Free All I Want (A Farmers' Market Story) by Nicole Helm

course I’m serious. It makes financial sense, and it’ll offer everyone a sense of security.”
    She laughed again, so hard she had to wipe her eyes. Charlie found none of it amusing, but he’d as soon let her get it all out before he tried to speak again. Maybe he could attribute this whole response to hormones. To the shock of the situation.
    “I’m sorry you’re irritated,” she said after taking a deep breath. “And I know this looks like the fifties, but we live firmly in the twenty-first century. I don’t know you, Charlie. I only know your name because Dan said it ...after we had sex and woke up not remembering said sex.” She grew more and more serious and angry with every word. “I’ve got all the financial sense I need, and I can handle my own damn security. What we’re talking about here is how much you want to be involved in this child’s life—not mine. I’ve had my fill of self-important businessmen who think they can plan everything into the ground.”
    It was a wonder that it hurt, because why should something said by someone who was essentially a stranger bother him? But it did. It cut, the same way Dell’s dismissals of his offers for help years ago had cut.
    When all you wanted to do was help, and people couldn’t even take that seriously, or got offended by it, how could it not hurt?
    But why should she see how sincere he was? She didn’t know him. He didn’t know her. It was an old familiar feeling all in all, and one he knew just how to deal with. Give them what they wanted.
    He stood. “Maybe we should meet to discuss this at a time when you’re more willing to be reasonable.”
    She laughed bitterly. “You would be an asshole, wouldn’t you?”
    If that was what she wanted to think of him, did it really matter what the truth was? He shrugged and fished one of his old business cards out of his wallet. He took the pen out of his pocket and crossed out everything except his name and his cell number.
    Setting it on the table with a twenty, he slid it toward her. “You can contact me when you’re ready. But if it takes too long, I will contact you. Because I do want to be a part of my child’s life. You’ll hear from me one way or another.” Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he added, “And eat the sandwich and vegetables when they come.”
    And because there was nothing else to say, he turned and walked right out of Moonrise, to his car, and got the hell away from New Benton and all the ways it’d never understand him.
    * * *
    T HE FEELING SHE ’ D been wrong dogged Meg all afternoon.
    It shouldn’t. Charlie had been so ridiculous, so familiar . She’d wanted to reach across the table and bash him over the head. With what, she didn’t know, but reasonable “action plans” always made her want to rip her hair out.
    And he had been a jerk, so she shouldn’t feel one second of regret over calling him on it.
    But it was something in his expression after she’d said it, a kind of weary acceptance, one she recognized from her family simply refusing to see her. Eventually, you just accepted they weren’t going to.
    Everything about that last minute with Charlie burrowed under her skin and she couldn’t itch it away or ignore it. Something was off, and she had a terrible feeling the fault rested with her even though he was the one insane enough to propose marriage.
    A proposal. Ha! It was a stupid suggestion and she hadn’t been wrong to scoff at it. But she didn’t feel right about the way she’d treated him.
    What had happened to doing what was best for her child? Being a responsible, mature adult? There hadn’t been a lot of that going on at that table. She’d reverted into old familiar patterns that weren’t particularly fair when it came to Charlie.
    He was involved in making half this kid’s DNA and it seemed as though he was interested in being a part of the kid’s life. She had to find a way for that to work, marriage to a stranger aside.
    So he was