A Family for the Farmer (Brush Creek Brides Book 4) Read online

  He was less than prepared for the chaos three children could bring to a small space. Sure, he’d grown up with two siblings; his mother had dealt with three children under the age of three at one point. But they lived in a sprawling homestead on five hundred acres of land in western Colorado.

  This apartment was the exact opposite of that. The noise was the first thing Blake noticed, and he admired the door for holding it in so expertly. The two boys chased each other around the couch. Around and around, the older one laughing like a super villain while the younger one screamed at him to “Give it back!”

  McKenzie sat on the floor almost in the warpath of the boys, coloring. Every other stroke, her crayon left the paper and marked the floor. Erin stepped through it and grabbed something from the older boy. “You guys stop it. We have a guest.” She nodded toward Blake, who stood at the door like a statue.

  The younger boy took the recovered item and turned toward Blake, the altercation with his brother clearly forgotten already.

  “You must be Davy,” Blake said, the tremor in his voice entirely too real. He swallowed it. “And you must be Cole. Your mom’s told me about you.”

  Davy bounded over to him and grinned. “Do you like Star Wars or Star Trek?”

  “Uh…neither?” Blake looked at Erin with apprehension.

  “Wrong answer,” Erin said.

  “How can you not like Star Wars?” Davy asked, incredulous, like Blake was the first person he’d met to say he disliked Star Wars.

  “Cole, come help me set the table,” Erin said from the kitchen. “Davy, get the Clorox wipes and clean up McKenzie’s marks. Kenz, time to wash up for dinner.”

  Blake watched the family as it moved into motion. The children obeyed their mother for the most part—she had to tell Cole twice to put out the napkins—and he marveled at how all the cogs came together to create something beautiful. In this case, family dinner.

  “Are you a cowboy?” Cole asked when Blake sat next to him at the table.

  “Yes, sir. I work up at Brush Creek Horse Farm. That’s where I met your mom.” He flashed her a quick grin. “She got in my way and I ran right into her.”

  “Knocked me down and everything.” Erin grinned and extended her hands to her kids. “Let’s pray before we eat. Davy, your turn.”

  Blake awkwardly slipped his hand into McKenzie’s and Cole’s, both of which felt strange. One sticky—McKenzie’s—and one too warm. Davy asked for good health. He gave gratitude for this apartment, the bakery, and Uncle Johnny and Aunt Shirley. He prayed that his dad would be safe, and that his mom would learn how to bake.

  Blake almost laughed out loud at that one, but he kept the sound inside. The way the boy prayed for his parents, for their lives, touched Blake’s heart. By the time he said, “Amen,” Blake automatically added his ending to the prayer too.

  He met Erin’s eyes and let the laughter out. “You don’t know how to bake?”

  She lifted her chin and reached for a pair of tongs. “I should’ve said grace myself.”

  Blake laughed again, the sound freeing and feeling fantastic as it left his throat. Beside him, Cole squabbled with Davy about how he’d taken the spaghetti with all the meatballs. McKenzie started crying because her breadstick touched her noodles. Erin spent the next several minutes breaking up fights and calming the children. She hadn’t even dished herself anything to eat by the time Blake finished his first plate.

  His stomach revolted; his nerves felt like someone had gassed them and lit them on fire; his eardrums physically hurt. He had no idea what to do to help Erin. Even though he’d only known her for a week, he could see her getting more and more frustrated.

  “That’s it,” she said. “No dessert if you don’t all be quiet and eat.”

  That got them to settle down. They ate, but Davy didn’t seem to know where his mouth was and he had more spaghetti sauce on his face than Blake thought possible. McKenzie slurped the noodles, sauce flying when the tail of each noodle got sucked into her mouth.

  Cole glanced at Blake, who had no idea what to say. He finally landed on, “Do you like fishing?”

  The boy looked at his mother, who nodded. “I’ve never been.”

  “You’ve never been fishing?”

  “Yes, you went last summer with Grandpa.”

  “He didn’t even let me touch the pole,” Cole said.

