Thank you so much for waiting for this chapter. Once you read through it, you'll understand it wasn't an easy one to write. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you again for all the wonderful feedback. You keep me writing. All the best ~ firstkiss
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Adam and I laughed all the way back to the cottage. We told each other flirty little 'what-if' scenarios about how things might have been if he'd picked
me
up in the bar that night instead of Lilly. Being silly and casual and flirtatious again was such a relief. I'd forgotten how that side of me felt. And knowing we didn't mean a damn word of it, made me feel normal for a moment. Everything was simple again. I didn't know how to thank Adam for that.
We paused on the front porch. Five Tanner redheads bobbed around inside the windowed front room. The conversation looked so heated, neither Adam nor I wanted to intrude.
"What do you say we go get dinner started?" Adam muttered out of the corner of his handsome mouth. "We can sneak in the back door."
I opened my mouth to agree, but when Joe's eyes met mine through the glass, I couldn't speak. He looked so lost, so hurt. It was the first time I'd seen that expression on his face. Knowing I was the cause of it made my chest ache. I'd been so selfishly wrapped up in my own problems that I'd forgotten Joe had quite a few of his own.
Adam watched the silent exchange between me and Joe with a knowing smile. "Never mind," he whispered. He reached for the door and held it open for me. "Into the fray then."
There were empty beer bottles scattered around the table. Chuck and Matt's faces were too composed while Violet and Lilly looked like they had been crying. The bottom fell out of my stomach as I looked around the room. Something wasn't right.
I instinctively moved to the armchair where Joe sat and perched myself on the arm. I didn't know why, but I needed to be near him. His steady presence had always been calming. Strange how not too long ago, Lilly was the one in the room who I would have turned to. I wondered if she sensed the shift in allegiances.
"We've missed something big, haven't we?" Adam asked as he took his place beside Lilly.
"What's going on?" I inquired, my voice thick. My heart rate jumped as five pairs of Tanner-blue eyes trained on me.
Lilly spoke first.
"I know that maybe this doesn't mean as much to you as it does to us, but Dad's decided not to sell Joe the farm, he's going to put it on the market instead."
Joe went rigid and held his breath. He probably wasn't even aware he was doing it, but the tension radiated off of him. I wanted to reach down and touch him, but I didn't know how he'd react. Instead, I just curled my fingers tightly together and tried to process what Lilly had said.
"But it was agreed, the farm is Joe's. It's what he's always wanted, what you've all always wanted," I said slowly.
Adam shot me a significant look over the auburn heads
"Oh my God," I whispered as realization came crashing down on me. "This is because of me. He's not going to sell to you because of me?"
Joe didn't look at me. He just clenched his hands on his lap and stared at the floor.
"What did they say exactly?"
Silence.
Chuck's kind blue eyes found mine. "Joe has to make a choice. It's you and the baby or the farm."
I rose to my feet. "What? Are you fucking serious?" My temper crested as my heart twisted in my chest. "They can't do that!"
Adam cleared his throat. "It's their land Rhi, they can do what they want with it."
"So they put it on the market then!" I said loudly. I looked down at Joe, but with his head was bent I only saw the back of his tanned neck. "You can still buy it from them, albeit through different channels."
"I can't," Joe said. He spoke so quietly everyone in the room stopped breathing to better hear him. "I don't have the money Rhi. Dad was going to sell it to me cheap, let me pay slowly over time. What little I had saved up, I spent on this place. I have nothing to give him."
"
I'll
give you the money," I offered.
Joe raised his head then, his beautiful eyes were hollow. He didn't say anything, but I saw the flicker of hurt pride cross his face. He'd never take my money, even if it was the only option open to him.
"This is insane," I muttered. "How much are we talking about here? Maybe the bank will give you a loan?"
Lilly's voice was soft. "No bank is going to give him the money, Rhi, even if all five of us pitched in for a down payment. There's no collateral. It's too much."
"How much?" I demanded.
Everyone paused. Even Adam looked nervous.
"Nine-hundred-thousand, give-or-take," Matt said gruffly. "They could probably get more if they asked for it. It's the best acreage on the island, easily worth over a million."
I reached for my handbag and keys.
"Where are you going?" Violet asked, panicked.
"To sort this out," I vowed.
~*~
I stomped up the porch steps to the little yellow house two at a time. I didn't even knock. Joe's parents were sitting in the kitchen. Mrs. Tanner looked surprised to see me burst into the room. Mr. Tanner's expression flickered, but didn't change.
"This is bullshit!" I shouted.
The grim line of Mr. Tanner's mouth deepened but he remained silent.
"How can you punish him like this!? The farm is all he's ever wanted and you're going to take it away from him? He's worked his ass off for you his entire life! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
Mrs. Tanner looked as if she wanted to say something, but her husband shook his head and she bit her tongue.
