Call Me Michigan (12 page)

“Your father bought you a new one. I know it’s not my place, and I should probably not comment on it, but your father loved you. He just loved your mother more, I think. After she was gone, he was a different man.”

“Damn, how long have you been working on the farm?” she asked, trying to rein in her emotions.

“I came the summer after you left. It was the first summer I worked here. I came back the summer after that and eventually was here longer. After he had left, Tammy hired me full time because she figured …” He stopped, another time rubbing the back of his neck. “So we need more hay if we get the horses back.”

She didn’t mind the topic change. She couldn’t believe that her little sister had known her so well.

“I owned a business when I was away, and I had ten employees. I should be able to handle this here,” she whispered, and he turned back to her after having started to walk toward the cattle paddocks.

“It was somethin’ you loved, not somethin’ you had to do. It’ll take some time, but trust me, you’ll come around. I’ll make it easy for ya,” he promised with a wink, and Taylor couldn’t help but feel better.

“No doubt.” She grinned, and then fell into step next to him, making a mental note to pick an especially thankful card for him for Christmas.

After everything was done, Taylor went into the house and jotted down everything she’d need to take care of, and then she dialed her sister.

“Collins?”

“Collins, too,” she replied, and Tammy started squealing. The girl sounded much better than the last time Taylor had heard her. “Sounds like you have a great roommate and a lot of fun?”

Tammy giggled and whispered something toward a person who seemingly was in the room with her. Taylor kicked off her shoes and looked up the stairs, wondering if she should go and check out the room Mason had created for her. In her anger, she had refused to go in there, but now, she was curious.

“So checked out the farm yet?” Tammy finally asked.

“Just finished a list with Daniel. He’s really nice. And smart around the farm.”

“And handy. He knows how to repair stuff. And he’s easy on the eyes,” Tammy stated, making Taylor giggle.

“He is,” she agreed, placing her hand on the door to what was now her room.

“While we’re talkin’ about bein’ easy on the eyes … how is Mason?”

Taylor turned her back to the door, sinking to the floor. “I don’t know. I had a few fights with him.”

“Wow, a few? One wasn’t enough, huh?” her sister inquired, and Taylor paused for a long moment.

“It’s either fighting or staring at each other. I don’t know what to do. I can’t look at him without being hurt and angry, lonely and feeling like a failure. He cleaned out Mom and Dad’s old room,” she whispered.

“Someone had to. I couldn’t,” Tammy confessed, and Taylor breathed a laugh.

“Neither could I.”

“How does it look?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, go and look, and tell me all about it,” Tammy ordered softly, and Taylor got up, opening the door. The room was beautiful, and while she still needed to push the furniture back against the wall, it was all she could have ever wished for and more. He even had a single, long-stemmed rose placed next to the bed, only now it looked somewhat sad. Taylor went over and took it from the nightstand.

“Perfect, isn’t it?” Tammy wanted to know in a hushed voice.

“Yes,” Taylor brought out.

“You worry about the money, don’t you?”

“I worry about the future, Tammy, and wonder if maybe all those years I never really knew him.”

There was a long silence on the other end, and then her sister finally sighed. “What the hell did he say?” Taylor sat down on her new bed, wondering where she should start. “Just start somewhere and we’ll take it from there,” Tammy prompted as if she had asked that out loud.

Taylor laughed and then fell in the tale of Mason and her, part … whatever. She already had lost count and didn’t really care.

A week after seeing Taylor last, Mason spent another sleepless night wandering the house as if he was its personal ghost. Lightning suddenly lit up the room, closely followed by thunder and screaming upstairs. Becca’s door flew open, and he met his daughter on the top of the stairs. The girl had her pink PJs on and a black sweater in her hand.

“Taylor!” The cry went through Mason’s bones, and Becca didn’t stop repeating the name, even after Mason had picked her up.

“What’s going on?” His mother came up the stairs, clutching her morning robe closed in front of her chest. Talking over the little girl seemed nearly impossible, so Mason simply shrugged in answer.

“Tay’s scared! Need to ‘tect Tay!”

He sighed, and instead of leaving the house, he went into his daughter’s bedroom. She started kicking her small legs, screaming even louder, if that was possible. Mason’s head threatened to split open with the noise.

He checked the clock on the little girl’s nightstand. It was one a.m.; an impossible time to bring someone to the house of the girl you loved yet turned against you.

“Taylor hates storms!” Becca was protesting more and more, tears falling rapidly.

“Maybe you should take her over,” Stella suggested. “You want to see her, Mase, and this is the perfect excuse.”

Yes, Mason was dying to see her, but she was angry enough without him showing up in the middle of the night. The problem was that the girl in his arms was wailing more and more, no matter how often he shushed and whispered to her. Nothing helped, not even offering chocolates. He assumed that the thunder rattling the windows didn’t exactly help, either. Hesitating just a few seconds longer, he finally grabbed the car keys his mother offered.

Becca instantly calmed down with nothing but small sobs coming from her. She still winced each time she heard thunder, but she’d stopped screaming.

“You don’t need to be scared, baby,” he reasoned, but she just looked at him, her face tear-stained.

“Tay is scared. I’m worried for Tay,” Becca admonished him, and he took a deep breath. With each mile he got closer to the Collins’ farm, his heart beat louder until it was all but drowning out the noise from the rain. He parked as close to the porch as he could, then he grabbed his daughter and ran for the front door. He hesitated, but a warm light spilled through the milk glass in the wood, and that made the decision for him.

