“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “We have to stop at the feed store after breakfast, before we head out to the farm.”
He skewed an eyebrow upward. “The feed store? How come?”
“To pick up corn for the turkey.”
“The... turkey?”
She rolled her eyes in the most endearing way possible. “Come on, theparade floatturkey. Once we get the frame finished, he’s getting decorated with dried ears of corn. Ellis’s Feed is donating it, but they said we have to pick it up today. We’ll need to keep it in the barn until we’re ready to use it.”
Nick glanced through the windshield. The weather had turned, and the sky loomed flat and close, the color of iron. He had a feeling it would only worsen. “Okay. But if we put all that corn in the truck bed and it gets rained on, it’ll get ruined.”
Paige nodded. “I checked the forecast. It’s supposed to stay dry until noon, which should give us plenty of time. And—oh! Aubrey will be there. She’ll help us unload. And also, I’m kind of buff, in case you hadn’t noticed.” She popped an underwhelming biceps—not that he would ever say so.
“See?” she chirped. “Nothing to worry about.”
Maybe not, but he inched the gas pedal toward the floor, all the same. “Okay. We should make breakfast quick, though.”
At the café, Paige flowed from one subject after another. She talked about her internship, which started in January, then some genetics assignment she had in biology. Nick sipped his coffee, his smile growing fonder. The ibuprofen had kicked in, and between that, his greasy breakfast at home, the caffeine, and the unexpected morning with his daughter, he almost felt... content. At the very least, the hangover had faded.
His phone pinged just as Paige hit her stride. He pulled it out, intending to make the notification go away, but the screen pulled up a message from MontanaBirder81.
His teeth clenched. He resented the intrusion into his morning, but moreover, he resented the way this whole letter-writing business was turning out. When he’d cooked up this idea, he’d wanted to help nurture a relationship that would’ve blossomed anyway. And, sure—he could admit it—exorcise his demons in the process.
But John Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was in Billings increasingly wanted to be spoon-fed. The guy didn’t have any ideas of his own, and had little to say about Jane apart from the fact that she dressed well and was apparently a total smoke show. Which made Nick wonder if his heart was even in the right place. Maybe? Maybe not? Either way, the whole situation had grown uncomfortable, as if Nick were conducting the relationship himself instead of merely refining John’s feelings into words.
“Dad? Can you do it?”
He glanced up. Shit, he’d totally checked out. Talk about a dick move. He pocketed his phone, vowing not to touch it for the rest of the day. “Sorry, Peanut, what were you saying?”
“Your tongue. Can you roll it up? Like this?” Paige curled her tongue into a tube.
He laughed. “What kind of weird-ass question is that?”
“It’s for my biology assignment. Mr. Gallegos gave us this whole list of Mendelian traits. Tongue-rolling is autosomal dominant, so since I can do it, that means you or Mom can, too. We’re supposed to find out our parents’ phenotypes, then compare to ours to figure out our genotypes.”
“That sounds... scientific.”
She giggled. “Yeah, that’s the point. Try it.”
He stuck out his tongue. Trying to replicate what she’d done felt like chewing on a pretzel.
“Oh, come on.” She did another adorable eye roll. “You can do better than that.”
He tried again, but his tongue wouldn’t cooperate. “Nope. Sorry. You must’ve gotten that one from Mom.” He polished off his coffee and scoped out the café window. The sky looked even more threatening than it had earlier. “Hey, kiddo, I hate to cut this short, but we should probably get going. I don’t think the rain’s going to hold off until twelve.”
A faint divot formed between Paige’s brows. She’d only finished half her eggs, but rose and gathered her jacket.
“You don’t want to finish?” he said.
“No. This is more than one person can handle.”
He helped her into her coat and scooted her out the door. Outside, the temperature had dropped, and Nick’s fingers tingled as they sped toward Ellis’s Feed. On arrival, Chip Ellis ushered them into the back room, where eighty-eight mesh bags of dried corn awaited. Thankfully, Chip’s two sons wereon shift, so between the four men and Paige, everything got loaded within minutes.
Unloading would take significantly longer, and Nick tried to shave as many minutes off the drive to Hinkley Farm as possible. The whole time, Paige stared out the window, contemplating the weather. Clearly, the possibility of losing the corn worried her.
“Hey. You okay?”
She mustered a watery smile. “Yeah. Sorry. My stomach just feels weird. That food isn’t sitting right.”
