Chapter 31

31

STERLING

A fter a very exciting night, I finally got back to the farm early the next morning. Still reeling about the fact that Jake and Rachel had made a real live human being, I couldn't stop smiling for some reason.

Obviously, I'd seen a baby before, but it'd never been conceived by two people I'd known for most of my life. Two people I'd known since before they'd even gotten together or had known what sex was.

It was definitely different seeing their little girl, like the true realization of what a miracle it really was had finally hit home for me. I'd never pictured myself having kids, but I wasn't sure why.

It had just never really been on my radar. In the past, I'd always just kind of thought about it as a one-day thing. As in, I'll think about it one day, if and when I get to it.

Now that I'd seen Jake and Rachel with their baby, however, something seemed to have shifted in my mind. It'd started when I'd been talking to Jake on our way to the hospital. After I'd seen him safely inside, our conversation had been playing on a loop in my mind, getting stuck on the part when we'd been talking about how he'd been working so hard to finish as much as he could before the baby was born.

Fast forward to when Daphne had asked if I wanted kids, and I'd suddenly realized that I didn't even know what I had been working so hard for all these years. Until now, it'd simply been the obvious thing to do.

I'd grown up having it tough financially at home and I'd just focused on not having to live like that. Back when my mom had still been alive and I'd been sending that money home, it'd felt like I was doing it for them. Not that they'd asked, but still.

If I really stopped and looked at it, I had no idea what I'd been busting my ass for. My lifeless penthouse? My fancy car? Paying hundreds of dollars for sickly sweet cocktails in a bougie bar I didn't even like?

For so long now, something had felt off. I hadn't been able to put my finger on it, but as I walked into the farmhouse after everything I'd seen, spoken about, and had been part of last night, I had a feeling I'd finally figured it out.

My dad had just woken up, and he was coming down the stairs as I entered the foyer. His head cocked. "Where have you been and why are you in such a good mood?"

"At the hospital," I said, shrugging out of my still damp coat and hanging it on the stand by the door. "Rachel and Jake's baby was born. Elizabeth Grace."

"Well, that explains your smile." For just a moment, my dad's scowl eased and he even managed a glimmer of a grin. "That's good. I'm happy for them. Say congratulations from me when you see them again."

"I will," I said, following him to the kitchen and watching as he got the coffeemaker going. "What's on your to-do list for the day?"

Dad ignored my question, surprising me when he took a second cup out of the cabinet and set it down beside his. In all the time I'd been here, he'd left me to my own devices, making coffee only for himself in the morning and then heading straight out.

Today, he'd not only gotten out a mug for me too, but he also turned to face me as we waited for the machine to do its magic. Dad's tired eyes swept across my features, and for once, he didn't shut down completely.

"I haven't seen you smile like that since your mom died," he said pensively.

The comment brought me back to reality real quick. The smile dropped from my face and my eyes narrowed. "I haven't seen you smile at all, so I guess we're even."

Dad let out a low grunt, shrugging as he turned back to the counter. "I don't have many reasons to smile these days."

I dragged in a long breath through my nostrils, figuring that this was as good a time as any to try again. "Since you brought it up, what's your plan, Dad?"

"My plan?" He shrugged again. "I'm going out to the pumpkin patch to keep getting it ready for the festival."

"I wasn't talking about today," I said. "I'm talking about your future. The future of Northfield Farms."

He blew out a breath so harsh that it was audible. "That's none of your business."

"Isn't it?" I fixed the back of his head with a serious look, bracing my hands against the counter between us as I leaned forward. I wasn't just letting it go again.

After all the revelations I'd had this morning and now that I'd realized where my problem had been lying all this time, I needed to get real with him. "You're getting older, Dad. You shouldn't be working so hard anymore."

He scoffed. "There's no one else to do it, son. I'm the best and the only person we've got."

"What if that wasn't the case?" I asked, speaking fast so I could get it all out there before he rushed away again. "I want to invest in the property. We could get it modernized. Make it so you can actually retire. I could hire a farm manager and a couple people to help out, and I'd be able to oversee it all from Manhattan."

Dad snorted and shook his head. "There's no need for that. I'm fine here. Like I've always been. Drop it."

"No," I said, finally snapping when he started toward the door after filling his mug. "Stop, would you? Just stop and fucking talk to me, Dad."

"What do you want me to say?" he snapped right back at me, but at least he'd spun around again. I saw the frustration in his eyes, the anger bubbling right underneath the surface. "You got out of this town, Sterling. You got away from this life. I'm not pulling you back in."

"Why not?" I straightened to my full height, ready to face off with him. I'd given him as much time as I could bear, but we really needed to start figuring things out. "I'm offering, Dad. Don't turn me down before you've even heard me out. I know you're still grieving Mom, but I lost her too. Yet here I am, and I'm trying, and I know it's way overdue, but I can't just leave shit the way it is right now."

