Chapter 6 #2
“Just making sure we have enough,” I said before bringing the axe down into a thick log.
It instantly split down the middle with a sharp cracking sound.
For a second, that piercing noise muted everything else.
It was a second of absolute silence, and the more I chopped, the more seconds of silence I earned.
In those minutes of stillness, I somehow found it easier to breathe.
“We have enough, boss,” Johnny mused, the logs banging against the metal of the wheelbarrow as he tossed them inside.
Propping the axe against the chopping block, I bent to help him. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t splitting wood because I thought we didn’t have enough. We had plenty. But it was a great way to exert some of the stuff I was feeling since seeing Toby this morning.
What stuff, you ask? I don’t ask you personal questions. Mind your business.
All I can say (and maybe admit even to myself) was that seeing him brought up a lot of emotions I thought were long buried.
Liar.
Fine. It made me acknowledge the stuff I tried to bury. Ever since I drove away from the clinic this morning, my skin felt too tight. Frustration bubbled in my veins, and it was harder to concentrate on literally everything.
I couldn’t even blame it on worry for Marlowe. Toby was a great vet, and the pup was currently snoring it up in the corner of the bakery with Ma after getting a bunch of pity pets and solace snacks.
I told her not to spoil him.
She told me it was a grandmother’s right.
Maybe I spoiled him too. Why shouldn’t I? He was my best friend. Loyal in ways humans could never be.
The look in Toby’s eyes when I said I didn’t run away when things got hard replayed in my head over and over again.
“Where the heck did you even find all this wood to chop?” Johnny wondered, but I didn’t reply, too busy reliving the way Toby’s features pinched before smoothing out once more.
The jab hit its mark, just like I knew it would. But why should I feel bad? It was the truth. If it hurt him, then maybe that was his fault.
I expected him to retaliate with a barb of his own.
That’s what he always did in the past. Like the time he stole all the clothes out of my locker and left me naked.
Not this time. This time, he chose to say nothing, and his silence was disarming.
As was the way he recalled my mother and her soft heart just moments later.
We hadn’t always been enemies.
Sharp snapping jerked me back to the moment, and I recoiled at the hand right in front of my face.
“Earth to Archer,” Johnny called.
I pushed his hand down and focused on him. “Sorry. What?”
Johnny laughed under his breath and then gestured over by the barn. “Mayor’s here.”
I spun to see Mayor Schroder standing at the edge of the parking lot near the large barn where we kept the saws and wagons for tree cutting and also the netting machine to wrap them up once they were selected.
I waved, and he returned the gesture.
“Who wears a dress coat to harvest mistletoe?” I wondered beneath my breath.
Johnny snickered. “He is the mayor.”
Must be why I wasn’t, because wearing a suit, dress shoes, and a long wool coat on the daily seemed like torture.
“You got this?” I asked, gesturing to the wheelbarrow.
“Sure thing,” Johnny replied.
“Thanks.” I clapped him on the back and started toward Mayor Schroder and his ankle-length tan wool coat.
“Mr. Mayor,” I greeted the moment I was within earshot. “Glad you could make it.”
“Paul,” he corrected. “And thank you for waiting for me to get here. It’s a little later than I hoped, but my meeting went long.”
“No problem at all,” I said, shaking his hand. “Let me just get my gun.” I left him there to go into the barn for the shotgun that was older than me. It was the same one my dad used to harvest the mistletoe every year. Sure, I could use a more modern one, but this was part of the tradition.
After checking to make sure the shells were in the chamber, I slung it over my shoulder and grabbed a sack made of netting for the mistletoe once it was out of the tree.
He was waiting in the same place I left him when I came back moments later.
“All set,” I said. “We can take my truck. Driving out there will save daylight,” I noted. The old oak was at the edge of the property—and the only tree on the entire farm to host mistletoe.
“Oh, well, I was hoping we could wait for my son.”
“Brett?” I asked, flashing back to the way he’d leaned so close to Toby while he assisted with Marlowe’s paw.
“Yes. I asked him to meet us here. Thought some fresh air would do him some good.”
Before I could make up an excuse as to why we couldn’t wait, the sound of crunching gravel and the hum of an engine filled the air.
We both turned to the car pulling into the lot reserved for parking.
“That’s not his car,” Paul observed, staring at the dark-green Subaru Outback. He turned to me. “Maybe I’ll give him a call,” he said, pulling a phone out of the pocket of his dress coat.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said, watching Brett get out of the passenger side.