  Blake looked at Erin. “Tell me this isn’t true.”

  “Not everyone shares your affinity for catching fish.” She rolled her eyes. “Plus, Jeremy—” Her eyes widened, and she seemed to have difficulty swallowing. “My ex-husband worked a lot. He didn’t take the kids to do things.”

  “And you’re anti-fishing, is that it?” Blake tried to tame the teasing quality of his voice, but the kids didn’t seem to notice he was flirting with their mom.

  “Not anti,” she said. “Just…disinterested.”

  He looked back at Cole. “Well, maybe when school gets out, I can take you fishing.”

  “We’re going to Salt Lake forever,” Davy said.

  “Not forever,” Cole said. “It just feels like it.”

  Blake leaned back in his chair, the conversation taking a turn he didn’t know how to deal with.

  “You guys have fun at your dad’s,” Erin said with a measure of coolness in her tone.

  “But not for six weeks,” Cole complained. “We finally move out of Gramma and Grandpa’s basement, and now we—”

  “Cole,” Erin warned.

  “I want to stay here,” he continued anyway. “Davy does too. We can go to the park, and go fishing, and set up the tent in Uncle Johnny’s yard.”

  “You can do that when you get back in July.”

  Blake listened and volleyed his gaze back and forth between Cole and Erin. Neither seemed happy. This conversation wasn’t new either. Blake absorbed details he didn’t know yet, like that she’d lived with her parents in Vernal.

  “Mom—”

  “Cole,” she said sternly. “Drop it now.”

  He glared at her, and she stared right back. A shiver traveled down Blake’s spine. He wouldn’t want Erin looking at him like that. In fact, he’d do anything she wanted just to get her smile back.

  “Can I be excused?” Cole asked through tight teeth.

  “No, you’re on dish duty tonight.”

  “I did dishes last night,” he complained.

  “Wrong,” she said. “You guys slept at Aunt Shirley’s last night, and I know she ordered pizza.”

  McKenzie reached for something—what, Blake didn’t know—and knocked over her water glass. She immediately started crying, allowing Cole to mutter something under his breath and Davy to jump back from the table as the water gushed toward him. His chair clattered to the floor and chaos ensued.

  As Blake sat there, he felt one-hundred percent overwhelmed. Senses on overload. Patience already gone.

  How Erin did this every day of her life was a complete mystery to him. He’d been sitting there for thirty minutes and he needed a dark, silent room to recover. Fast.

  By the time he managed to get out of there without seeming rude, a headache had been throbbing behind his eyes for ten minutes. He sat in his truck and looked at the lit square windows of the apartment above the bakery.

  “You’re in way over your head,” he said to himself. He could end this right now. He’d done nothing but blunder a few words about dating. He hadn’t kissed the woman. Hadn’t made plans to see her again.

  Even if he liked Erin, he was in no position to become a father to three kids. He’d persuaded himself for the last week that he could take things slow, find out why she’d gotten divorced, meet the kids and start to get to know them.

  But he felt like he’d just been thrown to a pod of hungry sharks, with a wound that was gushing blood. And he’d only eaten a plate of spaghetti with three kids.

  He leaned his head back and sighed, everything all a jumbled mess in his mind. He liked Erin, but he wasn’t sure he was re
ady for everything she brought with her.

  Chapter Six

  Erin let her tears fall once she got the children to bed. Spaghetti and meatballs waited in the kitchen, along with a special kind of mess that only three children could produce. She methodically put the leftovers in plastic containers, stuck them in the fridge. She picked up shoes, sweatshirts, and backpacks.

  She unpacked two boxes and put the contents in the front hall closet, the kitchen, and the linen closet outside the bathroom.

  She scrubbed the table, the counter, everything she could wipe down. She swept, the swish-swish of the broom good background noise for her weeping.

  She wept because she was sure she’d just lost any chance she might’ve had with Blake. She shouldn’t have invited him to dinner so soon. He needed to be much more involved with her before she let him see what family life was like. At least her family life.

