Page 58 of Sweet Surrender

“I guess so,” Nick said, nodding.

“We weren’t all especially good in school,” Zane told him. “And none of us are really using all the things we learned there on a daily basis, except maybe your Uncle West. But all of us have something to contribute here on the farm—or out in the world, if that had been what we’d chosen.”

“But Ilikeschool,” Nick said, then buttoned his lips again.

Zane waited a moment, but Nick didn’t seem like he wanted to say anything more.

“I’m so glad you like school,” Zane told him. “I did too. I used to love seeing all my friends and playing sports and doing activities in class, even if I never liked the tests or the homework much.”

Nick nodded slowly.

“Your brother happens to be really good at schoolwork,” Zane said. “And you’re really good at making new friends, right? Both of those things are okay. Both of them are amazing.”

Nick looked down, his expression blank.

“It’s important to me that you’re well-behaved and respectful to your teachers at school,” Zane said firmly. “And it’s important to me that you try your best and be honest.”

Nick nodded.

“But as long as you’re doing those things, I don’t care if you don’t have good grades,” Zane told him honestly. “I love you no matter what. I’m so glad you’re my son, and I’m so proud of you that I want to hang your picture up on billboards on the highway.That’s my boy.”

Nick couldn’t help a tiny smile at that.

“You just be you, Nicholas Lawrence,” Zane told him firmly. “That’s all I’ll ever want.”

Nick was up from the table in a heartbeat, his arms wrapped around Zane’s neck as he hugged him hard.

A few hours later,Zane was standing in the park, the boys jumping up and down with excitement as they watched the end of the snowball fight.

Nick and Cal had performed well for the first hour or so, but they got lazy and silly after that, probably because they were tired, and they were both eliminated at once in a pretty impressive move by one of the older kids.

After a quick ice cream break, they had come back to cheer on the remaining contenders. Once that was over, they planned to grab some lunch and come back for the tree-lighting ceremony at sunset.

She’ll be singing in the choir,he remembered, feeling his stomach twist.

But he would be seeing Becca a lot in town, since she lived here too. And of course, she would still be Cal’s teacher for the rest of the year. He was going to have to get used to bumping into her.

“We’re going to the tree thing, right, Dad?” Cal asked breathlessly when the snowball fight was finally over. “And we’ll stand up close, so we can hear the singing?”

“Don’t bother,” Nick said. “It’s never gonna work.”

“What’s not going to work?” Zane asked.

The boys exchanged a look.

“I want you to tell me what’s going on,” Zane said firmly.

“We just wanted you to see Miss Hawthorne,” Cal admitted. “So you would fall in love with her.”

Thunderstruck, Zane just stared down at his boys, completely at a loss as to how he should respond.

“We made sure you saw her at ice skating,” Cal went on. “And yesterday at the shop, we made you bump into her again. Today was supposed to bethird time’s the charm.”

That’s why Charlotte was being weird about asking for that barrel of ice cream. She didn’t ask for it. She was just covering for the boys…

“But it won’t work now,” Nick said darkly, before Zane could respond. “She doesn’t like me anymore. She won’t want to be my mom.”

“No,” Zane said a little too loudly. “She likes you so much, Nick. She was in that meeting fighting for you.”

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