“Nothing,” he said. “I just want to know about why you left.”

  “I told you about Charlie.”

  Yeah, she had. And he’d believed her. Looking at her now, the two of them squaring off on her front porch, and Jed didn’t want to do this. Something inside him drove him forward. The truth. He had to know the truth if there was any hope of a future between him and Cherry.

  “Is there anything else?”

  She folded her arms, her throat working as she swallowed.

  “There is,” he said. “I’ve seen this look on your face before.” He sighed and shook his head. “I thought we weren’t keeping secrets.”

  “I just haven’t told all of mine yet,” she said, her voice tinny. “Have you?”

  “All the big ones,” he said, bringing his gaze back to hers. “Yes, all the important ones.”

  “I’m just a little bit behind you,” she said. “That’s all.” She took a step toward him and put one hand on his chest. He backed up, because he didn’t want her taking comfort from him while she told him this secret. He’d allowed that in the past, but right now? She had to do this on her own.

  Her hand fell back to her side as shock flowed through her expression. It only stayed for a second, and then she covered over it with the perfect way she shuttered everyone and everything off. Including him.

  “I made a lot of mistakes at that time in my life,” she said, falling back to the doorway. “I’ve made a lot since. It seems every man I date turns out to be a mistake.” Her words struck him right in the throat, and he sucked in a breath.

  Was he a mistake?

  Just another one of Cherry’s mistakes, he thought.

  She rubbed her forehead, not aware of what she’d done to him. Not aware that she’d shot chemicals into his blood that would eat him from the inside out.

  “Do you know Brandon Alcott?” he asked, somewhat surprised his voice still worked.

  She gasped then, and her eyes searched his face. “I know him,” she whispered.

  “He said for a night,” Jed said, lifting his chin, fully aware it made him a better target. He felt like his whole body—his heart, his mind, his very soul—had been target practice for this woman. And she’d shot him through the heart, hooked it, and yanked it out.

  He couldn’t stand here, and the same urge he’d had in the Hallmark store to leave overcame him again. “I have to go,” he said, turning and practically jumping down the steps.

  “Jed,” she called after him. He turned at the bottom of the steps and ducked his head, sort of turning back to her. “I can explain.”

  “Bring dinner,” he said. “I have work to do.” With that, he walked away, got behind the wheel, and drove away from Cherry’s house without looking back. He didn’t need to be made the fool of anymore for her, but he’d still left the door open should she want to nudge it and then walk inside.

  But that was up to her, and Jed seriously doubted that she’d do it. He’d been the one kicking at her doors for months now, and any ground he’d gained was because she allowed it, not because she wanted it.

  Not because she wanted him.

  19

  Cherry’s stomach rioted all afternoon and well into the evening. The scent of the pizza she picked up about seven-thirty actually made her gag. She put a smile on her face, thanked the girl behind the counter, and took the three boxes to her car.

  With them getting a ride in the backseat, she made the forty-five minute drive to Forrester Farms by going west and then north, around the long way.

  So it really took her over an hour, and she was able to go past Betty Jones’s farm along the way.

  Jed’s cabin had a light shining out of every window, which told her he was inside, waiting for her. “Not just waiting,” Cherry said, a metallic taste in her mouth. “He’s expecting you.”

  That thought gave her hope and courage, and she got out of her car, slammed the door hard, and turned to get the pizza. She fully expected to see Jed standing on his porch when she faced the cabin again, and he did not disappoint her.

  This is good, she told herself. He wants to listen to you. He didn’t break-up with you. Don’t blow this.

  Cherry wielded the pizza like a shield, something she’d never had to do before, and approached the bottom of the steps. Jed Forrester made her do a lot of things she’d never done before.

  He didn’t speak, but Cherry knew this was about her. “Evenin’,” she drawled, putting her foot on the bottom step. Committed now, she went all the way to the top.