  The boys had been especially obnoxious today, and she could no longer deny how unhappy Cole was when he went to Salt Lake to visit his father. He’d been complaining for a few months that their dad was never home, that he never took them to do anything, that he hired a babysitter who didn’t know how to cook.

  He’d said they had to stay inside the house all the time, that all they did was watch TV, that he didn’t even have a bed to sleep in. When Erin had asked Jeremy about the bed situation, he’d said he was “Working on it.”

  Her sadness weighed so much, and it felt like a yoke around her neck. With the apartment finally clean and somewhat organized, she rubbed the back of her neck, trying to ease the tightness there. She sank onto the couch and closed her eyes.

  I blew it, didn’t I? she thought. Lord, help me know what to do about Blake.

  She didn’t know what to do about him, and the next time she opened her eyes, it was because McKenzie had said her name and touched her face. Weak morning sunlight filtered in through the blinds as she gathered the little girl into her lap.

  “What are you doing up, hummingbird?”

  “I went potty,” the little girl said.

  Erin stroked her daughter’s feather-soft hair and listened to her breathe. “Should we make pancakes for breakfast?” Erin didn’t want to get off the couch, but she knew if Kenz was up, the boys wouldn’t be far behind. Might as well get them sugared up before she had to take them to church.

  Properly mapled and carbed, Erin got the kids settled in the back row where she and Blake had sat last week. For a brief moment, she watched the entryway, half hoping he’d show up and help her with the kids during the sermon.

  She’d given him her phone number, but he hadn’t used it yet so she didn’t have his. She sat on the end of the bench to keep the kids boxed in, and tried to find a single second of solace while her children were behaving.

  The pastor got up and smiled out to the crowd. He had the kind of face that could endear people to him in moments, and Erin found herself enthralled by him. He started speaking about living a good life, something Erin had been trying to do. Sometimes life felt really heavy to her, though, and she wasn’t sure she could lift the weight by herself. As the preacher spoke, she realized she didn’t have to. She could give her burdens to the Lord.

  Her phone buzzed, distracting her from her epiphany. She glanced at her lap and found an unknown number. Her first instinct was to ignore the text, but something caught her eye.

  Even if you can’t bake, you make great spaghetti and meatballs.

  A grin jumped onto her face, but she had no idea how to respond to Blake’s text.

  Can we talk? Maybe later tonight?

  And she certainly didn’t know how to answer that. We need to talk was never good, and besides, she’d seen the way he looked last night at dinner. Like he was witnessing a zombie apocalypse. He’d practically run from her place, citing some lame excuse about needing to get back to feed his dog. She didn’t even know if he owned a dog.

  She didn’t like how she doubted him, didn’t like feeling knotted up inside. She flipped her phone over and refocused on the pastor. She needed this reprieve, and she could easily cite church as the reason why she couldn’t text back right away.

  An hour before evening, Erin tucked her keys in her jacket pocket and reached for the Mississippi mud pie she’d spent most of the afternoon creating. “Kids! Let’s go.” She’d called Tess and asked for an emergency chocolate meeting, just the two of them, and her skin felt like she’d injected red ants just under the surface.

  “Davy, help Kenz with her shoes. I’m going to take this pie down to the car and I’ll be right back.” By the time she had everyone in the car, sweat had formed along her forehead. She practically collapsed into the driver’s seat and turned down the radio that one of the kids had cranked up.

  “Mom,” Cole whined, reaching for the volume knob again.

  “Cole,” she said back, turning the sound down again. “It’s too loud. I can’t think.”

  He folded his arms and pouted, sending a shockwave of guilt through Erin. She tried to ignore him, but ever since the divorce, she’d found herself giving in and allowing her children whatever they wanted just to make them happy.

  It hadn’t been easy for any of them to leave their schools, their friends, their father, and moving three hours away. They hadn’t had their own house but had lived in her parents’ basement, and that hadn’t been easy on anyone. And now she’d brought them to Brush Creek, to a small apartment over a busy bakery.

