She throws her arms around my neck and jumps into my arms, challenging the strength of my carefully built walls. “Are you kidding? I have a garden?”
“You have a garden. I wanted you to have something beautiful to look at from the back porch. And since I know you have well water, there’s no excuse for killing any of the stuff we plant.”
“We?” she asks, leaning back to smile into my face. The way her eyes shine makes all the time I spent worth it.
“Yes.” I point at the bags of soil and compost and the flats of seedlings which should take to the fresh soil in no time. “Some of them can be in the hydroponic grower. And there are worms and compost to keep the beds healthy.” I show her a water-and-soil contraption that will recycle the waste from the fish swimming below to make the plant system self-sustaining.
She stays in my arms and kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you. You are going to be the best dad ever. Compost and worms? What could possibly be better in the eyes of a little kid?”
As she slides down my front side to the ground, I feel the swell of her baby bump against my stomach. I pull her back and reach out to feel it. “Wait, come here. What’s happening under there?”
She lifts her denim shirt to show me her growing little bulge, which causes an unexpected swell of emotion. I’ve been seeing her slowly get bigger, but today it hits me harder that we’re having a baby together. That I’m going to be a dad.
“I know. Can you believe I’m almost halfway? But you’re being silly. I’m no bigger than when we video chatted two days ago.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s…fucking amazing. There’s a person in there. Our person.”
“And our person just started kicking me a little bit. I’m sure you’ll feel it while we’re together.”
Hearing her talk about “our” anything shouldn’t make me as happy as it does. The last thing I can afford to do is let in appropriate emotions cloud things. I remind myself of how badly things went the one time I opened up too much, how exposed I felt, and how I wrecked everything after that. I have too many burdens between this town and my own baggage, and then there’s Chad. There’s never a way to keep romance alive when I get pulled into his drama, and there’s always drama.
Same problems, different day.
“If you’re game, we can get started right now,” I say, tamping down my feelings and walking over to the pile of tools and grabbing a long-handled shovel and a hoe.
She surveys the plants stretching their tiny green sprouts toward the sun and looks a little uneasy. Taking in the entirety of her fallow land, she shakes her head and scowls. “I’m just realizing how much work this is going to be. I don’t know how I’m going to tackle it all.”
I grab her hand and lead her over to the seedlings, unable to ignore the zing of heat where our hands touch. “One plant at a time, that’s how. It’s the only way. You’ve got this, Duchess, and I’ll be here to help.”
She looks at me, and I see a hint of the smile I love so much.
“One plant at a time.” Tessa takes the shovel from me and goes over to one of the raised beds, where I’ve already prepared the soil for planting. “This is amazing. What are we planting?”
I point out tomatoes, peppers, basil, mint, and several other herbs and root vegetables. “Some of these we’ll want to sprout from seed, but the little sprouts grow quicker and give you instant gratification. They’ll take to the soil well in the weather we’re having.”
Tessa bounces on her toes, eager to get started. She’s wearing a loose-fitting pair of jeans and a white tee, looking like a teenager with her hair piled on top and sunglasses perched on her head. I pop a cowboy hat on Tessa’s head to shield her from the sun and carry over a little stool so she doesn’t have to bend over. “You think of everything, don’t you?” She kisses me on the cheek, and I turn away so she doesn’t see how it makes me smile.
“Can’t have you getting a sunburn,” I mutter, moving to the farthest raised bed and working on getting carrot and spring onion seeds spaced an inch apart.
We dig, plant, and fertilize in the warm sun until all the beds are finished. Tessa and I stand and admire them like proud parents. “These look so great,” she says. Her eyes sweep past the beds to the rest of the fallow land in the distance. “But I can see now that I need to deal with the rest of this property. It doesn’t look so good in comparison.”
“Little by little, Duchess. We’ll get there.” I shouldn’t be promising to be involved or even presuming she’d want me butting in, but this is my wheelhouse, and I feel a certain amount of pride in seeing things done right.
“You promise?” She leans against me, and I put an arm around her shoulders.
“I promise. Especially since you look so cute in my hat.”
I feel her inhale a deep breath, then let it out slowly.
“I’m kind of sad for this date to end. This has been so much fun.”
Turning her to face me, I wag a finger at her. “Who said it’s over? This was just part one. Follow me.”
An hour or so later,Tessa sits on a chaise lounge in my back garden. She’s still wearing the hat, which is unnecessary in the warm evening, but I like it and have no desire for her to take it off.
My grill tends to flame and sputter, so I have a chef’s apron over my denim shirt, sleeves rolled to my elbows. The meat has browned nicely on one side, so I flip the sirloins and roll the ears of corn to char on the other side. Closing the lid, I gaze at my baby mama, sitting there with a lemonade in one hand and a Sue Grafton mystery in the other. I catch her stealing glances at me every so often, but for the most part, she’s obeyed my instructions to relax and enjoy the evening while I cook.
While the grill does its thing, I slide onto the chaise next to hers and take a sip of my lemonade. “How’s the book?”