  Jed leaned against the pillar there, his face shadowed from his cowboy hat. She’d noticed that he wore his indoors, something her mama would never allow. At the farmhouse, he did take it off and hang it on the rack with her brothers’. So he respected her mama’s rules.

  He respected her.

  Panic plunged through her. Would he respect her after this confession?

  “Inside?” she asked.

  He turned and went inside, leaving the door open for her. She followed him, and in his kitchen, he took the pizza boxes, and said, “Thanks for coming.”

  “You didn’t think I was going to.” Cherry tucked her hands into her pockets and looked around his kitchen. He’d cleaned it, probably while he was waiting, and she didn’t see any evidence of his dinner.

  “I had a bowl of cereal about forty minutes ago,” he said.

  “I drove the long way,” she said. “By the Jones farm.”

  His eyes came to hers. “You did?”

  She nodded, every cell in her body trembling. “Jed, I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Why?”

  She took a deep breath and told herself to just begin. Begin, and keep going. “I dated Charlie Hooper for a long time. Eight years. Maybe nine. He promised me over and over that as soon as he got this promotion, we’d get married. Then it was that position. Then he needed to do the K9 training, then he thought he might go to Chicago and do the FBI training.”

  She swallowed, but this was important backstory. “I loved him so much, I couldn’t see the lies. I couldn’t see that he didn’t really love me. He loved the idea of me. He didn’t want to be alone.”

  Just like her. Cherry didn’t want to be alone. But now…

  “I figured out after a while that being alone was better than being with someone who didn’t love me. Who didn’t want me.”

  Jed nodded, his attention still on her as he flipped open each pizza box. She’d gotten Texas barbecue chicken, because he loved that. And then a white ham and pineapple—also one of his favorites—and then all-meat with mushrooms, because she’d heard him order that before.

  How the man could eat mushrooms, she didn’t know. But she knew he loved them, and she needed something to win him back. Food might work, but with Jed, she never knew.

  “I stayed with him, even after I knew I shouldn’t. No one in my family liked him. Anyway, one night we went to dinner at Carver’s. You know, the really nice steakhouse? Couples get engaged there. I thought maybe he’d changed his mind. I was all dressed up. Perfect. Ready.”

  She slumped onto one of Jed’s barstools while he got down plates. He picked up two pieces of the ham and pineapple and served it to her first. His eyes met hers, and tears filled her whole body.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  He joined her with a plate full of pizza before she picked up her first slice. Even then, she didn’t take a bite. Not yet. He didn’t either.

  “I made so many mistakes with Charlie,” she said. “When he broke up with me at Carver’s, he laughed. He said he needed to be Chief before he could even think about getting married, and even then, he’d have to be really careful about who that person was.”

  She shook her head and bit off the pointy end of her pizza. The Alfredo and ham made so much creamy saltiness in her mouth that she found the strength to go on.

  “I left, blubbering. So angry. And instead of going home and figuring out my life, I made another bad decision.”

  Jed finally took a bite of pizza, and eating had to mean he wasn’t too mad, right?

  “I went to some bar a few miles down the road. The Burro or something. There was a guy there. I didn’t care. I went home with him instead, because I just…” She blew out her breath and stared across the island, the pizza, the sink, and out the back window. Darkness had already covered Texas, and Cherry had felt it infect her life previously too.

  “I just wanted someone to love me.” She knew intimacy was more than physical, but that night, she’d been so distraught. So upset. “I felt like the past ten years of my life had been a huge waste.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jed whispered.

  Cherry put down her pizza, the worst still not out yet. “I didn’t know Brandon Alcott. I figured out he was friends with Trav and Charlie, and that was awful enough. A few weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant. I left town.”

  Jed’s head jerked toward hers, but Cherry turned away from him. “That’s why you left?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you have a child.”

  When she didn’t answer immediately, he said, “That’s a huge secret, Cherry.”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I don’t have a child. I lost the baby only a couple of weeks later.”

