He closed in on her, not leaving her any room to run. “Tell me.”
A hawk squawked and soared down to the corn, fetching something and rising into the sky. She watched the creature as if wishing to fly away with it. “Your father wasn’t able to work the farm for over a year.”
“Why?”
“Because he’d been sick for years with cancer. He fought it with chemo, but that caused heart problems. He was too weak to work.”
“Years? How many years?” Tanner choked on the knowledge that his father had suffered without a word to him.
“He was diagnosed about the time you were injured in college, and Hawk did the early enlistment his senior year in high school and left for the military.”
“That long?” Heat rushed over him; his breath caught. “My father was sick all that time and no one told me? What happened to the town family motto?”
“You haven’t been a member of this family for a long time.” Her eyes misted, but she lifted her chin.
His breath caught and didn’t want to release. With his hands to his knees, bent in half and gasping for air, he leaned against the dilapidated old machine. The same machine he’d ridden on his father’s lap when he was four. Learned to maintain when he was eight. And learned to drive when he was twelve.
Nothing made sense—not his family, not his life here, not the way Mary-Beth’s hand rubbing small circles on his back soothed him the way she always had. “How could he not tell me? My mother, my brother… No one told me.”
“I don’t know why your mom didn’t tell you, but I believe Hawk doesn’t know either.”
He breathed in deep, stinging breaths until he could stand, despite the throbbing in his head that had intensified. “Why wouldn’t she tell him?”
“Rumor in town was that they didn’t want to tell Hawk because they didn’t want him distracted when his life was in danger. Then after a long battle, your father’s passing was sudden. One night he went to sleep, and he didn’t wake up. I always thought you didn’t care enough to come home.”
“Didn’t care enough? That’s what you think of me?” He gripped the warm metal and squeezed, attempting to rid himself of the anger and sorrow that plagued him without allowing his temper to show.
“I don’t know who you are. I thought I knew you, but then when you left and never returned, I assumed you moved on with your life and didn’t look back.” Her hand returned to him, the familiar-yet-foreign touch from the past stirring something inside him. A feeling. A strange peace he didn’t expect. A welcome home feeling.
He flinched, wanting to change the subject. “My mom said something strange this morning about how my father sent me away for a better life.”
The town courthouse bell chimed in the distance, a cow mooed, but Mary-Beth didn’t say anything, so he continued. “I always thought he’d sent me away to fulfill his dreams, and I resented him for it, but that was because I thought he wanted me to be an NFL player to make him proud. I always felt like the only reason he paid me any attention was because I played the game he always wanted to play. That he lived vicariously through me.”
“Don’t lie to yourself… You wanted to run off and be a football hero as much as your father wanted it for you.”
“Maybe, but when it didn’t happen, he didn’t want me home. I felt like he couldn’t look at me.”
“And now?” Mary-Beth walked around, swatting at the tall corn stalks.
“I have no idea. I mean, he never spent any time with me unless it had to do with football. I tried to help him in the fields, but most days he’d send me to practice.” His hands ached, forcing him to release his fingers, which had been balled into fists by his side. “My father was fighting cancer and never told me. I could’ve been with him, working this place, helping him through it. If I had been here…” His voice cracked, and he couldn’t continue, the thought alone too harsh to face.
Chapter Seven
Tanner appeared broken, a state Mary-Beth had never witnessed in all their lives. “You couldn’t have saved your father.” She approached him with a soft step, soft touch, soft heart. The anger and resentment she’d been holding melted away. “I knew you felt pressure in high school to get a good college scholarship, but I had no idea you felt that way about your father.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t. Not until he disappeared on me when I was injured. Like I wasn’t good enough to be his son anymore. Had I known he was fighting cancer, I would’ve insisted on coming home and helping here.”
“I’m guessing that’s why your father didn’t tell you.” Mary-Beth still resented the way Tanner had left, but they were kids then and had been friends since they were toddlers. Seeing him in that kind of pain softened her resolve, her bitterness. “You should talk to your mother about how you feel. I’m sure she can tell you more than I can. I was gone for four and a half years for college, and since I returned, I’ve been busy with the coffeehouse and raising my little brother.” She paused, remembering why she’d come to speak to him in the first place.
“What is it?” He scratched his chin the way he’d always done when he was figuring something out. But nowadays, he wore sexy scruff instead of boyish virgin skin.
Mary-Beth shooed him off. “Nothing. It isn’t important right now.”
He picked up some tools spread around in the grass and tossed them into his father’s large red toolbox that had belonged to his grandfather and probably his father before him. There was a lot of history on this farm. That was one of the things she’d always liked about this place. “The favor you were going to ask. What was it?”
She toed the blades of pale green, knowing this wasn’t a question she wanted to ask, especially with all he was facing, but it was for her little brother. The one person in her life she’d do anything for, since he’d always been her light when the world was dark.
“You might as well tell me before we start yelling at each other again.” He winked, his playful, I’m-going-to-turn-this-situation-around kind of wink. He’d always been good at lightening a mood, which was probably why everyone had loved him in high school. It was a defense mechanism she recognized as a way to avoid pain and uncomfortable feelings. But it wasn’t her job to care for him anymore.
“Right. We wouldn’t want that again. The town is already talking about our reunion.” She pushed her shoulders back and decided to go for it. “You know my little brother is in high school now, right?”
“Right.” He wiped his strong, farm-blistered hands on an oil-stained rag. How he’d changed in the brief time he’d arrived home. The wounds on his hands would pop, hurt, and callous over the coming months, or he’d be gone in a week and they’d return to city soft.
“Well, I think he wants to live up to your legend. He wants to get a big college scholarship for football.”
“You want me to talk him out of that?” He smiled, the half-crooked, I-own-your-heart kind of smile. And he always had, until he was gone.
She averted her gaze, refusing to fall for such tactics. “No. If that’s what he wants, I won’t stand in his way, but there’s a problem.”