I got the girls settled with a coloring placemat and some crayons just as the server came by with some water and menus for the four of us.
“So…,” Andrew began, and I darted my eyes toward him in warning.
“Don’t.”
“Come on, Nate. Nothing?”
“We will not talk about Sasha,” I commanded in a hushed tone as I nodded toward my daughters.
With his hands up in surrender, Andrew apologized. I went back to looking at the menu, but the silence that stretched made me anxious.
“Look, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t say anything, because she dropped off the face of the earth about as quickly as she dropped them off at my mom’s. She calls every once in a while to talk to the girls, but that’s about it.”
“Thank God you got out of that marriage before it was too late.”
“We never should have gotten married to begin with, which is why it lasted all of six months. Anyway, enough about me. Tell me what’s been going on with you. I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
Andrew went on to tell me about his mother and stepfather’s farm and how they opened an event venue on the property a few months back. So far, it was booked solid for the next couple of years, which was a relief to the entire family, as the ranch struggled with finances in recent years.
“Sunny Brook Farm still does well, much better than most in the area, but the recent harvests weren’t as plentiful, and costs for supplies continue to go up. It’s just how things are right now. Autumn worked really hard to make the venue a success. And it definitely didn’t hurt that Colton name-dropped it in interviews a few times. You can’t imagine how many people come by just to get a glimpse of him.”
“Autumn married a hockey player. I never would have guessed. Of course, in my mind, she’s still the little girl in pigtails with her sisters chasing after us in the summer. Man, I think it’s been almost twenty years since I’ve seen any of your family.”
“Well, Mom is definitely excited to see you. And they understood why you haven’t been around. Work and life get busy, then you blink, and a decade has passed.”
“They on you to get tied down?” I asked as the pizza arrived at the table. Without missing a beat, I grabbed a plate and cut up a piece of the pizza for Molly, then repeated the same steps for Eloise. Both girls delightfully dove into their lunch.
Just as I looked back at Andrew, I noticed his gaze trained on the door of the restaurant. Turning around, I spotted a woman about his sister’s age hugging a man around the same. When I twisted back, I noted the narrowed gaze Andrew sent toward the couple.
“Um, something going on there?” I asked.
“What?” He shook his head slightly, and his eyes reluctantly tugged away from the couple. “No, that’s Sadie, Colton’s half-sister.” He was absolutely looking at her with something more than familial relations, but I wasn’t about to mention that to him. He already looked riled up after mentioning my ex.
“Oh, how old is she?” I questioned lightheartedly as I took an oversized bite of the doughy pizza.
“I think… twenty-one or so. She and Aspen are around the same age.”
Aspen was Andrew’s youngest half-sister. She was just starting kindergarten when I saw her last, when she was just a bit older than my own girls now.
Changing the conversation, I asked my twins to tell Andrew all the things they had done in the last year. Molly went on about her dance classes, and Eloise chimed in now and then to talk about her gymnastics class. The girls took part in various activities but had their preferred ones. I hoped they wouldn’t be too heartbroken when I told them that Ashfield probably wouldn’t offer the same things. They liked to be active, but I wasn’t sure working on a farm was something on their checklist.
Hell, I planned my entire summer here looking for land to put down roots for me and the twins. Ever since my ex, Sasha, signed away her parental rights, I knew I was going to move them as close to the Easterlys as I could. My parents didn’t even bat an eye when I told them I was packing up my small bungalow in the California foothills and moving across the country with their grandchildren. The only people who cared were those working for me, and even they knew I could work from wherever I wanted. I had never spent most of my days in the office but rather clocked my hours in my workshop.
Which was my entire goal here. I wanted land to build a larger and more technological studio for my projects, along with enough space to build my future home for me and my girls. And I knew Ashfield was that place. I just needed to convince someone to sell me some land, and I knew that would be the hard part.
But I had a backup plan just in case things didn’t go my way. I couldn’t rent the bed-and-breakfast forever, but I could rent another place in town until I found something. I had time, and luckily, the girls wouldn’t start kindergarten until the fall.
“Daddy took us to a place that had lots of people. That was sooo fun!” Molly exclaimed as she moved up onto her knees in the booth. Her waving hands knocked into her plate, and the few bits of pizza left went soaring across the table and landed on my lap.
“Shoot,” I mumbled as I snagged the individual pieces from the leg of my suit pants and placed them back on the table. I glanced up at my daughter and found her lower lip trembling as she scooted to the far corner of the booth’s bench in fear.
“Molly, sweetie, it’s okay. It was just an accident.”
“But your pants,” she whispered, moving her legs and tucking her knees against her chest. “I got pizza on them.”
“Naw, they’re black. You can’t even tell.” I watched in horror as my little one continued to sink into herself just as Eloise spoke in her calm and soothing voice.
“Momma woulda got really mad, and she’d yell.”
