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“Brielle will be thrilled.”
Zeke shot a surprised look at his newest son-in-law.
Wade chuckled. “She’s been saying how you’d be a lot easier to get along with if you’d just get married again.”
He snorted as Wade tossed the rag onto his shoulder.
“In fact, Bri was planning on setting you up with someone one town over. She thought you might need a distraction.”
Zeke met Wade’s eyes. “She was?” That might actually be just the thing to solve this strange feeling he was experiencing. He needed to get this desire for Ms. Agatha Birch out of his system before it became a problem.
“Yeah, but it seems like you have your sights set on someone else.”
“Tell her to set it up.”
The surprise on Wade’s face would have been comical if it wasn’t for the weight that Zeke felt in this very moment. He needed to get his mind off Agatha. Not only would it be a bad idea because they weren’t compatible, there were other unpleasant implications—one of which being she was the mother of someone who worked for him.
“Are you sure about that?”
“I asked, didn’t I?” Zeke’s voice was gruff and short. “If Brielle thinks there’s someone I might get along with, then have her set it up. I’m available in the evenings. I just need to know where and when.” Maybe he’d be able to finally get this woman out of his head. He picked up a bucket of spackle and a scraper to start sealing in the nails, choosing to avoid looking at Wade, praying he’d get the hint and leave. Thankfully, he did just that a few moments later, leaving him alone with his thoughts of women.
Not just women in general.
One woman.
Agatha Birch.
Things were so much simpler when he was alone in the cabin. Thinking about it, he realized this had all started when the girls reached marriage age. If he could just go back in time to when it was easy, he wouldn’t be dealing with any of this.
When he was younger, he might have considered dating someone like Agatha. But he wasn’t young anymore, and just the thought of going toe-to-toe with her made him feel utterly exhausted.
He sent a prayerful request heavenward that this woman Brielle found would be just the thing to push Agatha out of his mind and help him get back to when his life was simple.
12
Agatha
Agatha stared out the back window of the cabin every morning. And every morning she was a little more excited to see the ATV waiting for her.
Okay, it wasn’t waiting for her. It was waiting for Zeke. But since that first morning she’d caught him, he’d continued to drive her to the house. They hadn’t shared breakfast again after that morning, but today she planned on inviting him again.
Since the moment he’d said he wouldn’t change a thing about her, she couldn’t get the words out of her head.
That, coupled with realizing he was helping her just to help her, had triggered something deeper inside her. Zeke was just as good a guy as he made himself out to be. He was misunderstood at times, and she’d been guilty of doing just that. But now that she knew she’d pegged him all wrong, the knots in her stomach kept on twisting tighter and tighter.
Her eyes kept a shrewd watch on the ATV. If he waited much longer, then they wouldn’t have much time to eat. She probably needed to head out there and find him.
The sun had come up enough to light her way. It shouldn’t be too hard to locate him. Agatha nodded resolutely. That was exactly what she was going to do. She’d track him down and make a standing offer for him to join her for breakfast as long as he was staying in the tent.
She grabbed her jacket and headed out in the oversized boots around the side of the house and along the trail.
Birds chirped and critters scuttled beneath the brush. Each step she took, a twig or something else crushed beneath her boot. It smelled like rain, though she hadn’t seen any in a while. Pine was another smell that inundated her senses.
Where her house was located, she didn’t have access to nature like this. Her property had been gutted of all the natural beauty she had here. Granted, it was a smaller property and the owners likely wanted to have a yard for their children to play in. She couldn’t fault them for that. When she was raising Thomas, she would have wanted the same, only they were stuck in their city apartment for most of his childhood. At the time she would have given anything to move her son out to the country so he could grow up like she had. But that just wasn’t in the cards for a single mother.
She slowed, closing her eyes briefly to let in all the sounds and smells she could. If she had her way, she would have picked up her home and moved it to someplace similar to this.
“What are you doing here?”
