CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Hold this part with your thumb like this,” Amy said as she placed the ribbon against the ring and moved his thumb to anchor it leaving long strands of it hanging free.
“Then you just loop this part through over and over again. Cover just the edge of the ribbon already on the ring each time. When you’re done, you’ll have two long tails of ribbon. Then we’ll knot them. Easey peasey.”
As Will began to loop the ribbon like Amy had shown him, he glanced at Matt and Dean. Both men were watching him with smirks on their faces.
“Too bad you guys aren’t talented enough to help with such a simple craft,” he muttered, which sent both men into guffaws of laughter.
When the laughter suddenly died down, Will looked up to see Violet and Laurel each approaching their husbands with a ring and a length of ribbon. He didn’t bother to hide his own snort of laughter.
“Seriously?” groused Matt as he frowned at his wife. “At least make this a little fun.” He grabbed Laurel and pulled her into his lap. “Now you can show me what to do.”
Violet didn’t even wait for Dean to grab her. She settled herself comfortably on her husband’s lap and began to give him directions.
One would have thought with several people working it would have gone faster, but both Dean and Matt seemed to need a lot more instruction from their wives than Will had needed. For obvious reasons. He wondered what it would be like to have the right to be that way with Amy.
Shocked by the thought, Will turned his attention back to the ring he held.
He stared at it for a minute trying to work through the realization he’d just had.
In the past when his siblings had been affectionate with each other, he’d felt a pang of longing for what he’d had with Delia.
This was the first time he’d wondered about experiencing that intimacy with someone else.
Even though he had been wondering about something with Amy, this was a first.
Guilt rippled through him. He’d never thought that way about anyone but Delia.
Without even trying, apparently, Amy had managed to slip past his defenses and turn his thoughts to her.
He just wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
It had been almost seven years since Delia’s death.
His family had begun hinting a few years ago that he should move on, but he hadn’t been ready. Now it seemed maybe he was.
He just wished he could tell if Amy might be interested in him the way he was in her.
With Delia, there had never been a doubt.
She’d flirted outrageously with him, making it clear, almost from their first meeting, that she was interested in him.
Amy, on the other hand, seemed to treat him the same as the rest of the men in the family.
“Are you having a problem?”
Will looked up to see Amy standing beside his chair. “What?”
“You stopped working on your ring. Just wondered if it was giving you problems.”
“No, but you are” was what he wanted to say. Instead, he shook his head. “Apparently I can’t think and work at the same time.”
She took the ring from his fingers and studied it. “What you’ve done so far looks great. Keep it up.”
Her smile of encouragement did funny things to his gut. “Thanks.” He looked back down at the ring and began to loop the ribbon once again. This time he made sure that he continued to work even while dealing with all the thoughts in his head.
If she wasn’t Josh’s little sister and Cami’s sister-in-law, he might not be as hesitant to pursue her, but he didn’t want to make things awkward for either of them.
And if it didn’t work out, would they be able to go back to being friends?
Timing would be everything, Will figured.
For Isabella’s sake, he didn’t want to upset things before the party, but once it was over, he would see how things stood and decide whether or not to take the risk.
In the meantime, he could put out some subtle feelers with her.
See how she responded to him. Or if she started avoiding him.
Truth be told, now that he’d thought about it, some of his interactions with her had already bordered on flirting.
She made it so easy when she brought out that lighthearted side of him that had been absent for so long.
He looked back at the table and realized that Isabella and a couple of the other girls had abandoned the play structure and were kneeling on the benches of the picnic table.
“Can we help?” Julia asked, reaching out to touch one of the completed rings.
“Sure!” And revealing why she made such a good teacher, Amy patiently showed the girls how to loop the ribbon around the rings.
Once the younger girls were started on rings of their own, Will got up and approached the table.
“I’m done with mine.” He held it out to her, keeping the tops of the ribbon tails pinched between his fingers. “Do I pass?”
“Hold it for a second while I finish it off.” Amy quickly knotted the two ends of the ribbons then looked up at him and smiled. “Excellent! Ready for another one?”
When she looked at him with those sea- foam green eyes of hers, he couldn’t say no. “Sure. How many do we have to make?”
