Chapter 8
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Lark walked into the kitchen wearing a dress she’d pulled out of her closet that she hadn’t seen in at least a year.
She figured after last night’s Care Bear swimming suit, anything she wore would be impressive to Cash.
She found him dressed in black slacks and a white shirt, tieless, as he kneaded a ball of dough on the counter.
She’d heard his alarm go off forty-five minutes ago, and she’d deliberately waited until he’d walked past her bedroom before she went to get in the shower. “Morning,” she said.
Cash grinned at her. “Look at you, Songbird.” He grinned at her. “You’re as pretty as a lark.”
She wanted to roll her eyes and tell him he was the cheesiest man on earth, but the warmth his deep voice sent through her simply had her grin widening. “Thank you, Cash. Looks like you got started on the dough.”
“Yep, it’s almost done,” he said, and he kept pushing the butt of his palms through it and folding it over three, four, five more times. “I think that’ll do it,” he said. “Did you eat breakfast before I got up?”
He set about putting the dough in a bowl. As he stretched a long piece of plastic wrap over it, she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I didn’t want to cook and didn’t feel like anything breakfasty today.”
He bent to put the bowl in the fridge. “I’m gonna adjust this just a little while we’re gone.” He twisted something in the fridge and then closed it. “But you like doughnuts, right?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Of course.”
“They could be considered a breakfasty,” he said.
“I like that yogurt I got,” she said. “And the stuff for breakfast sandwiches. But I’m not really hungry this morning. I want to save my appetite for lunch.”
“All right.” Cash moved over to the dining room table, where he’d looped a tie around the top of one of the chairs.
He pulled it off and put it around his neck, his fingers deftly working to tie the knot at his throat.
Lark liked watching him do things with those hands, and a slip of embarrassment moved through her when he dropped them and asked, “How do I look?”
“Amazing,” she said. “But you already know that.”
“Do I?” he challenged, and he took a step closer to her.
Lark wanted to back up or turn away from him, simply because she wasn’t sure what this thing brewing between her and Cash was. He’d been the one to initiate all physical contact, except for her light touch on his hand last night at dinner.
He took another step, and Lark held her ground. He paused in front of her, a little too close to be friendly, and Lark reached up with her heartbeat fluttering in her throat. “It’s a little bit crooked.”
Though the tie at his throat sat exactly straight, he lifted his chin and let Lark fix his tie.
When she dropped her hands, she actually placed one on Cash’s chest and looked up at him.
He put one hand on her waist, his eyes lighting up as he said, “I just need my cowboy hat, and I’ll be ready to go. ”
“I need to get my jacket.” She stepped away and out of his touch, an instant chill settling inside her.
Lark had never felt like this about anyone before, and none of it made sense to her.
She’d had a couple of friends who’d gotten married in the last few years while she’d been at college, but neither of her brothers had ever been married, and Lark had never been in love.
So she honestly didn’t know and had never experienced the whirlwind of emotions moving through her as she stepped over to the hooks by the door and pulled down her coat.
Cash followed and helped her into it before putting on his own leather jacket and that sexy black cowboy hat.
He took her hand and led her out of the house, tapping the garage door opener as he went.
He took her around the back of the truck to the passenger side, where he opened the door and held it so she could climb in.
He joined her only a few seconds later, and while Lark’s heartbeat thundered at her, he backed out of the driveway and set them south again.
“Cash, does your whole family go to this church up here?” she asked.
“No,” Cash said. “Just the cousins I mentioned, because they live up here in Dog Valley. And I’ve got a couple of uncles too—Uncle Luke and Uncle Morris. I’m sure they’ll be there. Uncle Luke only misses if he’s taken his family camping, and he doesn’t do that in the winter.”
Cash had not taken her hand again since they had gotten in the truck, and he now reached out to adjust the heat settings.
“He sometimes takes his boys winter camping, but I doubt he’ll have gone right before Thanksgiving.”
“I’m surprised you’re doing Thanksgiving with our family,” Lark said. “What with your family being so close and so big, I’m sure you have lots of other options.” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of that until now.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m actually going over to my parents’ on Wednesday night.” He glanced over to her. “And, well, remember when my daddy called last night?”
“Yes,” she said, every defense flying into place at the guarded nature of his tone.
