Chapter Seventeen
“Oh, boy,” Luke muttered. “They’re all on the steps.”
Slate found the crowd of people easily, and he drank them in—especially Jill. She sat on the bottom step, and Axle lay right in front of her. She looked at Hannah, who said something to her, and everyone swung their attention toward the truck as the tires crunched over the gravel.
Slate hated drawing attention to himself, but such a sense of love accompanied the group of people who were now standing up to greet the three of them. He swallowed and said, “I feel like an idiot.”
“Don’t,” Dallas said. “They care about you. That’s all.” He put the truck in park and neither he nor Luke hesitated to get out of the truck. Slate let them go first, and he took an extra moment to breathe in deeply and center himself.
He’d done the right thing. He hadn’t stayed and argued with Jackson. He’d gotten out of the situation. Maybe not in the best way possible, but he hadn’t immediately fallen back in with his old crowd at the first sign that he could.
He got out too, and Axle had beat everyone over to the truck. “Hey, bud,” he said, crouching down and keeping his head low to use the brim on his hat to conceal his face. He smiled at the dog, who licked his face and made him laugh. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you okay? How was your weekend with theAmerican Idoldogs? Good, right? Ted said he gave you some steak.”
Axle didn’t respond, but Slate felt accepted by him. Straightening, he realized all of these people accepted him, and that was why they’d gathered in the darkness to wait for his return. Sure, Jess and Dallas’s kids had come for him, but still.
Nate and Ted approached him first, and he embraced them both at the same time. “I’m fine,” he murmured.
“Of course you are,” Nate said, his voice gruff. “But are you okay?”
Slate stepped back. “I’m worried he’s going to bother my parents.”
“I’ll make some calls,” Nate said. Slate wasn’t sure what that meant, but Nate had a lot of money, and he knew people Slate couldn’t even begin to imagine. “You missed the news too. Ginger’s pregnant.”
“That’s great,” Slate said, a smile stretching across his face.
“She’s worried,” Ted said quietly.
“I told her you ran into someone you knew,” Nate said. “I didn’t realize she didn’t know.”
Slate nodded, a silent sigh moving through his body. “I didn’t want her to worry. She has enough to worry about.” He certainly didn’t want to add to that, and he didn’t want to be the cause of it for her.
“Sorry,” Nate said.
“It’s fine.” Slate smiled at his friends and stepped around them. He hugged Ginger and Emma, who said there were cookies and doughnuts inside.
“Both of those sound amazing,” he said, his gaze sliding to Jill.
She reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. She looked toward the house, and Slate got the message. She went up the steps, and he accepted a hug from Connor and Remmy, the youngest of the children in Slate’s life, and he told Axle he’d be right back. Then he followed Jill up the steps and into the house.
It was much quieter inside, and he found her in the kitchen, wearing a pair of jeans that made her legs look twice as long as they really were. He drank in her curves as he approached, his throat suddenly so dry. “Hey,” he said, standing beside her. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”
“Cookie or doughnut?” she asked.
“Both,” he said. “Want to go to the sunrise spot?”
“Walking?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” She picked up a couple of cookies and a couple of doughnuts and put them on a paper plate. “Ready.”
She finally met his eye, and Slate slipped his arm around her waist. “I missed you,” he said, his mouth barely moving. “How was the afternoon at the farm?”
“It was actually really good,” she said. “Even though Haven showed up.”
“I can’t wait to hear this story,” he said with a smile.
She smiled at him too, and the sense of love and forgiveness he could feel between them made everything in the world just right. “I hear you have some stories too.”