I reached into my handbag and pulled out my cheque-book.
"What do you want for the farm? One million? Two?" I glared over the top of my cheque-book at the both of them. "Is that how much it's going to cost me so the two of you can feel better about yourselves? This isn't his fault and you're punishing him!"
"It isn't about the money Rhiannon," Mrs. Tanner said. "This has been Tanner land for seven generations. Joe has to consider his future and the future of this family. He's always known what is expected of him. We have always expected him to do the right thing."
I folded my arms and stared them down. I cocked an eyebrow. "Don't start giving me the speech about 'what's right', I've heard that enough from Joe lately. Do you really know your son so little that you think he hasn't tried to do that? The first thing he did was ask me to marry him!"
Mrs. Tanner looked shocked. Realization jolted me. Joe must have skipped over that part of his earlier conversation with them.
"You're going to make him choose between me and the farm. Don't you care about him at all?" I knew they'd be upset and shocked but they were such nice, good people. I never would have predicted this kind of reaction. Never. I'd always thought the Tanners were the perfect family, so loving and supportive of each other even if they were old-fashioned. It was difficult for me to admit to myself that they might have flaws and that they weren't the idealized family I always thought they were.
"He's already chosen," Mr. Tanner bit out. He glared up at me with those damn blue eyes and a face so much like Joe's it was scary. It was as if it was Joe staring up at me -- Joe twenty-five years from that moment, with a face weathered by countless hours on the back of a tractor, five children, and a world of worries. And looking at Mr. Tanner I knew without being told which option Joe had chosen.
I clutched at the back of the nearest kitchen chair, suddenly dizzy.
"No," I whispered. "He can't do this. The farm is his heart! It's who he is!"
"We know," Mrs. Tanner said quietly.
Paris.
The idea snuck up so silently in the back of my brain it made my knees quake under me. Joe couldn't choose me if I was not around to choose. I could leave and he would have the farm, have what was rightfully his, what he loved most in this world. There was no need for him to play the hero if I disappeared. His parents were forcing him to make a decision which wasn't fair, but two could play at that game. If I took away the second option, they'd have to forgive him and sell him the farm.
I would miss Mrs. Nichol, Lilly and Adele like crazy, but maybe Paris was a place where my child could grow up knowing nothing of the person I had been before I became a mother. The old Rhiannon sat like a ghost over my shoulder. Carefree, unapologetic, and without responsibility. She was a woman I hardly recognized anymore, gone in the aftermath of one night with Joe. Strangely enough, I didn't miss her. I didn't regret her; I just wasn't that person any more.
Joe's parents eyed me warily. I'd always thought they liked me, but I guess all those years of being Lilly's friend didn't translate to my being a suitable mother for their first grandchild. Was it really too much to ask them to accept me? Could I really blame them for having
some
reservations? No one knew better than I did how wrong of a person for Joe I truly was. Yet it stung to think that Joe's parents, who had always welcomed me into their home as Lilly's friend, couldn't extend their kindness to me as the mother of Joe's child.
All those holidays I'd spent in their kitchen, all those times they'd greeted me at the front door flashed before me. In the past, they made me feel like I was a part of their family but now I knew how they really felt about me. It had all been a lie. They were just being polite—for Lilly's sake—because it was the 'nice' thing to do. The bitter taste of betrayal stalled in the back of my throat.
"If I go away will you promise me the farm will be his?"
Mr. Tanner nodded slowly. A little flicker of emotion, maybe shock, crossed his face, almost as if he couldn't believe I'd just up and leave.
"Fine," I agreed. My voice sounded far away and so detached from my brain that the words I heard myself speak didn't seem to come from my own mouth. "I'll leave. Tonight."
I glanced over at Mrs. Tanner who sat so quietly at the end of the table. Her fair face was flushed with some unreadable emotion; whether it was anger or shame I couldn't tell. I wanted to yell at them, rail at them, tell them how selfish they were being, how heartless to deny Joe what he'd always worked to make his own simply because of me. But the words wouldn't come. The urge to scream my fury from the rooftops was nothing compared to my stunned disbelief over what just happened.
Were these the same people whom I'd cared for and respected all these years? I knew the news about the baby would shock them. After all, they'd pictured something else, someone else when they envisioned a wife for Joe and the arrival of their first grandchild. I expected them to be upset but still accepting, the way Lilly was. But I
never
imagined this. I didn't know what to do.
Paris
.
I could be in Paris by breakfast. Paris, where a mist of rain through the soft glow of the streetlamps at dusk was pure magic. Paris, where the bricks and stones knew of a million love affairs gone wrong. Paris, where maybe I could forget the gentle rasp of work-hardened hands against my skin, the smell of red earth, and Joe's heartbeat against my arm as I fell asleep curled beside him.