“What? Oh,” Paul said, seeing his son and lifting his hand to wave. “Who’s that with him?” he wondered.
Even though the car was parked so the driver’s side faced away, I knew.
I knew exactly who was driving that car, and it wasn’t because it was familiar.
It was because of the way my heart seemed to skip several beats before settling into an erratic rhythm.
The way the tightness of my skin, which had been driving me mad all day, suddenly felt a lot like anticipation.
Please, n—
Before I could even fully deny the inclination, a head full of dark, wavy hair popped up from behind the roof of the midsize SUV. The wind started playing in it almost instantly, as if Mother Nature couldn’t stop herself from flirting with him.
“Is that George Thomas’s boy?” Paul wondered. “Tobias.”
“Yep. That’s him,” I said, barely reining in the urge to call him Toby the Terrible out loud.
“Well, what’s he doing here? Doesn’t he live in Boston?”
“He should have stayed there,” I uttered, earning a swift look from the mayor.
“What?” he asked.
“Uh, I’m not sure.” I amended.
“Dad,” Brett said, jogging over with a wave. “Sorry we’re late.”
I couldn’t help but arch a brow. “We?”
Brett nodded. “I told Toby I was coming out to help harvest the mistletoe, and he asked if he could come with.”
First of all, he wasn’t harvesting anything. He would stand there and watch. Probably cover his ears like his father. Pansy.
Second of all, Toby asked to come here? I’d drink an entire carton of spoiled eggnog if that were true.
“He’s an expert at harvesting mistletoe. He said he’d show me how it was done,” Brett told his father.
“You can hardly be an expert at something you haven’t done for over ten years,” I pointed out.
“You must be Mayor Schroder,” Toby said, his voice a lot closer than I anticipated.
All the muscles in my neck tensed, shoulders inching up toward my ears automatically.
“So nice to finally meet you.”
Toby brushed past, the sleeve of his coat a mere whisper against my arm, but the wicked side-eye he served was clear proof he’d heard what I said.
Can’t argue with the truth.
Well, you could. But that just made you an asshole.
Toby the Terrible was a lot of things, but an asshole wasn’t one of them.
“Tobias Thomas,” the mayor replied, holding out his hand. “Please, call me Paul. It’s a pleasure to meet you, son. I’ve been wanting to thank you in person for all the support you’ve given Brett as he goes through veterinary school.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” Toby said.
“I had no idea you were coming home for a visit.” Paul went on.
“It was a last-minute decision,” he said, the line sounding like something he’d been repeating all day.
“He worked at the clinic today. He’s got really great bedside manner,” Brett said, gazing at Toby with what looked a hell of a lot like a crush the size of Santa’s gift sack in his eyes.
“What the hell would you know about Toby’s bedside manner?” I barked.
Startled, everyone glanced at me. Toby cleared his throat.
“Well, I watched him with patients all day,” Brett pointed out as if it were obvious. The only thing obvious here was that, like Mother Nature, he liked to flirt. Except he was terrible at it.
“Bedside manner refers to interactions with patients,” Toby told me quickly.
I knew that. I did. I might spend most of my time with trees, but I wasn’t stupid. Hearing Brett talk about Toby and the word bed in the same sentence seemed to turn me dumb, though.
“We should go before it’s dark,” I said, holding up the shotgun.
“Should we take Tobias’s car?” Paul asked. “Don’t think we’ll all fit in your truck.”
I scoffed. “That thing? It would never make it across the farm.”
“It’s an Outback,” Toby argued. “It’s made for outdoors.”
“Not with those tires,” I chided.
Toby gazed around, eyes landing on my truck. “You still drive that bucket of bolts? I’m surprised the tailgate hasn’t rusted through and fallen off in a field.”
“Even without a tailgate, it would drive better than that tuna can on wheels.”
Toby’s mouth dropped open. “It’s an SUV!”
I made a rude sound. “For city folk.”
Toby’s hands balled into fists as he faced me. “At least it was made in this decade!”
“New ain’t always better.”
“Should we take two cars?” Paul inquired.
“We’ll make it work,” I announced and gestured for everyone to get to my truck.
It was a square-bodied Ford F250 pickup and ran better than most cars produced in the past two decades.
It was my grandfather’s and had been passed to my father and then on to me.
It was a good truck, and I saw no reason to replace it.
The old gal had seen more of this farm than I had anyway.
For all I knew, her wisdom kept the whole place running.
Besides, it was a minty shade of green and went with the trees. I mean, sure, there might be a little rust, but it added character.