Page 53 of Harvest Moon

I played my role for the rest of lunch, and Aspen was pleasant and charismatic and easy to talk to, but my mind was miles away. With Ridge, on his parents’ porch, or digging in the dirt in one of their fields.

Aspen drove me back to Claudia and Birch’s place after lunch, and thanked me for my help. I told him to talk to his brother, and more important, Brook.

Then I rushed inside, straight to my room.

My phone was dead, of course, so I had to plug it in and wait for it to charge enough to turn on, tapping my foot impatiently. Why didn’t I have Ridge’s phone number memorized?

Hell, maybe I should just go out there to yell at him in person. That was what it was going to be, I was pretty sure. If he had really pulled back because of some “alpha provider” nonsense, I was going to damn well have words for him.

Finally, my phone loaded. Twenty texts from various acquaintances. Two voicemails. Weird.

I almost skipped them, but they were from Ridge, so I hit the button and put my phone to my ear. “Hey, Lexis...”

I sat there, listening to the messages. Then again. And again.

Sonofabitch.

What the hell would have possessed him not to tell me about his parents selling the farm? That was kind of important, and I could have helped him. Hell, maybe I could have helped him buy the place himself.

There was a soft knock, drawing my attention to the doorway, where Colt stood. “Hey. I just wanted to let you know, Birch is here and Claudia’s asleep, so I’m gonna head home.”

“How was she?” I asked automatically, and he winced.

“There was a lot of complaining about food. Apparently you’re the anti-muffin-man.” He tried, and mostly failed, to cover a smile at that. “Gotta say, I don’t blame her. This low-carb stuff is for the birds. But if I’m being honest, I do feel better when I follow Skye’s diet.”

“It’s mostly how I already ate. Growing up around farms instead of fast food, I guess. I was always jealous as a kid, but maybe it was really for the best.” A tiny part of me felt guilty about that. Had something I’d resented as a kid possibly been responsible for how healthy I was as an adult? I glanced back down at my phone and had a moment of inspiration. “Hey Colt, you drove, right?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. Leaning his whole body against the door jamb, he rolled his eyes. “I just back from DC this morning. Had to do a Senator Self-Important photo shoot.”

By Senator Self-Important, I presumed he meant his father, and I wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole. I, of all people, understood being frustrated with a parent’s out-of-touch way of thinking.

Instead of addressing that, I stood up. “Any chance you could drive me out to the Hill farm before going home? I know it’s out of your way, but—”

“It’s like three miles away, Alexis. Of course I can drive you over there. You ready to go now?”

“So ready,” I agreed. I’d been ready for this for months. Years.

This was it.

The last time I would throw myself at Ridge and hope for the best.

30

Ridge

After lunch, I’d gone out to the fields. There was nothing to clear the head quite like tilling dirt, and there was plenty to turnover.

Like an absolute loon, I’d decided to do it with the old hoe from the barn—the one Ford mostly used to break up manure from the animals. But here I was, swinging at the ground, set on doing it until I had blisters on both hands and was too tired to move.

Working out in the fields, it was never hard to tell if someone was coming up to the farm. Mostly, that meant Barbara or Henrik coming back from town. Every once in a while, Ford went out to get a drink at The Cider House with his brother, but he mostly kept to himself.

Still, far as I knew, Barbara and Henrik were both up at the farmhouse, and Ford was at the barn checking the heaters for the animals. If we needed gas or new equipment, we were going to run out of time before things started to get cold if we didn’t get a move on. Time always went faster in fall than I expected.

Whoever was coming out to the farm was driving a fancy silver car, the kind that looked like it belonged in a city, not out on a dirt road.

It pulled over in front of the farmhouse and dropped someone off. The driver didn’t get out, but turned around the tree and went back the way they came, leaving an all too familiar man standing there, looking up at the house.

I sighed, leaning against the old hoe. The sun was just starting to dip. From here on out, the days would get shorter and shorter. But the light practically glowed in Alexis’s soft brown hair, framed his muscled shoulders.

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