  “Oh.”

  They sat there, only the hum of his refrigerator for sound, neither of them eating despite the astronomical amount of food she’d brought.

  “So Charlie was a huge mistake,” Cherry said. “Brandon was. Every relationship in San Antonio—real or the ones I imagined between me and my stupid boss—they were all mistakes. Every man I get mixed up with turns out to be a mistake.”

  Jed drew in a breath, but Cherry didn’t dare look at him yet. Her neck started to ache on the left side from how she kept it ducked from him, but she didn’t care.

  She’d known this would be hard, and it was. Harder than she’d even imagined.

  She took one more bite of pizza and then pushed her plate away. “It’s late. I should go.” She slid from the barstool, sure Jed would come after her. Tell her not to go. She didn’t need to do that, because it was barely eight-thirty.

  She walked through his house, and only Fish got up to say goodbye. She paused and bent down to pat the dog. “I’m sorry, Fish,” she said, hopefully loud enough for Jed to hear too. “Maybe he’ll feed you my uneaten pizza.”

  She twisted the doorknob and left the cabin. Jed would feed Fish a lot of pizza, because while he was forever telling Cherry that he was just a dog, Jed wanted him to be happy too. And pizza made everyone happy.

  Except Cherry.

  She drove home, the light coming from her house more subdued and definitely not as welcoming. Just inside the door, she stopped and surveyed the space. She’d been here almost a month, and she’d done a lot to make this place hers.

  She’d sewn curtains with Shay and put them up. She and Rissa had gone shopping at the holiday fair and purchased a couple of pillows in Cherry’s style. They rested on the couch, smiling at her in pinks, blues, and yellows.

  She didn’t cook much, but she’d already done her dishes that day—right when Jed had stopped by, actually.

  Feathers appeared at the mouth of the hall, and Cherry gazed at the cat. “Mrow,” she said, and that got Cherry to move away from the closed front door.

  “Yeah,” she said to the feline. “That’s how I feel too.” She collected a pint of ice cream from the freezer and went down the hall to her bedroom. This house only had two of them, without a master suite.

  A big bathroom sat between the two bedrooms, and each one had a door leading into it. If she kept the door closed in the spare bedroom, Cherry could pretend she had a master retreat, with a complete en suite, when she didn’t.

  She’d been pretending for so much of her life, and she was so tired of that.

  She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text to Jed. I didn’t mean to keep it from you. I was planning on telling you. I don’t want to pretend it’s nothing, but it was twelve years ago. I don’t want us to be nothing either.

  She would reveal so much if she sent that, but she didn’t know how to not let him know. She wanted him to know.

  “You do,” she said, and with that, she hit send.

  Jed answered about a minute later, but Cherry had plugged her phone in and dug into the ice cream by then. It took her an extra moment to get to her phone, and she read quickly.

  We’re not nothing, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

  Relief flooded her, and Cherry laid back against her pillows. She’d been fighting the urge to cry since Jed had banged on her front door and said the name Brandon Alcott.

  She didn’t fight anymore, and she let the tears roll down her face. “Thank you,” she said, because the cleansing force of forgiveness was very real to her in that moment. Not only from the Lord, but from the people here on earth she didn’t want to think badly of her.

  20

  Jed couldn’t stop thinking about Cherry, and not always in the best way. He worried that he hadn’t reacted right with her. He had moments of anger and then more moments of regret that he’d been angry at her for something that had happened a long time ago.

  He didn’t want to judge her, as he wasn’t perfect himself. His mama and daddy had taken him to church growing up, and Jed believed most people really were good. Even if he hadn’t attended a sermon in a while, he still knew he could pray, and he still believed God could and would forgive him.

  And not just him. Anyone who honestly tried to do better. Cherry was one of those.

  And yet, he found himself judging her. Then he felt guilty about that.

  Jed definitely existed in a state of turmoil, and that, combined with his workload now that the farm was operating back on a normal schedule, kept him from making the drive to Short Tail.

