Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (10 page)

I
truly didn’t mind having half the day off. I considered as we walked back
towards the house where I was parked that I’d maybe head over to one of my
favorite fishing holes or catch a movie. I had enough money stashed in the bank
that missing half of a day at work wasn’t going to make much difference. I
could relax a little and come back the next day fresh.

As
we got to the house, I saw Autumn coming out through the front door, some cloth
bags hung on her arm and car keys in her hand. “You weren’t able to get the
tractor fixed?” Tuck shook his head.

“We
had to call the mechanic,” Tuck told her. “He’ll be here tomorrow morning.
Until then, we get to knock off a bit.” I was sure that he and Bob were
probably going to find different things to occupy themselves with around the
property, but if they wanted to send me home, I wasn’t going to argue.

“What
are you up to this fine afternoon?” Bob tossed the toolbox I’d given him back
into the back of his truck, looking at his daughter.

“Mom’s
sending me to run some errands in town,” Autumn replied. “Groceries, a few
things from the hardware store, some other bits and pieces.”

“Sounds
like a good time,” I said, smiling. Autumn was looking even better than usual:
she had her hair down around her shoulders, and she was in a cute skirt and a
blouse, along with a pair of boots. Just the thing for the warm spring weather.
If you didn’t already know, you wouldn’t think she was a mom; you’d think she
might be someone from the local college.

“Want
to come with? It’ll be easier for me if I have an extra set of hands,” she
said, her cheeks coloring up. “I mean, some of the stuff I’m supposed to be
getting is bound to be heavy.”

I
laughed. “You want a big, strong, tough guy to carry around your purchases—I get
it,” I said.

“I’d
take Tuck, but he’s got an appointment to muck out the hen house,” she said,
giving her brother a quick, mocking look.

“I
was headed home,” I started to say. I did want to go with Autumn—the
possibility of spending some time with her alone was tempting. But I remembered
what Bob had demanded of me. I looked at my boss. “If you can’t think of
anything you need me to do, Mr. Nelson…” Bob shrugged.

“If
you can be of help to Autumn, then I don’t see any problem with you going with
her,” he said. “Have a good time in town!” He gave his daughter a quick smile
and turned back towards the house. “Come on, Tuck—your mom mentioned there was
something leaking in the bathroom and I want to check it out with someone whose
eyes are a little sharper than mine.”

“So
it looks like I’m coming with you,” I told Autumn. I smiled.

“Well—I
mean, if you wanted to go straight home, that would be fine, too,” she said
quickly. “You’re not on the clock or anything. I’d hate to get in the way of
any other plans you might have.”

“No
plans,” I said, shrugging off the idea. “Maybe I can get some of my own errands
run while we’re out? That’d at least save me a trip later in the week.”

“It’s
a deal,” she agreed with a nod.

We
got into the SUV that her parents loaned her for errands and I let Autumn
drive; I didn’t even consider the possibility of asking for the keys. In a way,
she was almost my sub-boss, since she was the daughter of the man I was working
for. It’d be presumptuous for me to try and take the captain’s seat on this
expedition.

“Do
you want to listen to anything in particular?”

I
watched as Autumn connected her phone to the stereo system. “I’m pretty open,”
I told her. “As long as you aren’t going to play Enya or something.” She
laughed.

“I
play it sometimes for Addie to fall asleep to, if she’s especially wound up,
but it’s not my idea of driving music.” She scrolled through her music library
and selected something; a moment later as she began to pull out of the
driveway, turning around to take the long, dirt path up to the road, OK Go’s
“Upside Down Inside Out” started playing.

The
drive into town was just as long as usual. The Nelsons’ farm was barely within
the county lines. “So, what all do we need to pick up while we’re out?”

Autumn
gestured to the cloth bags she’d thrown into the backseat of the car before
she’d settled herself behind the wheel. “Since we’ve started pulling some of
the fruits and veggies from the garden, I’m mostly supposed to be getting
staples,” she explained. “Rice, pasta, dry beans, things like that. Also, we’re
out of the detergent that Mom likes and a few other cleaning products, odds and
ends.” I nodded; it seemed like the work on the farm never ended, even when I
wasn’t there.

“Then
there’s a few things she needs me to get from the hardware store—little things
to fix a few issues around the house. It’s a pretty boring trek, to tell you
the truth; I’m glad that you’ll be with me.”

We
chatted on the way to the grocery store, and I found myself remembering the
story that Autumn had told me about her daughter, and her daughter’s father.
The facts had gotten slightly fuzzy in my head in the weeks since—after all,
I’d been starting to feel the effects of the cold medicine when she’d told me
about it. But I remembered that she’d been engaged to Titan, and that he had
left her for someone else, abandoning their child at the same time.

“Have
you started planning Addie’s first birthday yet?” Autumn blushed in the
driver’s seat as she pulled into a spot at the grocery store.

“No.
I’m not even sure that I’m going to try and make any kind of big deal about
it,” she said. “I mean—it’s her first birthday. She’s not going to remember it,
whether it’s huge or tiny. Besides, I don’t want to put myself to the stress of
dealing with all the planning that comes with some huge party.”

“As
long as you get some pictures, I don’t see why it needs to be anything more
than that,” I agreed. “Make her a little cake, sing her Happy Birthday, and
call it done.”

Autumn
laughed. “Well, it is an opportunity to get some people to buy some things she
needs,” she pointed out. “I don’t know if I’m going to throw some kind of big
party, but I’ll probably invite some friends over for lunch or dinner.”

I
laughed at the idea of presents as a way to get people to buy things that Addie
needed; but then I realized that it was a very real thing—that in spite of the
fact that the Nelson farm was successful and Autumn had adequate support for
her daughter, the lack of a father made it harder for her. She was, at the end of
the day, a single mom.