“Well, my step-mom made a bunch of soup, and they heard I was making doughnuts today, and they want to do a trade. I said we’d stop by after we visited your grandmother.” He glanced at her again, clearly nervous. “My family can be a lot.”
“It’s just your momma and daddy,” she said.
“Yeah, and they’ve got four kids under the age of ten,” he said. “And my daddy is a dark horse.” He laughed. “At least, that’s what he’s always called himself.”
“Oh, so he’s grumpy.” Lark grinned at him. “I think we’ll get along just fine. I’m the salt queen, remember?”
Cash laughed again, but Lark wasn’t kidding.
He made a turn into a two-story white church that Lark hadn’t visited in quite a while. Something settled in her soul, though, at the sight of the steeple as it stretched into the sky, and the way the other worshipers went up the wide front steps and through the door.
“Anyway,” Cash said. “My daddy doesn’t hold back when it comes to asking questions, and I’m sure he’ll want to know what we are.”
Surprise darted through Lark, and her adrenaline spiked. She didn’t quite know what to say, and her mind raced to find an answer. Then a man’s face filled Cash’s side window, his door got opened, and Lark yelped. Cash cried out too as he spun toward the source of the disturbance.
The man there laughed and said, “Howdy, Brother. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Oh, you did too,” Cash said, and he swatted at the man’s chest and quickly unbuckled his seatbelt. He got out of the truck saying, “Howdy, Bryce.”
“We just saw you pull in,” Bryce said, looking past Cash as he pounded him on the back to where Lark still sat in the truck. “I didn’t know you were with someone. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it’s just Lark,” Cash said.
Lark’s stomach lurched at the same time her chest completely squeezed in on itself. Just Lark? She undid her seatbelt and opened her own door to get out of the truck. She found a blonde woman waiting near the front hood with a little boy in her arms, who had to be about two years old.
Lark grinned at both of them, somehow remembering that Bryce’s wife’s name was Codi. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Lark McClellan. Cash is staying at my parents’ house.”
“Oh, of course,” Codi said. “You guys are doing Thanksgiving there this year. Are your brothers here yet?”
Cash obviously stayed in touch with his family, otherwise Codi wouldn’t know those details.
Lark shook her head. “No, they’re coming in tonight, but I got in yesterday from Idaho.”
“Yeah, you’re going to school there?”
“Yes,” Lark said, wondering what else Cash had told his cousins. “I think you’re Codi.”
“Oh, yes,” Codi said with a smile. She beamed down at her son. “And this is Matthew.”
He wore a sober expression, though Codi radiated a bright smile to go with her long blonde hair and blue eyes.
“You ready to go in, baby?” Bryce asked as he joined them. “Howdy, Lark. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s all right,” she said.
“You met Bryce and Codi,” Cash said as he came to his cousin’s side.
“Yep,” Lark said, trying not to let the hurt pinch in her heart too much.
But just Lark ran through her mind in Cash’s voice over and over, and she wondered if she had been imagining everything—every touch, every smile, every question, the way he’d cut out birds for the chicken pot pie—in the past twenty-four hours.
Lark knew she was lonely, but she wasn’t that desperate. Was she?
Codi and Bryce turned toward the church, Cash moving with them as he fell into another conversation with his cousin. Lark ended up bringing up the rear, feeling like a complete extra who didn’t belong.
She actually looked over her shoulder toward Cash’s truck as the others entered the building ahead of her.
I knew I should have driven my own car, she thought, but it had felt natural and normal for her to simply get in Cash’s truck and go to church with him.
He promised that the sermon would be less than an hour and they’d be home by eleven so he could make lunch for his cousins, who would be coming at twelve-thirty.
“You coming, Songbird?” Cash asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Lark spun toward him, finding him practically on top of her. He took both of her hands in his right there on the front steps of the chapel.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I don’t know what to do, and I didn’t know what to say.” He kept his gaze down on their joined fingers. “We need to talk about this.” He squeezed her hands.
Lark nodded, and then someone behind her said, “Excuse me, are you going in or out?”
“In,” she said, deciding on the spot, and she nudged Cash to go in front of her so they wouldn’t be blocking the doorway. Bryce and Codi had gone ahead, and Cash reached for her hand as they walked through the foyer and entered the chapel together.
“You want to sit by Boston or by ourselves?” he asked, almost under his breath.