Page 53 of More Than Falling in Love

I shrug.Sweet isn’t something I’m often called, and my tongue is in knots.

She stands in front of the chair.“Mind if I…” Pointing at my knee, she lifts an eyebrow.“Like in the tractor.”

“Oh, yeah.”I pat my legs.“Have a seat.”

Poppy settles onto my lap.“Is this okay?”

I’m shirtless and she’s sitting in my lap.Not the way I expected to spend the afternoon.“Totally.What are we supposed to do?There’s only one chair.And the floor is no good because of scorpions.”

“Right.”She scans the room and inches a little farther into my lap.“So…”

“Is this where you wheedle information out of me because I can’t run away?”

Grinning, she lets her gaze drift down to my chest, and then focuses on my face again.“I love that idea.”

I should be terrified.This should feel awkward.Besides the mild concern about being apart from Mason during a big storm, I’m content.“Ask away.”

“Do you have any siblings?”The woman goes right for the jugular.But she doesn’t know my brother is a sore spot for me.

“A brother.He’s four years older.”

“How often do y’all see each other?”

“We were never close, but he died in a car accident.”

Lips pinched, she studies my face.“I’m sorry.”

“Stuff happens.And like I said, we weren’t close.Never really got along.”

Her hands are folded in her lap, and she twists her fingers.“What about your parents?”

“I didn’t have a happy childhood, Poppy.”

Her lashes glisten, and she blinks.“I’m all ears.”

“My parents fought a lot.Pretty sure my brother hated me.We were poor.Dad drank a lot.It wasn’t good.”I may only be shirtless, but I feel completely exposed telling her this stuff.“When I was nine, there was one night when I didn’t take out the trash.It had rained, and I didn’t want to trudge through the mud.My dad didn’t care.Didn’t notice.He’d been drunk for hours.But when my mom walked into the kitchen, she hollered at me.And I stood there while she ranted about how nobody cared about her and nobody helped her.I felt horrible, and when she finished, I grabbed the trash bag.That stupid thing tore as I dragged it through the kitchen.”

Poppy leans into me, and I put an arm around her.

“My mom sobbed right there in the kitchen for like five minutes.But then she picked up her keys and left the house.I cleaned up the mess, then scrubbed the kitchen and mopped the floors.I wanted her to know that I cared.”I trail a finger up and down Poppy’s arm.“The next day, when I got home from school, Mom was gone.Packed her stuff and left.My brother got meaner.My dad drank more, and it was my fault.”

“That wasn’t about you, Kent.And she had to be crazy to leave you.I mean that.”

I turn my head to kiss her forehead but stop myself just in time.I can’t do that even if Mason says that’s the way friends kiss.

“I’m sorry that happened to you.I’m sorry life wasn’t different.”

“Yeah.But life shapes us.”

“I think you turned out pretty great.”She picks her head up off my shoulder.“And I’m not just saying that because you gave me the shirt off your back.”She snuggles in closer.“Tell me about your wife.”

Poor Poppy probably thinks this is the happy part of my story, at least until the dying part.But until coming to this ranch, there wasn’t a happy part of my story.Not really.

“I met Michelle when I was nineteen.She was a waitress and wrote her phone number at the bottom of my ticket.We only dated a few months before getting married.By then, my dad had drunk himself to an early grave, and my mom was still gone.Michelle was a year older, and I was convinced I’d finally achieved happiness and found someone to love me, someone who wasn’t going to leave.But I was wrong.We didn’t even last a year.”

Poppy is quiet, but I feel a tear trickle down my chest.

“I’m sorry.I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

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