  His busyness kept him from texting, and he’d never really called Cherry during the day all that often.

  Distance grew between them, and Jed hated it. He could repair pigsties, barns, fences, and goat pens. But he didn’t know how to build a bridge between him and the woman he’d started to fall in love with.

  The day for him and Cherry to go visit Betty Jones’s farm came, and he texted her that morning that he wasn’t feeling well. He canceled with Betty as well, rescheduled for the next week, and went to Mama’s for breakfast.

  “Hello, son,” she said, rising to get him a mug. “Do you want coffee?”

  He sighed as he sat at the dining room table, where only a couple of weeks ago, he’d shared a glorious Christmas Eve meal with his family—and Cherry.

  “Yes, please,” he said at the same time Daddy said, “That sigh doesn’t sound good.”

  The back door opened about then, and Chris asked, “Jed’s sighin’ again?”

  “I’m not,” Jed said, pushing his cowboy hat forward to hide his face.

  “You did,” Daddy said.

  Mama set a mug of hot coffee in front of Jed, and he reached for the sugar bowl. He spooned in one, two, three scoops while Chris said he wanted coffee too, please.

  “Three huge spoons,” he said next. “Something’s going on.”

  “Nothin’s going on,” Jed said.

  “I heard him sighing out in the stables a couple of days ago,” Chris said. “He goes out there to talk to the horses when he’s upset.”

  “I’m not upset,” Jed said, though he was starting to feel upset.

  “What are you upset about?” Mama asked, placing Chris’s coffee on the table and retaking her seat.

  “It’s not Stonehenge, is it?” Daddy asked. “I know you can get him to settle into a good cow horse.”

  “Stonehenge is comin’ along,” Jed said. The horse did have a stubborn streak, but most mares did, and she’d actually need it when trying to get back the stubborn cows that wandered from the herd. “Once I get her going, Easton’s gonna train her for the NRCHA.”

  “That’s great,” Daddy said. He’d entered several National Reined Cow Horse Association events over the years, and he had registered sires in the group. Easton rode really well, and he was especially gifted in the herd work segment of the three-part competition. He counted on Jed to get the horses up to speed with their reining, and then he took over for cutting and cow working.

  “It’s Cherry,” Chris said, calmly lifting his mug to his lips.

  Jed threw him a death glare and took an overzealous gulp of his coffee. Big mistake, as it was hot, and it scorched his throat. He choked and coughed, and Chris calmly set his mug down and smiled.

  “It’s Cherry.” He said it without room to argue, and Jed found he couldn’t anyway.

  With everyone looking at him, he stirred his coffee, the storms inside him increasing. “I…don’t know. I learned something about her, and I’m…off-kilter. That’s all.”

  “You’ll get back to yourself,” Daddy said.

  “You better,” Mama said, her voice more severe than Jed was expecting. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “Oh, come on, son. She’s the best woman you’ve ever dated. I’ve never seen you light up the way she lights you up. Ever.”

  Jed didn’t want to argue, but he didn’t have to agree either. He took a delicate sip of his coffee now, his mind running away from him again.

  “Remember when Deb rejected my first proposal?” Chris asked, and Jed jerked his attention across the table to his brother. He wore a small smile, but his eyes told Jed he was somewhere in the past. “I was devastated. I thought, well, that’s that, and I tried to move on.”

  “You did not,” Mama said, swatting Chris’s hand. “You moped around here for an afternoon, and then you said, ‘I have to get her back, Mama. How do I do it?’”

  Chris gave her a smile. “Sounds about right.” He looked back at Jed, his eyes turning more marbled. “How’d I do it?”

  Jed opened his mouth to speak, but it was too dry. He swallowed and tried again. “You came to me. I said you get over there and you talk to her. You tell her she’s the one for you, and you love her, and you’ll do whatever you have to do to make her happy.”