He knocked; knowing that while a person downstairs would definitely hear it, he knew it wouldn’t necessarily wake up anyone else who was asleep in the house. It took only a few seconds until Taylor pulled the door open. She was wrapped in a blanket. God, Mason’s heart ached. He wanted to hold her so bad, but he had to tell himself not to reach out.

“Tay! I’ma ‘tect you!” The moment Becca had spotted Taylor, she threw her little body forward, and Michigan instantly reached out, taking the girl from him.

“A thunderstorm came, and she didn’t stop cryin’ until I promised to bring her over so she could protect you.”

Footsteps echoed from the stairs, and Timothy appeared with a baseball bat raised and ready to be used. “Everything okay, Taylor?” he inquired, and Mason felt pride swell in his chest. The little guy was ready to protect his sister, even though she was older, and he most likely wouldn’t ever stand a chance.

“It’s Mason and Becca,” Taylor whispered gently. “Go back to bed.”

Timmy came closer, lowering the bat yet shooting daggers at Mason with his ice-cold stare. Fury dripped from every pore of the boy’s body, and it caught Mason off guard. He’d always gotten along well with the Collins boy.

“If you came here to make her cry again, you can leave right now, buddy!”

Mason’s eyes flew to Taylor’s face, but she looked as shocked as he felt.

“Tim!” she reprimanded, but he just squared his shoulders, trying to look bigger, more intimidating.

“I hear how you cry yourself to sleep each night, Tay, and I hear you and Ash say his name whenever she’s here. I’m not dumb, you know?” her brother pointed out, and while Mason was glad that Taylor and Ashley were mending their friendship, he hated that it happened at his expense.

Anger reared its ugly head. “What?”

Instead of reacting to him, Taylor knelt and placed Becca on her own two feet. “Timmy, can you take Becca to my bed? I’ll be right up,” she promised, and though reluctant, Timmy gripped Rebecca’s hand and led her up the stairs.

Finally, Taylor turned to him again, and Mason was curious for that explanation. “You asked me to go to Ashley for the whole story, Mason, and I did. Despite what you might think, it’s emotional and long. I think it’s the first time Ash really worked through her own issues,” she then explained. She hugged her elbows close, grasping them so tight her knuckles turned white.

“It wasn’t supposed to make you cry. It was supposed to enlighten you,” he growled, and she nodded, her skin pale.

“I realized how much you two have been lying to each other and yourselves. How in the world could you have let it get that far?” She shook her head.

He didn’t know. “We were lost,” he rasped out, and she took a deep breath. It couldn’t be more clear that despite him almost saying the ‘l-word’ and the statement that she was his, they weren’t any closer to being a couple. She was hurt and still mad at him.

“Why are you cryin’ yourself to sleep, Taylor?” he then wanted to know, noticing how her lower lip trembled slightly until she bit it softly.

Slowly, as if worrying that he’d bite, she reached out and cupped his cheek. Mason instantly turned into her touch until she all but ripped out his heart.

“I used to be in love with you for a very long time, Mason,” she whispered, and his head started spinning. “You were right the other day. You and I aren’t who we used to be,” she went on and then pulled her hand away from his face, closing it into a fist as if she tried to hold into something that could not be held.

Mason shook his head, panic seizing every cell in his body. “But that … I mean …”

She stopped him, raising her hand with her palm facing him.

“You were right, Mason,” she repeated.

“You’re still mad at me. I get it, but –”

“We’re okay, Mase. Besides, that bedroom is a dream. Thank you. It’s perfect.” He had noticed that his money was back in his account, plus a little something that supposedly had been for his hard work. He didn’t want the money. He just wanted her to be happy.

“Taylor …”

“Everything’s okay between us,” she promised another time.

Shit was okay between them, but his daughter’s call for Taylor reminded him that it was the middle of the night.

“I’m turning a year older next Saturday. If things are okay with us, you’ll come, right?” Even before she answered, the ‘no’ was clear on her face. He didn’t want to hear it, so he shook his head and then took his eyes off her face. “Forget it. Stella’s gonna drive her to pre-school. I’m gonna be at work. Just have her ready by –”

“I can drive her, Mason. It’s pre-school. They have clothes for her there,” she interrupted. Needing to get away as soon as possible, he just nodded in agreement. God, he needed to leave so he could piece himself back together. Glancing at the ground, he quickly checked for blood. Somehow, he worried that he was bleeding all over the porch from where she had torn his heart out.

Nope, everything was clear because she knew how not to leave a trace.

“Bye, Michigan,” he forced out, still remembering his manners.

“Mason?” she called, but he didn’t turn back as he stiffly walked back to his truck. He couldn’t stand to look at her another second without breaking down completely.

It was rather quiet at the station the next morning, and Mason hated it. It gave him too much time to replay Taylor’s words, trying to find anything that could hint at things not yet being too late for them. He stared at the faded photo in his hand; Taylor was no older than sixteen, blowing hair, eyes closed. Seth, a long-time colleague, joined him.

“God, that woman again?” He groaned, and Mason put the photo back in his wallet.

“She’s back and … my daughter adores her, my mother hopes for her, and each time I see her, it’s wedding bells for me. It looked promising, too, and then, last night, she said she used to be in love with me. What if there aren’t second chances in life? I keep messin’ up with her, we end up fightin’, and she cries herself to sleep. I don’t think there is a chance at anythin’ for us,” he whispered.