Page 21 of Lovewell Lane (Honeyfield Dreamers #1)

Derek

Fucking idiot. Sam booked himself a delivery all the way in Augusta again, which left me in charge of the store all morning. Lately, I avoided taking morning shifts at the store at all costs. Working in the morning meant I ended up exactly as I was now.

Staring at Margo.

A week ago, she drunkenly confessed she ‘wanted to take care of me’. I didn’t know how the hell to address that, and she clearly didn’t want to face me either, since I hadn’t heard a peep from her. It was the longest I’d not interacted with her since she’d come into town.

I was losing my mind.

Today, she was working in the front of her diner, which was infinitely worse.

I preferred staring at the empty walls of her restaurant until I got bored because now I had no hope of getting anything done today.

She had on a cute little red apron and was hanging up frames on the walls.

She’d measure something, hang it up, take a few steps back, and either give herself a quick proud nod or pop a hand on her hip in disappointment.

Then, if her hand went on her hip, she’d start the process all over again.

We were on round fifty of this little game when the shop bell chimed.

I tore my gaze away to look at Sam. He was giving me a look. “Really?”

“What?” I already knew I sounded defensive.

“Have you done anything today, or are you too busy being interested in the girl next door?”

“Fuck off.”

“Can’t you just ask her out? Take her on a date?”

I shot my brother a look. If he didn’t see how hypocritical he was being, he was blind as a bat. Ever since Lila moved into town he’d been in denial, and now he was choosing to project his regrets onto me.

Margo might have drunkenly confessed that she liked living in my guest house. That didn’t mean she wanted to do it forever. She was a people pleaser, anyway, always telling people what they wanted to hear. She could have just said it to be polite.

“She’s not my type.”

Sam set down his clipboard with the delivery payslip on it. “Bullshit. I know you, brother. You’ve never been like this before.”

“She’s a Dreamer. She’ll be out of here in less than a year. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man with a child. I can’t be messing around with the woman living in my guest house.”

Sam’s teasing lost its playfulness. “I don’t think it would just be messing around. She really seems set on staying. You heard her, she wants to make the diner work. And she cares about the town. Everyone really liked her at the Seedling Party. Tessa adores her.”

“They all say they’re set on staying,” I said under my breath. “Anything go wrong with the delivery?”

Translation: Conversation over. I was done talking about Margo.

The doorbell rang which made my head turn around to look at the door. I immediately walked over to the door and held it open for the newcomer.

“Ms. Fields, how are you?”

“I’ve told you to call me Amelia hundreds of times now, dear. Stick to it,” she said.

“Yes ma’am,” I answered. “You just missed Sam. He’s off back to the farm.”

“Well, that’s quite alright dear, because I came to see you.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I met that beautiful young woman who is opening a restaurant across the street,” she started. Oh, great. I had an idea of where this was going. “I’ve seen you over there helping her out the past few weeks. I just wondered what you thought of her.”

“She’s great, a very nice woman.” That was the last way I would actually describe her. She was smart, beautiful, and complicated. She was the most interesting person I’d ever met, the more I knew the more interested I was.

But I was just trying to end this conversation as fast as possible.

“She seems very charming,” Amelia said.

“Seems that way.”

Amelia popped her hip out to rest her hand and cane against the counter. “I think she could be good for you.”

I laughed as politely as I could. “Thank you, Amelia. I’ve got a lot going on right now, so I don’t see it happening anytime soon. And she’s young. Only twenty-six.”

“Oh, after twenty-four, age is just a number, dear.” She reached out to rest another hand on my forearm.

“I know you’ve been hurt. That awfully snotty little woman that was Tessa’s mother broke your heart.

We’ve all seen it these past few years. But just because the world is cruel, doesn’t mean you have to be.

You love despite it all. That is the best thing we can do. ”

My ex-wife definitely hadn’t broken my heart. But my heart broke all the same for Tessa. Growing up for part of my childhood without my own mother made me want her to have a great relationship with her mom all the same. And the idea that I picked the wrong woman to be her mother destroyed me.

“Thank you, Amelia. I’ll think about it.” I paused.

Out of all of the people in the universe, I’d expect Ms. Fields to be one of the last few to encourage falling in love.

The poor woman had not only her marriage fall apart, but her past lover turned into her worst enemy.

Everything she stood against, her shitty ex-husband made sure to do thirty minutes from here in a shit town called Shellville.

“Amelia,” I said. “You don’t regret it? At all?”

She gave me a smile. “Of course not, dear. If I hadn’t loved, we wouldn’t be standing here. You might not be here. Honeyfield certainly wouldn’t exist. I remember when your daddy’s father first agreed to make his farm a part of this town. We have to love. That’s all there is to live for.”

I nodded. I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I was willing to take it into consideration.

“Thanks, Amelia. Let me help you walk across the street. Are there any things that need repairing at home?”

-

“Daddy, can we go fishing?”

“Fishing? Since when were you interested in that?”

“I don’t know,” Tessa said innocently. “I like fish, and you said you do, too. We can’t hurt the fish though, right? We catch and let go.”

“Catch and release, honey. Yes, we can do that.”

“Then we should! You said you and Grandaddy used to go fishing when you were a kid.”

We did. It was usually the only occasion our family got to spend time with Slick growing up. He was always working. Growing up a single child, he’d inherited the farm to himself, and Mom didn’t know much about farm life. So, he’d taken on the bulk of the work.

I wondered how he did it, often on days that I was struggling. The hardware store didn’t exist back then, so that was one thing off his plate. But, I couldn’t imagine taking care of Tessa and running the farm without Sam always around to help or Calli to call for advice.

“Mhm, we can go this weekend if you want? I’ll ask Lila if we can use the lake.” I doubted there was much to fish for in that lake, but Tessa didn’t care about how big the catch was.

“And can we use the boat?”

“What boat?” We had money, but I didn’t own any boats that I knew of. My dad had a boat years ago, but we sold it since we never made the effort to go to a lake big enough worth towing a boat for.

“Sienna said there’s a boat. At the Inn.”

“Oh, I’m not sure that’s necessary, we can just fish off the ba-”

“We need the boat!” Tessa interjected, “for the full experience.”

I looked over at her and cocked an eyebrow. The older she got, the more she surprised me. “Alright then, I’ll bring the good poles, too. Make sure you get your first catch.”

She smiled, looking very pleased with herself. “Good idea, Daddy.”