Time to fight to be able to continue raising my son in peace.
The chickens erupt in squawking the minute I open the back door. Bash will help me feed them and collect their eggs after he’s up.
But now, they’re doing the job I want them to do.
They’re waking Jonas up.
He bolts upright, grabs his neck, sways on the porch swing, and tips off, landing on the ground with anoof.
But he springs right back up and smiles at me.
Smiles.
At six in the morning.
After he face-planted into two-day-old deer poop.
“Emma. You have chickens.” His voice is husky with sleep, but there’s a bright, happy quality to it that’s impossible to miss.
Like there’s no place on earth he wanted to sleep more than right there, with his body all akimbo on my porch swing where he could’ve been eaten by a cougar.
Like he’s still the guy he was before he freakingran away back homeafter sleeping with me.
And without a goodbye.
Or a single acknowledgment of any of my messages.
Until now.
I sip my coffee and watch him. It’s a technique I’ve learned from Sabrina.
She’s the best gossip in all of Snaggletooth Creek, and it’s because she knows when to be quiet and when to tell what she knows.
Usually.
“Right. You know you have chickens.” He rubs his face, then freezes for a split second like he’s realized there’s stuff on his face that shouldn’t be there.
I point to the hose hung on the back of my house. “Deer droppings. Help yourself to the water.”
Wariness sneaks into his expression. “You’re mad.”
“I—”
“Of course you’re mad. You should be mad. I was an asshole. Didn’t leave you any way to contact me. You tried. I didn’t answer. And you’ve been doing this by yourself.”
“I like doing this by myself.”
Bash’s voice drifts out of the baby monitor. He’s moved on to his version of a Taylor Swift song. I probably have three minutes before I hear “Mama?” in his adorable little voice.
But the bigger problem right now is that Jonas apparently has excellent hearing.
“Is that him?” he whispers, his gaze drifting to my hip where the monitor is clipped to my pants, awe and wonder filling his face in a way that makes me both furious and light at the same time.
And that makes me even more furious.
He hasno fucking rightto show up here and look completely smitten with the sound of my son’s voice, and no fucking right to earn a soft spot in my heart again.
“I have a busy day today, so let’s get right to it. What do you want?” This isnotme.
