Sometimes It Lasts(Sea Breeze #5)(44)

Maybe it was the way the sun was shinning in the room from the window or maybe it was just because I’d walked in here thinking things were different. That this meal meant something. But the diamond sparkling on Eva’s left hand mocked me silently. The good mood I’d been in was gone with one simple flash of a diamond. So was my appetite.

Jeremy was already sitting at the table, eating. He glanced up at me then went back to drinking his coffee. “Pecan crop was good this year. It’ll be better next year. I’ve never had to do the harvest without Wilson. I’m learning. If you want to pay for an extra crop dusting this year, we can afford it. I think it’ll pay off with the crop.”

Eva glanced at me nervously and twisted her hands in front of her as she covered her left hand with her right one. She had put it on. Now she was trying to hide it. “Uh, yeah. . . I guess. We’ll talk about it later,” she said, shifting her gaze from Jeremy to me and back again. “Help yourself. Plate’s on the table,” she said without looking at me.

I pulled out the chair across from Jeremy and watched as she hurried over to the coffeepot, poured a cup, and then set it beside my plate. “I, uh, y’all go ahead and eat. I think I’ll just go—”

“Have you eaten?” I asked, cutting off her attempt at escaping.

She shook her head.

“Do you get sick in the morning?” I asked, suddenly realizing I didn’t know about that part of her life now. Did our baby make her feel bad in the mornings?

She shook her head again. “No. Not anymore. That goes away. . . ,” she trailed off.

I stood back up and pulled out the chair to my left. “Sit down, Eva.” She stood there and stared at the seat like she wasn’t sure if she needed to bolt or if I could catch her.

“If you don’t sit down and eat, I’ll go back out there and work. I’m starving and your biscuits smell incredible, but if my being in here is keeping you from sitting down and eating, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit here. You need to eat.”

She lifted her eyes to meet mine, and it took every ounce of control I had to keep from grabbing her and kissing that surprised and confused looked off her face. Did she not get that I still loved her to distraction?

“Okay,” she said, sitting down while still holding my gaze. I pushed her chair in for her then went and sat back down.

“Good. Because this smells amazing,” I told her before reaching over and taking a biscuit and putting it on her plate before I got my own. I did the same with the bacon. “You want me to butter it?” I asked when I picked up the butter.

She sat there watching me like she wasn’t sure what to do with me. “No, I can do it. Thank you,” she replied, and took the butter from me.

“So, what’s this about the pecan crop?” I asked, looking at Jeremy.

He was slowly chewing a piece of bacon and watching me just as intently as Eva was. He swallowed. “Crop was good this year considering I’d never done the harvesting without Wilson and it’s been a few years since I was around to do the harvesting. We need to look at paying for an extra crop dusting. Will cost a pretty good penny, but it’s worth it.”

“We use the same crop duster every year? Is there one Wilson prefers or should we shop around and see if we can get a better price?”

Neither of them spoke, so I took a bite of my biscuit. Eva put the knife down from buttering her biscuit and I reached for her plate. “Gravy?”

She simply nodded. I gave her the portion she normally preferred and set her plate back in front of her. “Way I see it is, we should do what Wilson would have done. He did all the trial and error. His method would be the safest bet. How many crop dustings did he do a year?”

Again, crickets. I stood up and got Eva a glass of orange juice and sat it down beside her plate.

Jeremy finally cleared his throat when I sat back down and I leveled my gaze on him. “Yeah, I agree. When the crop was good, he did extra dustings. They paid for themselves that way.”

I turned my attention to Eva. “You feel good about that? Doing it the way your daddy did?”

She was cutting her biscuit up into little pieces, but she hadn’t taken a bite yet. “I, uh, yes, of course.”

I reached over and slid my finger under her chin to tilt her head up so she could see my face when I said the next thing. “If you don’t eat, I’m going go back to work. Please eat.”

She swallowed loud enough for me to hear her. “Okay,” she replied.

I dropped my hand and went back to eating. My talking apparently left them both in such shock that Jeremy didn’t know what to say and Eva couldn’t eat, so I stayed silent until I was satisfied with how much she’d eaten. Then I stood up and took my plate to the sink to rinse it and put it in the dishwasher.

“Thanks for breakfast. It was the best thing I’ve put in my mouth in a long time,” I told her before grabbing my hat and heading outside. That hadn’t been easy, but hopefully she was getting the hint that I wasn’t leaving.

Chapter Eighteen

EVA

“I don’t think he’s leaving, Eva. Y’all need to talk,” Jeremy said once we heard the truck crank back up outside.

“But. . . he has school. Baseball starts soon. What. . . Has he lost his mind? He isn’t making any sense.” I set my fork down. I’d had to force myself to eat because I wanted Cage to eat.