can explain everything to Ruthie and she’ll believe you just as your mother and I do.”

  “Right. I’m sure my explanation will be very believable after I marry the richest woman in the county.”

  “Oh, so that’s what this is about. Ashley.”

  Rick took a breath.

  “You love her and you’re afraid.”

  “Afraid isn’t the word—”

  “Sure it is.”

  Raking his fingers through his hair in frustration, Rick said, “All right, we’ll say I am afraid, but wouldn’t you be if you were me! She’s the biggest catch in the state for a con artist like me. I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “So don’t hurt her.”

  “Dad, you’re making me want to punch you,” Rick said, only half joking. He’d never hit his father, but his father was certainly pushing him, acting as if this were an easy choice or worse as if Rick had an actual say in it.

  “You want to know the real reason you punched Bert?” Ben asked, but didn’t wait for a reply. “You hit him because the burden of marrying somebody like Ashley is so big that you panicked.”

  “I never asked her to marry—”

  “When the right one comes along, you don’t have to state your intentions. It’s understood.” Ben sighed. “Rick, you didn’t hit Bert yesterday because you’re a hothead. The way he tells the story, he hardly pushed you before you punched him.”

  “So you’re saying I’m an idiot.”

  “Nope, I’m saying you were protecting Ashley.”

  At that Rick laughed.

  “You just said you don’t want to hurt her, and you know the gossip would hurt her. So before things got too far you did the one thing nobody could argue with. You reverted to your old behavior to prove you haven’t changed and to assure that she wouldn’t want you anymore.”

  Rick said nothing and Ben laughed. “I love it when I’m right.”

  “Yeah, well, even if you are right the damage is done now. I’ve proved to everybody that when the chips are down I’m still the same old me.”

  To Rick’s complete surprise his father gaped at him as if he were crazy. “Do you think you only get one shot in life?” He shook his head. “Lord, Rick, no wonder you’re angry and overcautious. People make mistakes. You will make mistakes. The key to rising above them is having people you trust to go to for advice and people you trust to simply forgive you. People who are happy to walk with you into the future no matter what your past has been.”

  Rick turned and stared out at the mountain of trees behind him, suddenly understanding what Ashley had been telling him all along. They’d never had to make explanations or excuses for their pasts. They understood each other. What counted to her was the future. Who he could be or would be. Not who he had been.

  Rick faced his mother. “Can you watch Ruthie?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said with a chuckle. “We could keep her all night if you want.”

  Rick took a breath. “I’m not sure I’m that optimistic.”

  Rick drove to Seven Hills not knowing what he intended to say to Ashley. More than that, after the way he’d hurt her he couldn’t even assume he would be welcome at her house. He hadn’t accused her of being a loser, but he’d let her believe that was how he felt. If she were really smart, and he knew she was, she wouldn’t want anything to do with him.

  He jerked his pickup to a stop in front of the wide front porch of Ashley’s house and jogged up the three steps to the front door. He rang the bell and waited, knowing he’d made the biggest mistake in his life and also knowing that it might be the one mistake from which he could not recover.

  When he heard the sound of the front door opening, he spun around to see Ashley standing there, a neutral expression on her face. But that worried him even more. If she were angry,
he could talk her out of it. But she wasn’t angry. She wasn’t anything.

  He took a quiet breath and said, “I know what I did was wrong.”

  Careful not to let any expression show on her face, Ashley only stared at him. She wanted to grab him and hug him. She wanted to tell him the things he had said, the way he had panicked was okay, but she couldn’t. He’d hurt her too much. And she absolutely wasn’t going to let him do it again.

  “You know what you did was wrong? That’s why you’re here?”

  “I know you’re angry.”

  “I’m not angry. I’m hurt. But, you know what? I’m getting very good at taking it on the chin because the recovery time this time was a lot shorter. It took me years to get over Thad, about a day to realize my dad needed his own life and about an hour to realize that if you couldn’t get over worrying what everybody said or thought then you weren’t the right guy for me.”

  She took a step back, intending to close the door, but Rick said, “I don’t care what the town thinks. That was a smoke screen. A cover.”

  She paused. She shouldn’t be interested in what he had to say. She should close the door and let him go, but her heart asked for just one more minute and she couldn’t make herself step away.

  “My dad thinks that I hit Bert because I was protecting you.”

  Ashley laughed. “Protecting me?” She paused, shaking her head. “Of course, from the gossip. You let me think you hated it but what you really hated was exposing me to it.”

  “I can’t stand thinking about everything you’re going to face once word gets out that we’re dating.”

  “You don’t think the women are going to be jealous?”

  He laughed. “I don’t want anybody to be jealous.”

  “Really? I had intended to sort of enjoy that part of it.”

  “I’d prefer it if nobody even looked at us twice. Since I know that’s not going to happen, what I want is a second chance.”