Chapter Forty-One
Miller James came calling at midnight.
I was as ready as I would ever be. I’d rehearsed what I was going to say and practiced it half a dozen times. I couldn’t recall any of those profound words at that moment, but surely when he climbed up my porch steps I would find them again and fling them his way like sticks of dynamite.
As he stepped from his truck, I swabbed my infernal tears away with a ratty tissue but didn’t bother getting up from my reclined position on the porch swing. I was drunk with grief, hungover with heartbreak. My only hope was that there had been a misunderstanding. Surely Miller wouldn’t declare his intentions, then pack a U-Haul and hightail it to another state.
“Are you crying?” he said as his boots carried him beneath the porch light. “Hattie?” Miller was by my side in an instant, and I had to rise from my comfortable seat to remove myself from his arms.
“I’m fine.” No, I wasn’t. I was devastated, hurt, confused. It was like when I watched those foreign movies with Rosie, who thought it was fun to turn off the subtitles and create the story yourself. The plot always escaped me, just like now.
“What’s going on?” Miller’s hands soothed my shoulders. “Tell me so I can help.”
“You told my family you wanted me in your life.” My voice cracked on the words.
“Yes.” He tilted his head and frowned. “And you’re upset by that?”
I brushed the dampness still leaking down my face. “But what you didn’t tell them—or me—was thatyour lifewould be in San Francisco.”
Shocked didn’t really describe Miller’s face. No, he was too smooth, too subtle for big, exaggerated expressions. Subdued surprise, perhaps? “Kayce told you?”
“I came to your house tonight.” When would I stop crying? I hadn’t even cried this much when Ned the Loser broke up with me. “I overheard you two talking. Are you quitting Hope Farms?”
“Quitting is certainly not how I would put it.”
“Then use your big words and enlighten me, Miller.”
“From the beginning, the plan was for Kayce to run Hope Farms when she left the Army. We created the idea of the farm together, and I always wanted her to be the eventual administrator.”
“And at no point did you think to mention that to me?”
“My relationship with Kayce has been strained since Jonathan’s death. And she’s threatened to quit the military before. I wasn’t sure if she would follow through.”
“Well, now you know. And you have known for some time.”
Miller reached for my hands. “This changes nothing between you and me.”
“Doesn’t it? I work here. I live here.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed as he stood. “I’m not asking you to move to California with me and give up your whole life.”
I laughed bitterly. “Is that supposed to be a comfort or an insult? I honestly can’t tell.”
“I know how much you love your work at the farm. I would never want to pull you away from that.”
“What exactly wereyour plans for us?”
He took his sweet time answering. “I thought we’d take it slow—that seemed to be how you wanted it. I’d return to San Francisco but fly back often. Fly you in, of course.”
“Of course.”
“We’d make it work.”
“That all sounds so accommodating.” I shoved his hands away. “And impossible.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“What about the work you’re doing at Hope Farms? Can you really let it all go?”