“I’d like to make thirty so each little girl will have two. They’ll take them home as part of their goodie bags.”
“How is mine, Amy?” Isabella asked.
Will watched as Amy moved to bend over Isabella and inspect her work.
“It’s beautiful, sweetie. You’re doing a really great job.”
His daughter positively beamed at the praise Amy gave her. Will wondered if his expression had been similar when she’d proclaimed his efforts as excellent. He could only hope that if it had been, no one else had noticed.
Eventually, the afternoon wound down as the last of the rings were finished.
“Thank you all so much for your help,” Amy said as she gathered up the completed project.
Laurel, Violet, and Rose all offered their services for any other projects before taking off to visit with Jessa. Amy followed with the craft stuff, leaving just the men to ride herd on the kids in the backyard.
“So what did I miss?” Lance asked when he came back outside.
“Did you know Amy was going to rope us into doing crafts?” Matt asked. “Is that why you took off?”
Lance grinned as he settled into a chair. “You guys were doing crafts down here?”
“It was his fault,” Dean said with a jerk of his thumb in Will’s direction. “He couldn’t say no to Amy when she asked him to help with the ring things. The next thing I know, Violet’s got me doing it.”
“Yeah, and Laurel conscripted me as well.” Matt also nodded his head toward Will. “Definitely his fault.”
“Not my fault that you guys can’t say no to your wives. At least I felt obliged because it was for my daughter.”
“Well, I can say that I’m glad that I was upstairs with Jessa,” Lance said with a smirk. “Of course, I could have probably said no to Amy if she’d tried to convince me.”
When the women came down from visiting Jessa, Amy wasn’t with them.
Will could think of no reason to hang around once the others began to get ready to go, so he called Isabella to get her things.
As usual, she protested leaving without seeing Amy.
Julia said she’d take her up to Amy’s room to see her.
“Did you get to say goodbye?” Will asked her a few minutes later as they left the manor.
“Yep.”
Will had hoped she might give a few more details, but since she didn’t continue on, he asked, “What was she doing?”
“She was talking on the phone. To someone named Sam, I think,” Isabella said. “When we got to the door she said, ’Just a second, Sam,’ and then said goodbye.”
Sam? The name was familiar from the text messages he’d seen.
He seemed to remember her talking about Sammi being her best friend.
Will knew it was none of his business what she did or who she talked to, but, try as he might, he couldn’t just shove aside what he was feeling for her.
Each time he was around her it got harder and harder to ignore the thoughts in his mind and the feelings in his heart.
~*~*~
“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to take you to the store,” Lance said as they cleaned up from supper the following Thursday. “Want to make that grocery run now?”
“Sure,” Amy said as she slid the last of the plates into the dishwasher and started it up. “Jessa asked me to add a couple of things to the list.”
“I can take you,” Will offered. “Unless you really need to go, Lance.”
Lance shook his head. “Nope. I was just going to help with the bagging and carrying. We’ve got quite a list with the family all arriving and getting a few more things for the party.”
“Well, in that case, I insist.”
Lance turned to Amy. “You okay going with Will?”
She didn’t feel she could give any answer except to agree.
Saying no would definitely raise questions.
Though being around him was difficult at times, having other people there with them had been helpful.
This would just be the two of them, and Amy wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
The key to making it through the summer without total heartbreak was to keep reminding herself of all the reasons it wouldn’t work.
Unfortunately, going out on a grocery run with him—just like a married couple—wasn’t going to help her mindset.
“Sure. It’ll be fun to ride in that car again.”
Will grinned. “You like my car, eh? I’ll give you a ride in it any time you want.”
“Would you let me drive it?” Amy asked.
Lance laughed as Will said, “Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Can I come too, Daddy?” Isabella asked.
“I think it would be better if you stayed here with Julia. It might take a while to get the groceries, and I don’t want you to get bored.”
“Will you bring me a cookie?” she asked, an innocent smile on her face.
Amy almost laughed out loud when Will sighed and nodded. “Yes, I’ll bring you a cookie.”
He’d probably get a whole pack of them, Amy figured. She knew she would.