  They still want to be here rather than with Jeremy, she thought as she navigated through town and found the road that led up to the ranch. She’d rather be here than with Jeremy too. She’d loved Brush Creek as a child. The town held a magical quality; the sunshine healed; the people were kind and accepting.

  Please help Cole when he goes to his father’s next week, she prayed, glancing at her son again. Please help Jeremy understand how to give them a good experience.

  She often prayed for that knowledge herself, and she had no idea what she was doing most of the time. She knew her children needed food, a place to sleep, and hugs. She did all those things. But she didn’t know how to help Cole deal with his feelings, or how to help him understand that his dad loved him but had some priorities that compromised his ability to show it.

  Erin shook her head. She would be forever tied to Jeremy, but he didn’t get to dictate how she lived her life anymore. He’d stopped being able to influence her when he decided his job was more important than his family. When his wandering eye kept him from coming home at night.

  Gravel crunched under her tires as she gained the top of the hill. The horse ranch spread out before her, and Erin marveled at the mini community this place was. The only other time she’d been here, she’d been so focused on finding Tess’s house that she hadn’t paused to soak in the beautiful landscape here, the well-kept homestead, cabins, and grounds.

  In front of her, a man led a horse across the lane from the side where all the ranch outbuildings stood to the side where the cabins lined the white-gravel road. He didn’t go toward one of the cabins, and Erin could tell from the man’s gait that it wasn’t Blake. He’d said he didn’t work with the animals, so she shouldn’t have expected it to be.

  She pulled to the left and parked half on the grass and half on the road in front of Tess’s house. “All right, guys,” she said. “Let’s be on our best behavior, okay?”

  No one answered her as they all piled out of the car. She retrieved the Mississippi mud pie from the trunk and walked across the lawn toward the front door. It opened before she arrived, and Tess came out onto the porch. She leaned against the pillar as two boys followed. They were older than Cole, but his face lit up anyway.

  “Cole,” Erin said as they approached. “These are Tess’s boys, Graham and Michael.”

  “Last time I saw you,” Tess said. “You were a tiny baby.” She drew Cole into a hug and released him with a warm smile. “The boys are takin’ the dogs down to the creek.”

  “Can I go?” Davy asked, an
d Erin beamed at him as she nodded.

  The four boys ran around the cabin, and several moments later, a big black lab appeared at the corner of the house. A boy called to him, and he tore back the way he came.

  Erin laughed as she shook her head and handed Tess the mud pie. “I come bearing chocolate.”

  “Oh, boy.” Tess looked at the pie and then Erin. “That bad, huh?”

  Erin looked at McKenzie, who rarely left her side these days. Tess set the pie on the kitchen counter and knelt down in front of Kenz. “Do you want to watch a movie?”

  Kenz bobbed her brown-haired head and tucked her chin to her chest. Tess scooped her up like she knew how to deal with a three-year-old, though Erin knew perfectly well that Graham had just turned ten years old.

  But Tess took a giggling McKenzie into the living room and started climbing a ladder into a loft. “There are bean bags up here, and a little fridge with water.” Tess set the girl down and a few minutes later she returned, the pingy sounds of a cartoon wafting down from the loft.

  “She’s all set.” Tess tucked her hands in her back pockets and exhaled. “So, are we talking about Blake?”

  Erin dropped her eyes to the pie and tossed her keys and cell on the counter next to it. “What do you know about Blake?”

  “I know everything that happens on the ranch—my husband is the foreman. He knows everything, and he tells me.”

  “Everything? He tells you everything?”

  Tess laughed, her super-short pixie haircut barely moving. “Fine, he doesn’t tell me about the horses and stuff. But he did say Blake’s been acting weird. Going down to the bakery all the time.” Tess hipped Erin out of the way and opened a drawer to pull out a knife.

  “Yeah, Doug’s hired Blake to repair the shop. Apparently there’s been some structural and water damage from last winter.” Erin swiped her finger through the whipped cream on top of the pie.

  “Sure,” Tess said. “And Blake has a wicked sweet tooth.”

  Erin grinned. “That too. I think he’s eaten about a dozen doughnuts this week alone.”