Chapter 21
Dean
Grace is currently vacuuming. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I hate it because I don’t want her lifting a finger. On the other, the smile on her face is so serene, I can’t deny I’d let her do anything if it meant basking in her happiness.
The bonus is Oscar’s running around her like a tornado, which keeps Grace laughing hysterically.
I honestly don’t think this house has ever been so happy.
When I was a kid, I was angry a lot. Even when Grandpa tried to make living with him fun, I still had an irrationally quick temper for the first couple of years. With time, I got over my resentment for being a child my parents didn’t want, because I realized I was wanted and loved by someone much better. I made friends. Had hobbies. There was also plenty of work around here, which I loved, because staying busy makes me happy.
But Grandpa and I were never really goofy with each other. He was serious all the time and kept to himself. My grandmother passing a year before I moved in broke some fundamental part of him and I couldn’t fix it. I’d often catch him holding a photo of her close to his chest as he sipped his morning coffee on the back porch. Or late at night when we’d have a bonfire going in the back. Towards the end, when his health declined rapidly, he chucked the photo in the fireplace and let it burn to ash.
I have no idea why.
He would have loved Grace. Bet she would have made him smile the same way that picture of my grandmother did. “There’s something about a woman that touches a man’s heart,” he’d said to me just after I had my first break up. “It’s forever changed by it. There’s no going back to being who you were before that one woman comes into your life.”
I never understood what he meant. My first girlfriend broke my heart, and the pain didn’t last. I didn’t care enough. I wasn’t changed by her. Nor by the next one. Or the one after that.
But Grace?
She’s changed me, except I can’t figure out how I’m different. It’s just a gut feeling. One that knows I’ll never recover if I lose her… just like I’ll love her forever, no matter what.
She’s my heart’s home .
And she’s making the mountain feel like one again too.
How’s that possible?
“Oh. Em. Gee.” Grace turns off the vacuum cleaner and snags a photo that was lying flat on the mantel, out of view. “Look at you!” She turns the frame over for me to see and holds it to her chest. “You’re adorable.”
I’m holding a fish that’s nearly half my size with a cheesy grin on my face. “I was a scrawny kid.”
“You look like a happy kid.” She delicately props the photo up on the mantel and my stomach drops. I hurry over and lay it back down, out of sight again.
“Why don’t you want it up?”
I’m not sure how to answer her. Why don’t I want it up? Why don’t I want to see it? Why does my stomach hurt having it on display just like it always was when he… “It reminds me of a different time that I can’t get back.”
Her brow pinches with pity. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for, sugar.” I slowly tilt the picture just enough to glance at it one last time. “Grief is weird, I guess. I took a lot of photos down when he died. Seeing them up surrounded me with emotions I couldn’t get a handle on.”
She presses her hand on my chest, right over my heart. “I wish I could have met him.”
“I was just thinking about how much he would have loved you.” I chuckle and shake my head. “You would have had him showing off his skills like a lovesick fool.”
“And what skills would those be?”
“He could Yo-Yo.”
Grace’s laugh shoots fireworks into me. “Yo-Yo?”
“He was crazy good at it.” My heart skips around my chest. “When families filled the cabins in the summer, he would usually have a big bonfire in the center for everyone and would bust out his Yo-Yo and do all kinds of tricks with it. He could time it to any song you played, too. It was hilarious.” I want to cry just thinking about it, even though I have a dumb smile on my face. “And he was scary good at axe throwing.”
“Oh!” Grace looks genuinely thrilled by that .
“He never missed the mark.” My eyes sting. “He… made animal pancakes, too. Whatever you wanted, he could make it.” Shit, I think my eyes are leaking. “He had a way of making you feel so loved and safe. In a world where no one wanted you… where no one else understood you… he did. And now he’s gone.”
Grace’s arms wrap around me like an anaconda, and I can’t believe I’m crying over a man that’s been gone for over two years. Is it because I never accepted my grief? Never wanted to feel it? Why the fuck is it hitting me now? I’d shoved my pain down, just like I laid that photo of the first time he took me fishing down on the mantel, and never acknowledged it.
It seems impossible to ignore anymore.
“I’ve let this place go.” My chest is going to cave in. “He would be so disappointed in me.”
