Page 9 of Twister

Daniel

Clenching my pillow as my alarm blared at me from the bedside table, I groaned at the ungodly hour. Waking up when it was still dark for morning chores was the one thing I wished I could get used to, but I feared I never would.

Mornings were especially difficult when I’d tossed and turned so much during the night that I could only manage a few hours’ sleep.

Regret filled me as I pushed the pillow away, rolled over onto my back, and shoved the heels of my palms into my gritty eyes.

Why had I chickened out of talking to Marshall about that moment between us last night? The way he’d looked up at me, his fingers clenching against my sides as he leaned into me….

Unless I was very much mistaken, he’d wanted me to kiss him, and holy fuck had I wanted to do it. There was something about him that called to me, even though we’d known each other for less than a day.

It was like I couldn’t stop touching him. He was the earth, and I was the moon, destined to gravitate around him, tethered by an invisible bond that was impossible to ignore. Life only felt right, felt settled, when we were together.

But he was too young .

I’d tried to tell him that last night. Tried to tell him that nothing could happen between us because we were at different stages of our lives but had swallowed my words down before they could be made real.

Something in my gut had rebelled violently at the thought of speaking aloud the words I knew needed to be said, so I’d changed course and shown him the spare room instead.

Then I’d gone to bed, tossing and turning and decidedly not fucking sleeping for the next four hours while I regretted how much of a coward I’d been.

I was a grown fucking man. I should be able to talk about my feelings.

Ugh.

Feelings.

I kicked at the sheets in a huff.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Today. I’d tell him today. I’d clear the air with him so he knew not to expect anything between us, and then we could all continue with our lives like everything was normal. He could stay in the guest room until his Jeep was fixed, then be on his way without a backward glance.

It was the right thing to do. No way for either of us to get attached to the other. No regret. Nothing but a platonic show of hospitality from a Rockdale resident to a traveler passing through. I was doing my civic duty—that was all.

I heaved a sigh and pressed the heels of my palms into my eyeballs again before dragging myself out of bed to start the day.

Fuck my nonexistent ability to lie to myself.

“What do you do for a living, Daniel?”

The corners of my lips twitched as I scrubbed away at the dishes in the sink left from our breakfast. Taking advantage of the break in the weather, Rose was outside with Bucky, while Marshall had voluntarily helped me clear the dining table.

He now stood next to me with a cloth, waiting for me to hand him each clean dish as I finished washing it. “I’m a farmer.”

I glanced at him when there was no response, only to see him frowning at me. “What the hell do you grow? Diamonds?” He flung his arms around to indicate the large open-plan living space in front of us. “No offense, but no farmer I know could afford all of this.”

I laughed. He wasn’t wrong. Eight years ago, when my ex, Jackson, and I had moved here, it had cost us a ton to build our forever home.

When we’d separated, I’d been lucky enough to be able to buy him out so I wouldn’t have to sell the property.

Rose and I loved this place too much for us to bear to move.

“No, no diamonds. This farm is more of a hobby farm than anything else. Most of what I grow here is classified as mixed commercial farming, but not on the scale of the big producers. The farm back in California is more the large-scale endeavor over this one.”

“You have a farm in California as well?”

I nodded. “Yup. That one was historically focused on a variety of seasonal flowers, but when my business partner and I bought it back in ’08, we made sure to diversify into other avenues so we weren’t reliant on a single stream of income.

That’s how we got into medicinal cannabis and commercial hemp after it was legalized. ”

A look of understanding crossed his face before he looked outside to see Rose laughing as she threw a tennis ball for Bucky. “Is that your focus now?”

“Yes and no. We were largely able to buy the California farm because of the financial crisis. The previous owners had to sell because they’d made some bad investments and didn’t spread their revenue nets wide enough.

We learned from their mistakes, and even though our largest income stream in California is currently from growing medicinal cannabis, it’s still only about 40 percent of total earnings.

Our management team keeps a really close eye on what the market is telling us, and we adjust as needed.

” I winced at how easily I fell into the business jargon.

