Preston's Honor(67)

Maybe I’d end up back at the small shack where I’d been raised, despite hating living there so much. Despite every effort to stay outside more than inside, I pictured it now as a refuge . . . somewhere quiet where the only reason the walls felt as if they were closing in was because the space itself was so limited, not because it had the ability to crush my heart. I’d still had dreams there. Here . . . here my dreams had died. They had crumbled to ash and that ash was still slogging through my veins, making me feel so very, very hopeless.

What was wrong with me?

The back door opened and Preston walked in, shooting me a weak smile, his eyes going to the baby now fast asleep in my arms. He came over and bent to kiss him on his forehead, giving me a kiss on my cheek. He smelled like sweat and soil—the deep, masculine earthiness that had once made my heart race and my blood heat. But now it just elicited a dim recognition and nothing more.

What was wrong with me?

He didn’t seem to want me either, though, and the knowledge was an anguish that sat heavily on my heart. He’d never told me he loved me, just that he’d always wanted me. At least I’d had his passion . . . once. Even for just one shining moment in time—he’d wanted me that night. I didn’t doubt it and I’d hoped that it had meant he’d want me again.

He glanced over his shoulder as he washed his hands. “Want me to put him down?”

“Sure. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes or so. You must be hungry.”

He nodded and after he’d dried his hands, he walked back over to me and squatted down in front of the chair where I sat. I moved the baby forward in preparation of Preston lifting him from me, but he didn’t move to do so. I glanced at him and he was staring at me intensely, something flickering in his gaze that I wasn’t sure how to read. Was it desire? Did he want me, after all? I stared at him, my muscles tense, waiting for him to say something.

“Lia—”

“Yes?”

“Are you . . . how are you?” His voice was soft, a little bit raspy.

I opened my mouth to answer him, but I didn’t know why he was asking, what, if anything, he was looking for.

I don’t know. Help me. I don’t know. “I’m fine.”

His eyes moved over my face again for a moment and I wanted to cry. But that was the last thing he needed. He was hanging on to the farm by a thumbnail, I knew that, and I couldn’t add to what he was already struggling with.

He frowned slightly, hesitating. Then he reached up and trailed a finger down my cheek, sighing as his hand dropped away. He took the baby from my arms and stood, walking out of the room with him.

When he came back down a few minutes later, I was serving up dinner. He sat at the table and we ate in silence. When I looked up, he was staring thoughtfully out of the window. I looked back over my shoulder. “What?”

“If we get some rain in the next few days we could save one more strawberry crop. Just one more. It would save the farm.”

My heart fell even lower than it already was. “There’s no rain in the forecast.”

“I know.” He dug back into his food, and I tried to take a few bites but had no appetite. The dark cloud that followed me around seemed to have stolen all my physical pleasures, too.

“I stood out there tonight, though,” he started and I looked up, surprised that he was talking so much. His mother was usually here providing the chatter and Preston was generally quiet, even if it was just the two of us, which it rarely was, “and I said a prayer to Cole.” His eyes moved to mine. “I thought if anyone could bring the rain, maybe . . . maybe it was him.”

I froze, my heart stuttering and then picking up speed. It was the first time he’d mentioned Cole’s name since he’d died. A short huff of breath escaped my mouth, but Preston didn’t seem to hear it.

His eyes moved away from mine to the window behind me. He looked sad, but he didn’t only look sad and for a moment it shocked me out of the trance I’d been living in for months now. I couldn’t quite discern the other emotions in his eyes but they were there. I waited, holding my breath, wanting him desperately to say more, to clue me in to what was going on in his mind, in his heart.

“Just for the farm to be okay,” he murmured distantly. “It’s all I want.”

My heart throbbed, but only with a faraway sort of ache. Want me! my mind screamed. Let me be enough, or at least something. Just anything at all. Give me something to hope for.

“Preston,” I murmured, just as his chair scooted out, startling me with the sudden noise. Preston came to his feet and the chair clattered to the floor behind him. “What is it?”

He had raced to the window, looking out at the darkened sky as an incredulous laugh/choking sound burst from his mouth. I stood, too, looking at the window as a fat drop of rain pinged on the glass. I sucked in a sharp breath. “It can’t be.”

Preston ran to the door and threw it open, leaping down the steps and rushing into the middle of the backyard where he stopped and held his arms up to the sky, laughing wildly. I walked more slowly down the steps and through the grass toward him.

The rain, which had started as a smattering of drops, was now coming down steadily, drenching my hair and my clothes with warm wetness. A soaking rain, the kind farmer’s love. A disbelieving laugh bubbled up my throat and I looked up to the sky, too, raising my arms and mimicking Preston. I let my arms fall, but for several long minutes just stood with my face to the sky as it delivered the unbelievable gift of the rain.