Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
I look up, caught off guard. “What makes you ask that?”
“’Cause it’s been a while.” He plops onto the couch, clutching his toy. “And I like him. He’s fun. And he makes you happy when he’s here. I like when you’re happy, Mom.”
I smile softly, sitting beside him. “He is fun.”
“I wanna ride in his tractor,” Atticus says, eyes wide. “You said he has a tractor. Can I? Can I ride in it?”
I hesitate. I’m not going to tell him that Hunter has been around, just . . . not during daylight. I’m not ready to explain the arrangement we have—the one I keep telling myself is just physical, even though my heart is starting to argue otherwise.
“We’ll see,” I say, standing to grab my phone.
I call Hunter. He answers on the second ring.
“Hey,” I say. “I’ve got a little boy here asking when he can ride in your tractor.”
Hunter chuckles on the other end. “Good timing. I’m just mowing some grass ways today. You can bring him out if you want.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll drop you a pin as soon as we hang up. He can ride in the jump seat with me.”
I glance at Atticus, already bouncing on the couch. “Okay. We’ll head out soon.”
Hunter sends the location, and Atticus insists on packing a backpack. He fills it with fruit snacks, juice boxes, a toy truck, and his lucky coin—some rusted thing he found behind the barn the other day. His excitement is so pure, it makes my heart ache a little—both happy and nervous.
Happy because he’s so eager to see Hunter.
Nervous because the lines between all of us are blurring, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep pretending we’re not well on our way to becoming something.
Something messy.
Something dangerous.
And maybe something real.
The butterflies in my stomach take a nervous turn. The last time I let someone this close to us, we both got burned. The thought of that happening again makes me recoil, makes me hold my breath until it physically hurts.
“Come on, Mom, we gotta go!” Atticus bounces on his heels, his shoelaces untied and his smile almost wider than his face. “Hunter needs me in the tractor. We can’t keep him waiting. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
I grab my purse and keys and chase Atti out to the driveway, barely able to keep up with him.
If this blows up in my face, if Hunter breaks my heart . . . I’ll get over it.
If he breaks my son’s heart? I’ll never forgive him.
49
Hunter
Atticus is riding shotgun in the tractor’s jump seat, chattering my ear off like he’s been saving every thought in his head just for this moment.
“What’s that button do? What happens if you push that lever? What’s that sound?” He bounces in sync with every bump in the field.
I explain what I can, pointing to the display screens, the throttle, the controls that move the batwings, even though I’m just mowing today—not exactly the most glamorous farmwork. But to a kid, everything is magic when you’re sitting this high off the ground.
“When we get to fall,” I tell him, “this whole field? We’ll be out here with combines. Harvesting all the corn. My favorite time of year.”
His eyes get big. “I wanna do that! Can I do that?”
“You can ride with me if you want,” I say, grinning at his excitement. I remember being that age. Riding with my dad and grandpa in a combine was always the highlight of my fall—more exciting than Halloween. “When you’re older, maybe you can be my grain cart operator.”
“What’s that?”
I explain how the grain cart keeps the combines running by unloading on the go, how it’s the most important job in the field next to running the combine itself.
“And if you’re really good at that,” I add, “when you’re older, I’ll let you run a combine.”
He lights up like I just promised him a trip to Disney World. “Really?”
“Really.”
I watch him take it all in, staring out the window like he’s imagining it already.
I always thought I’d have a son someday—a little boy who’d love farming as much as I did. A kid to teach everything to. Someone to take over the land, carry on the McCrae name, the legacy.
Funny how life doesn’t always play out the way you picture it.
“How’s your mom doing?” I ask him. We’ve texted a few times this last week, but every time I think I have a spare minute to sneak in a visit, something comes up. Our schedules haven’t synced up in a minute, and it’s killing me.
“She’s happy now,” he says, digging into his backpack for a snack.
“Yeah? How come?”
“’Cause she’s writing again.”
That makes me smile. “She told you that?”
He nods, mouth full of goldfish crackers. “She’s working on a new book. It’s about a farmer.”