"You should," he said stubbornly. "Grieve if you need to grieve, but go do it in Manhattan. Your life is there now."

"It doesn't have to be," I seethed, my own frustration, anger, and exasperation finally bubbling over. "Why don't you want me here? You never have. You're so pissed at me for leaving, but you never wanted to stay. Not really. You pretended for Mom's sake, but?—"

"Is that what you think?" he practically yelled, his eyes narrowing to slits as he snorted. "Don't speak about things you don't understand, boy."

"What don't I understand?" I asked, desperate to finally get answers out of the damn man. "It's true, isn't it? You never wanted me here. I just didn't ask why. I left. I left so that you could have your peace, but even then, you were pissed at me. You've always just been pissed at me."

"None of that is true," he retorted. "Like I said, don't talk about things you don't understand."

"Then tell me what I'm not understanding," I demanded. "If I'm so wrong, explain it to me, Dad. For once in your life, just sit down and fucking talk to me."

A few things happened at once. My dad's shoulders slumped and I just about saw the fight draining out of him. He picked up his coffee again, but instead of taking off, he suddenly nodded and strode over to the table, moving slowly, as if he was a hundred years old.

When he collapsed into his chair, he sniffed, and as he looked at me again, I saw the impossible—my father had tears in his eyes. "We wanted more for you, Sterling. Your mom and I both wanted more for you than life as a farmer."

The wind left my sails in a rush. "What?"

"You heard me," he ground out, clearing his throat and sending another look at the sky outside, just like I'd seen him do the other day. "It's never been about me not wanting you here, and I was never angry about you leaving. I was prouder than I'd ever been, and I'd give anything to have you here with me, but I don't want you to be."

"Why not?"

"I didn't want this life, but I chose to stay in it for your mother. If given the choice all over again, I'd make the exact same decision, but that's me. Not you."

My heart stammered and my eyes widened as I stared at him. "What do you mean you didn't want it?"

He sighed. "I was never passionate about this place growing up. My father and my grandfather? They were born to farm, but not me. My passion for it only came later, when your mom started making it our home. Our life."

I stumbled to the table and sank down in the chair across from him. "What happened?"

"Your mom convinced me not to sell it after your grandfather died. I was going to, you know. Sell it. But by then, you'd been born and we'd made a life here. It just didn't feel like the right thing to do anymore."

I was stumped. "That's why you didn't want me here?"

"That's never been true. I just didn't want you to be trapped in a life where you work your ass off for little to no gain when you could have had so much more."

"I don't see it that way," I replied. "I would've come home if I'd known you wanted me here, Dad. I would've come back in a heartbeat to run the business. I would've kept this place running as the beacon of our town, but after Mom died, you shut down."

"Because I knew you would do all those things you just said you would," he snapped. "You worked damn hard to get out of here, Sterling. You dedicated your life to finding a way to get out of Allisburg and you did it."

"Back then, I asked you what your plan was, Dad. All I wanted to know was that you'd be okay if I left."

"I wasn't okay and I'm not okay now, but I could hardly tell you that. I didn't want you to feel too guilty to go back to your own life."

"I hate my life," I finally admitted, the words bursting out of me. "It's empty. I'm alone in New York and I hate it. There's nothing for me there, except the money and I've made plenty of that by now."

My father fell completely silent, just staring back at me for a long beat. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I left because I knew you expected me to, but I thought I was doing it for all of us. I thought I was leaving so I could make the money you needed for the farm. When I first went, my plan was never to stay away forever. I always thought I'd be back one day. Eventually. When the farm was doing better and?—"

Dad shook his head, cutting me off. "I don't know if that was what you thought, but if it was, you were wrong, Sterling. We never wanted you to have to give up a full life for a simple one on a family farm."

"That's what I'm saying though, Dad. My life isn't full. My bank account is, but I never laid down any roots and I think it's because deep down inside, I knew I didn't belong there."

"No, Sterling. Where you don't belong is here, in Allisburg."

"I beg to differ." I looked him right in the eyes, feeling the strength of the truth as I spoke it. "I miss living in a small town where everyone knows everyone. I want to lay down roots, have a wife, a family, and I want you to be part of that."

My dad blinked hard, looking conflicted as he cocked his head. "Five minutes ago, you were offering to invest. To hire a manager and farm hands, and now you're saying you want to come back?"

"When I said that, I thought it was the best I could do, but if I've been wrong about you not wanting me here, then I can do better. I can be here."

"Can you?" he asked, but then he got up suddenly, all gruff again as he shook his head. "Well, get your boots on, then. We have work to do before the festival and it's not going to get done if we sit here all day."