A Forever Love(28)

“Is he okay?”

“He sounded … irritable.”

“Dad always sounds irritable.” Aubrey continued toward her office door. There were checks to cut and invoices to send, orders and payroll to complete.

“You need to go talk to him.”

The somber tone in Nina’s voice stopped Aubrey. She turned toward her sister. “Talk to him? Now?”

A deep breath and a sigh passed over Nina’s lips. “He ran into Justin in the woods. I think they … spoke.”

Her stomach plummeted. What had Justin told Dad? What did Dad say to Justin? This couldn’t be good. If Dad had called and demanded to talk to her now, this wasn’t good at all. This was nearly as bad as Justin arriving at Rockwater Farms unannounced.

Aubrey pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. Dealing with Dad and Justin and the whole damned mess took too much time and energy. She looked out the giant windows that lined the hallway. Parked outside and through a tiny canopy of trees, on the private white-gravel driveway to the Rockwater Suite, was the black Range Rover that Aubrey assumed was Justin’s rental.

“Fine.” Aubrey sighed and turned to her right. “He’s in his shop?”

Nina nodded. “Good luck.”

Great last words from her sister. Aubrey walked through the kitchen and out the back door into the sauna of summer. A bright blue sky and heat and sun had burned away any morning coolness, and now it was just plain hot and humid. She hiked up the trail and past the house to the woodshop. She heard a saw buzzing inside Dad’s shop, pulled open the door, and stepped into a room that was a bit cooler. Dad sometimes flipped on the air in the middle of the day, although he wouldn’t admit to such an extravagance. When they were kids, there’d been no air-conditioning in the farmhouse or the woodshop. When Nina and then she moved back into the farmhouse, they’d installed central air and taken over the thermostat. Dad finally surrendered to the luxury of air-conditioning in his shop.

He slid a chain saw through a big branch that still contained leaves and bark. She didn’t yell over the noise—he’d never hear her through the wall of sound. His cut was nearly finished. He stopped the saw and looked over to the spot just inside the doorway where she stood. He turned off the chain saw, and she approached his workbench, as he pulled up his safety goggles. In the far corner of the shop was a new stack of wood. He’d been searching for timber that “spoke” to him. Dad said the wood told him what it wanted to be, and then he used his feeble skills to try to make the wood into its own request.

There was no smile on his face, but that wasn’t unusual. Dad hardly ever smiled. The line of his lips seemed particularly hard and judgmental. His eyes raked over her. He set his goggles on the table and then sat on his workshop stool. He took a breath and his nostrils flared.

Oh. No.

She knew that look from her childhood. A spanking or being grounded followed that look after Dad’s litany of whatever misdeeds Aubrey was guilty of.

“Dad? Nina said you needed to see me.”

Ten years old. Suddenly she was a ten-year-old little girl who’d angered her father. She pressed her fingertips to the smooth top of the worktable. He couldn’t spank her now and he couldn’t take anything away from her, so why did she feel so small when he cast that disapproving look her way?

He folded his hands together and stared into her eyes. Anger flashed, followed by disappointment. “Met Max’s dad in the woods today.”

Aubrey raised one eyebrow. “He’s here. Arrived unannounced last night. I didn’t know he was coming from New York.”

“Seems everyone been getting some surprises.” Dad pulled out his red bandana from his pocket and brushed it over his forehead. Tiny bits of wood dust came off with his sweat, and he stuffed the rag back into his jeans pocket. “Aubrey Lynn Hayes, how in the hell did you never tell that man about his boy?”

Aubrey’s chest tightened. Her lips set into a firm line. “Dad, this is a very personal matter, and I’m a grown woman. I don’t think—”

“You didn’t think. You’re absolutely right there; you didn’t think. And not only did you not think, but you lied to your family.”

“I never lied.”

“You lied.”

“I never told you that Justin didn’t want Max.”

“You lied by omission. Girl, you are one smart lady. You been out East. You graduated from them Ivies. I was there. You worked in New York, you chose to come back here, and you chose not to talk to me or your sister or even your mother about Justin Travati. What the hell did you think we’d assume? Did you think we’d assume that a smart woman like you, an independent businesswoman such as yourself, would scurry away in the night without having the fortitude, the sense of character, to actually tell the man that fathered that boy that he had a child coming into this world?”