Page 94 of Strike Zone

“If you need to cry, you can cry in here and no one has to know.”

Wyatt kisses me with so much love I feel it in my toes. The kiss opens the floodgates. Tears stream down my face, mixing with the water from the shower.

I can’t identify the feelings behind the tears. It feels like years of frustration from holding it together. For pretending to be strong when I should have let myself fall apart.

It’s also sadness and grief. I feel the loss of a life I could have had with Wyatt and it’s gut wrenching. In a few months there is going to be a giant hole in my heart and I don’t know how to get myself out of this mess.

Wyatt is silent as he washes my hair and my body. He makes quick work of cleaning up himself while I stand numb and afraid of our future.

He wraps me up in a towel and carries me to bed. “Feel better?” he asks, tucking us in.

“A little. Thank you.”

He pulls me closer into his chest and our legs tangle together.

With a sigh I say, “I don’t know how I’m going to say goodbye.” To you. I think to myself because I’m afraid to admit it out loud.

“Me too, baby,” Wyatt says, squeezing me tighter. His words make me think he knows I’m talking about him and maybe he doesn’t want to say goodbye to me either.

“And you said everything in that old barn was junk,” Jack gloats as we eat our ice cream sundaes on the screen porch at the back of the house.

One of the items buried in the barn was an antique ice cream maker. The kind you have to hand crank. He’s spent the last couple of days cleaning it and giving it new life.

That’s a personality trait he has passed on to all of his children. Each one of them sees the beauty in something when everyone else is blind to it.

“Yeah, yeah, you found maybe five things we can use,” Colt says.

“That barn stored the farm’s history.” Jack turns to me. “My family founded the town of Rivers Bend. My great-great-granddad came here and fell in love with the place. He said the land sang to his soul. He walked this land and knew it was where his family was meant to be.”

I look out to the wildflower fields and up to the hills where Wyatt plans to build a house one day. I feel the land too and the stirring in my soul. The urgency to plant roots so deep into the ground I can’t be moved. I want to leave my imprint here because after a few short days it’s left one on me. It only seems fair that I get to do the same.

“Are you trying to tell me those hills are alive with the sound of music?” Colt jokes, making everyone except Lennon laugh. The reference to The Sound of Music going over her head.

“Joke all you want kid. You know it’s true. Once you’re here it’s hard to leave.”

I squeeze Wyatt’s thigh just under where my knee is resting. We’re sitting on the little loveseat together. He’s been keeping his hands busy running his fingers from the hem of my shorts to the top of my knee since he devoured his ice cream in three bites.

“It is true,” Wyatt says. He takes hold of my hand. “Dad. Mama. I’ve decided I’m not going to enter the draft. I don’t want to play baseball after I graduate. I want to come back home and work. I know we need the money.”

“Money don’t matter,” his dad says, interrupting him. “Are you sure you don’t want to play? Growing up that’s all you wanted.”

“I’m sure. Dreams change. This is what I want to be doing. It’s been hard enough being away at college the past few years.”

“Those years served a purpose,” Faith says, looking directly at me.

“They did,” Wyatt agrees. His grip on my hand tightens.

“This will make you happy?” Faith asks.

“It’s a start.” Wyatt’s eyes burn into mine leaving so many words unsaid.

“There’ll be time for that too,” Faith says like the true matriarch of this family. Knowing and seeing everything we can’t. She knew there was something between Wyatt and me the first time she saw us pull up in his truck.

“I’m glad you’re going to be staying Wyatt. It isn’t the same here without you.” Willow leans over from where she’s sitting and gives him a side hug.

As soon as we get back to Newhouse, I have to come up with a plan to get the upper hand with Fred Abbott. He may think he holds the match but I’m holding the fuse. I’m not going to let him get close enough to blow up my world and everyone I care about.

25

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