“You better call me every other day!” Logan called as if Darren would hang up on him. “I want details of this relationship.”
“Me too!” a woman called, and it had to be Layla, Logan’s wife.
“Layla does too, and she also says she’s really excited for you and Farrah.”
Darren chuckled, though he didn’t quite understand why Layla was excited for him. “Tell her hello,” he said just as Farrah turned and lifted her eyebrows as if to sayWell? Are you coming?
“I really need to go.” He hung up without saying good-bye to his twin. He tossed the phone onto the brown paper bag he’d brought his lunch in and strode after Farrah. Her giggles reached his ears, and he hurried to find her in the maze of pines and basswoods.
When he did, she kissed him so completely that he didn’t worry any longer about his heart staying whole.
Because she kissed him like she loved him.
chapter
fourteen
Farrah wasin deep with Darren, and she knew it. So deep she really had to stop kissing him and start talking. But kissing was so much more fun, and safe, and she was desperate to keep him in her life.
And if he knew certain things, she wasn’t sure he’d stick around. Although the way he kissed her, held her tightly and softly at the same time, maybe he would.
“I have to go.” He ducked his head, his breathing ragged. “I have to get the fields ready for mowing tomorrow.”
She nodded and bit her lip. She had work to do as well, and if he left, she’d have a few more hours where she could call him her boyfriend.
“What did you want to tell me?” He lifted his gaze to look right into hers, piercing her with those dark eyes, that even temper.
“Oh, it’s—” She couldn’t bring herself to say “nothing.” Because it was something. At least she thought it was.
He waited, his patience seemingly endless. She knew that wasn’t true, and when the muscle in his jaw started twitching, she knew he was working hard to keep waiting.
She’d imagined this moment since the second she’d started dating him, almost a year ago now. He already knew her last name was different, and the rumors around town were that she’d been married and divorced.
They were sort of right, and Farrah had done nothing to correct them.
“I—” She swallowed, the ham and cheese sandwich she’d eaten for lunch threatening to come back up. Farrah stepped back to get some air that wasn’t filled with the hay-scented quality of his skin, the touch of sunshine he infused into her life.
“When I lived in California, I dated a man named Garrett Irvine.”
Darren settled his weight on his back foot and shoved his hands in his pocket, the picture of sexiest cowboy alive. “Ah, so there’s the Irvine. You got married?”
Why he asked like he couldn’t believe it, she wasn’t sure. She shook her head, the ends of her hair brushing her forearms. “We didn’t actually get married. I was—” She pressed her eyes closed. “I got pregnant, and I didn’t want to have the baby alone, so I told everyone we were married.”
She heard him suck in a breath, but she wasn’t brave enough to open her eyes and look at him.
“I’ve seen your driver’s license,” he said. “It says Farrah Irvine.”
“I legally changed it after he—after we ended things. He didn’t know about the baby at the time, but when he found out, he wanted me to end the pregnancy.” Her vision began to spin, and she had to open her eyes so she wouldn’t fall down.
She hadn’t explained things very well, but Darren didn’t usually need long explanations. Garrett had broken up with her before she’d discovered she was pregnant. When she told him, he’d texted back to sayWell, then take care of it.
And he didn’t mean have the baby and mother it.
She couldn’t—wouldn’t—do anything to hurt the child, so she’d changed her name, moved to a new apartment, and started telling people her husband was overseas serving in the military. The number of lies she’d told swallowed her whole, even now, and she couldn’t believe she’d come back to the light from such a place of darkness.
Darren’s fingertips brushed her forearm. “So you were never married.”
She focused on the skin he’d touched. “No.”