“Well,
if you do decide to throw an actual party—even a small one—invite me and let me
know what I can get her,” I told her. “That there is my long-future best girl.”

Autumn
giggled. “By the time she even could be, you’d be way too old for her,” she
told me tartly. “But I appreciate it. I’ll keep it in mind.”

We
went into the grocery store and I took over steering the cart, letting Autumn
walk by my side as we made our rounds, putting stuff into the cart as she
consulted her list.

It
felt good—weirdly peaceful—to be with her, buying groceries, chatting casually.
She took out her parents’ card and paid for her purchases, and I set mine aside
to pay for them with my own money. I’d bought a few odds and ends I needed,
like a new razor and a few bars of soap, some cereal—stuff that would keep just
fine in the car while we did the rest of the things we were in town to get
done.

The
hardware store obviously knew Autumn pretty well, above and beyond the normal small-town
familiarity. She asked about the parts and pieces she was there to buy, and
Tommy—who I knew from working construction jobs—chatted with her like an old
friend.

“You
two sure are cozy,” I observed when Tommy went to go check on something in the
back storage area for her.

“You
almost sound jealous,” Autumn countered. She grinned up at me. “Tommy and I had
the same ninth grade math class—so we’ve been friends a while now.”

“I
think he’s got a little crush on you,” I told her. She rolled her eyes and
shook her head.

“He’s
completely in love with Delilah Jameson,” she said, giving me a little
confidential look. “Has been ever since tenth grade—just has never gotten the
nerve to do anything about it.”

I
went around with Autumn as she went about the rest of her errands, picking up a
few items at the dry cleaner’s, grabbing something from the family’s box at the
post office, until we’d ticked off every item on the list.

As
we headed back to the farm, Autumn went a little quiet. “Something bothering
you?” She licked her lips and glanced at me.

“I
was wondering,” she said slowly, “would you want to maybe stop by my place? I
mean, I live in the guest house on the other end of the property, so it’s not
like you’d be hanging out with Dad and Tuck. I just thought it might be nice to
hang out for a bit, maybe have a beer.”

I
wanted to say yes—God, I wanted to say yes. But I took a deep breath and
reminded myself of what I’d promised Bob Nelson.

“I
need to head home,” I told her, shaking my head. “Between working on the
tractor and going all over town this afternoon, I’m pretty beat.”

Autumn
glanced at me again, and I saw the little flicker of sadness in her eyes, the
loneliness. But she rallied in an instant and smiled.

“Well,
we’ll give it a rain check then; how about that?” I nodded, accepting that
idea, even though we both knew I could never follow through on it.

“Sounds
good—sometime soon,” I said, feeling ashamed of myself for lying.

Chapter
Thirteen

Autumn

For
once, I had a few minutes to myself: Addie was down for a nap, the chores were
more or less done, Mom was at the doctor’s, and Dad, Tuck, and Cade were all
out in the fields.

For
a few weeks, I had been thinking about the future—really, almost torturing
myself with it. I’d sent Titan a message asking him if he ever intended to meet
his daughter, since she was on the point of turning a year old. I
wanted—needed—some kind of closure on the issue.

If
Titan didn’t care about his little girl, then I would move forward with my life
without even considering what he might think or feel or want for Adelyn. I had
been holding out hope that he at least would be interested in meeting his
daughter for her first birthday or that he’d want to have something to do with
her—at least, he would want to know something about her.

It
had hurt me more than I had imagined it would that he hadn’t wanted to be
around for her birth and hadn’t even made the trip to see her in the week or
two after she was born.

I
could understand—maybe—Titan falling in love with someone else. But Adelyn was
his
child
. Surely, he’d at least want
to know who she was, wouldn’t he?

While
I pondered that, I found my laptop in my bedroom and started it up. I could
have checked my email on my phone, but I preferred to check it on my computer.
I was more likely to actually reply to something that way.

I
started when I heard the start-up tone, looking into Addie’s room in the
suspicion that she might have woken up. There wasn’t even the faintest sound
other than her breathing, and I sighed with relief. It wasn’t just that I
occasionally needed a break from constant chores and care of my daughter, but
also that I knew that if she ended her nap early, she’d be grouchy and fussy
all the rest of the day.

I
opened my browser, logged into my email, and took a deep breath. There were a
few spam emails, a forward from one of my cousins…things that I didn’t
particularly care about and couldn’t bring myself to do more than just delete,
sight unseen.

But
then, as I scrolled, I saw that Titan had replied to my email—a week after the
fact.
At least he replied at all, unlike
the other times you emailed him,
I thought. The only other reply I’d gotten
from Titan since he’d left for the East Coast had been his response that he
wouldn’t be coming out for Addie’s birth.

I
opened the email and read.
Hey, Autumn.
Forgot to reply to this earlier, but Katie said I should probably get back to
you.
I rolled my eyes at that; apparently his new girlfriend—Katie—was
reading his emails.

I
figured that considering he’d met her online while he was engaged to me, I
couldn’t blame her for being suspicious. If I were the type of woman to get
involved with someone in a relationship, I don’t think I’d ever be able to
trust them, which was why I was not that type of woman.

I
made myself keep reading.
Katie and I are
really happy together, and I don’t plan on coming back to Iowa any time soon
for any reason. I hope that answers your questions.
He had attached a
picture of himself and his new girlfriend to the email, snuggled up close on a
couch in some bar.

“Well,”
I said to myself quietly. “He’s right about one thing: that answers my
questions.” I shook my head and closed the email, setting my laptop aside.

I
told myself that I hadn’t really thought I’d ever truly see Titan again. I told
myself that I had expected something like this when he didn’t reply to my email
within a day or two. I tried to convince myself that I’d been expecting it ever
since he’d said he wouldn’t be in town to see Addie when she was born.