Page 108 of Axe Backwards
Between one blink and the next, she did it. She took a small, shaky step.
When she wobbled, Noah jumped up, arms out and ready to catch her. As if sensing that Dad was going to end her fun, she took another two steps in quick succession before plopping onto her butt.
Beaming, she peeked up at Noah. “Da. Da.”
He scooped her up and spun her around, covering her little face with kisses.
“You walked, baby girl. You walked.”
Holding her to his chest, he looked at me, his expression filled with pride.
My heart clenched. There was no denying it. I was wildly in love with this man.
Chapter 35
Noah
Once Tess had had a bath and dinner, I put her to bed, more than ready for a shower and some time to process.
When I’d discovered that moose calf and realized it was in danger, a switch had flipped in my brain. I was overcome by a sense of total clarity. Every step I needed to take came to me. So I did it.
I had not bargained on the giant bull confronting me on the riverbed, but he seemed… grateful?
It was as if the deadly thousand-pound animal had stared into my soul. And though I was still reeling, I thought it might have changed me forever.
It must be his calf. Though that didn’t make sense. Moose calves stayed with their mothers. But Clive—according to Vic, he was well-known—had been braying and crying as if he was concerned for the little creature.
While I’d given Tess a bath, Vic had called in a favor. The pizzeria still hadn’t opened, but after Becca showed up with pizza the night we built the chicken coop, Vic had befriended Marco, the owner. She’d gushed over the pizza and marveledat the beautiful oven in his new storefront, and voilà, we had become recipients of his “test” batches.
When I left California, I had no idea what was in store for me. In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined a woman like Vic coming into my life and turning it upside down.
“You were incredible today, hotshot,” she said, wiping tomato sauce from the corner of her lip.
I wanted to brush off the compliment, but I knew she wouldn’t let me get away with that. So I nodded and left it at that.
“I’m here for you. I hope you know that. If you need to talk, I’ll listen. I want to help.” Her dark eyes were brimming with concern and affection.
It hurt to see the genuine emotion so close to the surface like that. I’d relived that day a year ago over and over in my mind. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about it.
What I did want, more than anything in this moment, was to be close to Vic. I wanted to share my life with her. She deserved to know who I was, deep down. And she should know what had happened to Tess’s parents.
How could I expect her to feel about me the way I felt about her if I wasn’t completely honest? If I didn’t give her the full history?
It wasn’t possible. So I swallowed past the trepidation rising up my esophagus and forced the words out.
“Jack and Emily were my best friends.” I set my slice of pizza down and wiped my hands on a napkin. “Jack and I trained together, then we served on the same crew for a few years. He and Emily had been together forever. The three of us lived in Tahoe for a while, in this shitty old apartment above a laundromat.”
She put her plate down on the coffee table and snuggled up next to me.
“When they got pregnant with Tess, they bought a little house on a few acres outside of town, toward the national forest. They were building the family they’d always dreamed of. I was so happy for them. Jack had always wanted kids, and Emily had finally been promoted at the hospital.”
Emotion welled up inside me, making it hard to speak.
She squeezed my hand, gently urging me to keep going.
“We were so close. Always spent holidays together. The day they made it legal, I stood beside them as their witness at the courthouse. After, we went to our favorite dive bar and had the best burgers ever. Emily craved them nonstop while she was pregnant. While we were there, they said they had something to ask me.”
I closed my eyes and breathed. I could smell the stale beer and I could hear the country music playing on the jukebox in the corner.