“Sorry. I know I can get a little carried away when I talk about Honey Maize.”

He snapped his attention back to me, his eyes wide. “Honey Maize? You’re talking about the biggest independently owned company in the US that grows and sells plant-based medicines? That Honey Maize?”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “You’ve heard of us?” What Marshall had said was true, but that didn’t mean that we were well-known to the average American.

“Yeah, I’d say I have.” Marshall huffed out an astonished laugh as he shook his head in amazement.

“I researched Honey Maize for one of my final projects for my finance and management degree. I even emailed someone for more information about your company history and how it was impacted over time by changing governmental policies and public attitudes.”

It was my turn to be astonished. “Holy fuck. That was you?” I let the plate I was washing slide back into the sudsy water as I turned my entire focus to the man standing next to me.

“Jeremiah wouldn’t shut up about you. He was really impressed by your questions and how insightful you were in your correspondence. ”

“Jeremiah! Yeah, that was his name.” Marshall gripped his drying cloth and planted his fist on his hip. “He’s your business partner? He’s in California, right?”

I nodded in shock. “What a small world.”

“I’ll say.” He looked around the room again, this time in appreciation. “I can see how you can afford all this now. But I don’t get why you’re here when Honey Maize is based out of California.”

“Ah,” I said, my hands diving into the washing again. “A couple of different reasons. Mostly, think of this little farm as a….” I trailed off and chewed my bottom lip as I thought how to word it. “Think of it as a trial run into diversification on a national scale.”

“You bought this property to see if the soil here in Rockdale could do the same things as the soil in California does?”

I beamed at the logic jump he’d made. “Bingo. The lower cost of living was a big draw for me and Jackson at the time. We wanted to….” I trailed off again and grimaced. “Well, I wanted to see if we could justify a business expansion into a secondary market while giving us a chance to adopt.”

“Jackson’s your ex, I’m assuming?”

Nodding, I sighed at the memories. “Yeah. We got married and were trying to adopt, but it wasn’t viable in California for a few different reasons. We ended up coming to Rockdale after one of our contacts suggested we might have a better chance of adopting if we moved.”

“And that’s how you ended up with Rose?”

Not being able to stop myself from glancing outside to where she was still having fun with Bucky, I melted a little at the love I felt for my daughter. “Yeah. Five years ago. Three years after Jackson and I got married and moved here. She was seven.”

He followed my eyes. “She’s twelve?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“She talks like she’s older.”

Rose must have felt our eyes on her, as she turned to face the glass doors we were looking through, her hand lifting to shield her eyes from the overhead sun—not that she would’ve been able to see us with the reflection on the glass.

I watched her shrug and then refocus on Bucky, who had run up to drop the tennis ball at her feet and was now looking up at her adoringly, panting with his tongue lolling out.

A memory of the scared little girl she’d been when she first arrived flitted through my mind, so at odds from the confident young tween she now was.

I swallowed roughly, but my voice was still gruff as I said, “Yeah, I know. That’s mostly because of how she was raised before she came to us. ”

Even though I kept my focus on Rose, I saw Marshall turn to look at me with concern. “I’m scared to ask….”

Chewing my bottom lip, I shrugged. Although it was old news to me now, the emotions that got raised whenever I talked about it never truly went away.

I know I didn’t need to tell Marshall about Rose’s history, but somehow it didn’t feel right not to let him know.

“She was in and out of foster care for three years before she came to me and Jackson. As far as the lawyers could tell us, her birth father was never in the picture, but we know that her birth mother was a drug addict. She initially lost custody of her when Rose was found wandering the aisles of her local supermarket, begging shoppers to buy her some food.” I swiped at the corner of my eye with the back of my wrist just before a tear tipped clear to run down my cheek.

The thought of my baby girl so starved and alone at that age always affected me.

“When CPS investigated, they found her mother passed out from an overdose in their apartment. Rose had just turned four.”

“Jesus.” Marshall leaned forward to rest his clenched fists on the island, his eyes squeezing shut as he winced.