“Don’t say that,” she says against my chest. “You didn’t let this place go. It got away from you. Bet there were times when it got away from him too.”
No. There weren’t. Even when an eight-year-old terrorizer showed up on his porch with a suitcase and bad attitude, he kept this place running like a tight ship because it supported us for a long time.
“He was sick for longer than I knew.” I say quietly. A bubble of anger floats to the surface. “He hid it from me until he couldn’t anymore. By then… everything was slowly falling apart. The cabins, the bridge, the employees’ responsibilities. The last two years of his life were brutal. He needed twenty-four-hour care and a boatload of meds. I couldn’t run the cabins and be with him at the same time, and I couldn’t afford to hire help for either one, so I sacrificed the land and spent every day by his bedside. Ba thing him. Feeding him. Reading to him.” The bubble of anger pops when it touches my heart. “Every day, he said he loved me. Even when his voice could no longer be heard. I knew… from the first day, to the last, that I was loved.”
A wave of nausea hits me. I think I’m going to throw up. All these emotions are choking me. Making me sway.
“What a beautiful thing,” Grace says sweetly. “To be so loved by a man like him.”
I am a man like him.
My gaze drifts to hers, but the words catch in my throat. Before I’m able to say them, my cell goes off in my pocket.
I ignore it.
It goes off again.
Grace cocks her eyebrow at me. “Are you going to answer that?”
Snapping out of my emotions, I fumble for my phone and pull it out to see it’s Nick. “Yeah?”
“You’re trending.”
“Huh?”
“You’re fucking trending, bro. Check your account.”
I hit the app and…. There are so many notifications, there’s a dot in the number. What the hell?
Grace looks down and she gasps, covering her mouth. “Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit ! I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
I open the video I posted this morning, and the flow of comments is insane. But the one that’s at the top, with the most likes and comments, is Grace Finch .
With the verified blue check mark next to her name.
“I forgot to toggle over to my dump account before commenting!” Her eyes flash with panic. “Oh my god, Dean. I’m so sorry!”
I still have no idea why she’s apologizing. Scrolling through the comments, I skim several before clicking on the tags next. The post has been duetted and stitched a lot. The number of followers I’ve gained is… unreal.
“I have over four hundred thousand new followers.”
In a matter of hours.
Is that even possible? Maybe there’s a glitch.
Hitting the first tagged video, a woman’s face takes up the screen. “Besties. BESTIES!” She leans into the camera. “I think tea’s brewing.” She grins like a maniac. “Check this out.” The young woman leans to the left and the green screen behind her is a screenshot of me shirtless in the snow in my latest good morning video. Then it cuts to a screenshot of the comment section, and she’s got Grace’s circled. “I think there’s a romance going on. I mean... it could be nothing. Or it could be everything . Can you imagine Grace Finch with that man?” She fans herself.
I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.
“They’d the hottest couple on the planet!”
Flattered then.
“Mountain Wood is like the hottest lumbersnack on the internet.” She leans in even closer and whispers, “I bet his log is so big, it needs a permit.”
I quickly close out of the video, mortified and slightly proud .
Gulping, I scroll through more stitched videos. More comments. More attention.
Grace looks like she’s scared to death. “Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you?” That makes zero sense.
“Because this is blowing up.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” I have no clue. “I hit the algorithm at the right time.”
“It’s not the algorithm, Dean. It was my comment.” She actually cringes telling me that.
Right. Because I’m a nobody and she’s famous. Her sexy comment on my video is why so many followers are suddenly noticing me. Because if Grace Finch is looking at me then I must be something special.
Well, this is awkward.
I’m not mad. I’m overwhelmed. “You did say everything you touch turns to gold. What do I do now?”
She swallows hard and looks down at my screen again. More and more notifications are popping up.
“We can ignore it,” she offers. “Orrrr…” A wild grin spreads across her face. “We can lean into it.”
I’m down for either one. I have no clue what the right answer is. But I’m not the only one being affected by this sudden spike of attention. Grace is too. What if her mother finds out she’s with a blue-collar mountain man? Bet it won’t go over too well. And what about her brothers? Her friends?
“What do you want to do, Grace?”
She wraps her arms around my neck and drags me down for a kiss. “Let’s get dirty, baby.”