The phone went dead as she hung up.
Chapter Eleven
"I'm full," Dodge said around a yawn.
"Me too, buckaroo," Farrah said with a frown at the door. Aanon had been on his call for a while. She and Dodge had polished off two thirds of the dessert and packed leftover seafood fettuccini into an oversized Styrofoam box the server had dropped off with the check. And Dodge was starting to fidget.
Frigid air blasted through the restaurant as Aanon blew in on the chilly wind. His eyes were downcast, but he couldn't hide the green pallor of his skin. His hands shook as he pulled them from winter gloves, and a grimace tugged at the sensual corners of his mouth.
He sat without a word and plucked at a thread that dangled from his glove.
"We saved the last part of the pie for you," she said.
Abruptly, he asked, "Are you ready to go?"
"Was it work?" she asked, leaning forward. "Is everything all right?"
"No." He dragged emotionless eyes to her. "And it's none of your concern."
The syllables reached across the space between them, farther and farther as the distance seemed to expand, until it felt like a slap of frost against her skin.
Embarrassed by the tables quieting around them, she shrugged into her jacket and helped Dodge into his. She looked anywhere but at Aanon, who busied himself with paying the bill.
Dodge teetered over to Aanon and crawled into his lap. Farrah shifted her weight from side to side, desperate for escape from the eyes upon her. Maybe she should just go out to the truck.
He signed for the tip and hoisted Dodge, then followed her out the front door and to the parking lot. The passenger door was unlocked, so she climbed in and waited for him to finish buckling his son into the car seat.
When the truck rocked under his weight and the door slammed, he blared an oldies station, successfully snuffing out any potential conversation.
His jaw was clenched, hands on the wheel in a grip that made her pity the steering wheel. His eyes were a careful mask of aloofness that cut an Aanon-sized hole into her heart. What had she done to deserve his anger? Maybe he didn't like that Dodge had chosen to sit by her during dinner. Or maybe he had gotten fired from his job. Perhaps, he'd simply changed his mind now that the night had come to an end. She really was as uninteresting as she'd been in high school, but that wasn't her fault. He was the one who hugged her and showed her what it could be like with a caring man.
Gritting her teeth, she leaned against the window and watched the blur of Homer whiz by. She'd warned him of the danger of pretending they were normal and free. His not listening was on him.
The little boy fell asleep after an hour, and the second hour was doused in uncomfortable silence that seemed to thicken like yeasty dough until the entire cab was suffocating. When finally he pulled the Chevy in front of the big house, she couldn't open the door fast enough.
"Wait," he growled.
With one foot in the mud and one planted on the dusty floorboard, she hunched her shoulders under the fire in his voice.
"I was wrong today at the theater. That's not what I want at all. I got swept up in the moment and shouldn't have led you on." He ripped his gaze away from the windshield, and the empty glare he bestowed upon her singed. "I have a family. Erin and Dodge are it for me." He swallowed hard and looked sick. "You're letting me make you a mistress, just like you did with Miles. You're stronger than that."
"But, it's not the same. You aren't really with Erin. I don't have feelings for a married man or even a taken man. You're single. Don't you dare pin weakness on me, Aanon." Her voice shook. "I didn't even want to go with you today, but you pushed it."
"I support Erin and Dodge. All of my paycheck goes to them. It's why I have to work so much. She can put whatever price she wants on me seeing my son because she knows I can't afford the fees to take her to court. She keeps child support high enough through our mediation that I can't ever save enough to fight for joint custody." His hands relaxed on the wheel, and he leveled her with a devastatingly sad look. "This is my present and my future. Begging for time with my son, appeasing his mother. You don't fit into my life."
The worst part was she got it. His words cut like a gut hook, but she understood. He was trapped in a life completely out of his control, just like she was.
"You don't have to explain to me," she said. Mortified her voice cracked, she squeezed her eyes closed until she thought she could keep the moisture soaking her lashes from spilling onto her cheek. "I completely understand." Biting her lip against the traitorous tremble, she slid out of the truck.
"Farrah."
God, just the sound of her name on his lips was so beautiful it hurt.
Slowly, she turned. The paper bag with the trio of mugs was held tight in his hands, an offering. "You forgot this."
She tried to smile. "Keep it. I bought them for you and Dodge."
His intense gaze dipped to the crackling bag, and she bolted for the cabin before he could say anything else to shred her.
The lock clicked behind her, and she slumped onto her bed as an anguished sob left her lips. Miles's smiling face taunted her from the picture lying on the pillow. Crumpling the evidence of her naivety, she threw the hurtful paper against the wall. Miles, that son of a bitch, had made her into a weak woman. He'd ruined her from every relationship. She couldn't be trusted to choose a decent man. Miles had tricked that ability from her.
The empty look in Aanon's eyes had made her insides feel like a pin cushion. She'd never shake that vision of him as long as she breathed. How many times had Erin forced him to shut down?
It wasn't fair. The woman used Dodge as leverage, and Aanon would always be on the losing end of it until he found a way to take her to court and iron out his custody in front of a judge. She wanted to laugh at Erin's cruelty. Clever woman. She could do whatever she wanted, with whomever, and Aanon would be forced to live the way she dictated until she tired of the game. Which could be never.
None of this was her business.
Wasn't that what Aanon said in Captain Pattie's? It wasn't her concern. Even if he were free to choose who he dated, it likely wouldn't be a girl like her. She couldn't be farther from Erin's likeness if she morphed into a swamp rat. She wasn't even circling the outermost edges of Aanon's type.
Everything was better this way. She was pregnant and still reeling from Miles's betrayal. And Aanon was about as unavailable as he could get. Neither one of them would be worth their weight in brine in a relationship. A union between them would have been twisted and wrong in its beginnings, and how could they ever come back from a relationship tainted with the murk of their current situations? Really, she should thank Aanon. He'd just saved them both from a boatload of heartache.
She stood and moved the curtain aside with the tip of her finger, ripped the cardboard down until it was a pathetic pile on the floor. The light in the uppermost room of the big house was the only one on. He might as well be a thousand miles away.
Dropping the fabric, she crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. Okay, what had changed? Everything. No! Nothing had changed. Erin ran this place from her throne in Homer, and Farrah and Aanon could never be together. Same as yesterday. She'd just go back to keeping her head down. Who needed trouble when she had the fate of an unborn baby to decide? Her plate was utterly full, anyway, so tomorrow morning she would wake and act as if he'd never hugged her and set her heart aflame with sweet admissions.
Miles hadn't made her weak. He'd forced her to realize her strength. If that douche ball couldn't break her, Aanon Falk and his psychotic baby momma wouldn't achieve it either. She was The Dweeb. Nobody could maim The Dweeb. After chores were done in the morning, she'd beg a day shift from Briney or find something to do in town to give Aanon and his son plenty of space to spend time together without her.
****
Chopping wood with an ax might never be her thing, but Billy had showed her how to use the chainsaw, and she was kind of awesome at it. Plus, nothing vented frustration better than slicing wood into splinters.
Donning sunglasses to protect her eyes, she ripped the tiny chainsaw motor and cut dry branches from an old log until it was smooth and ready to section. No way in molasses would she ever ask Aanon to supply the wood for her stove. He'd gotten her started fine with stacks of it on the front porch, but she needed enough for five to six months to be safe.
Calculating again how much she would need, she cut the log into manageable pieces. Kicking each piece upright, she cut them into quarters and turned off the saw. When the newly cut log was stacked neatly against the side of the house, she loaded the chainsaw to a four-wheeler and took off to find more wood.