Chapter 12
This is going to cause trouble.
There will be noise from every member of my family if I do this. Probably more than one brawl. A different family might uninvite me from the upcoming holiday gatherings. But not the Krauts. They’ll demand I come, experience their ire in person, and assign me dish duty.
But I don’t mind cleaning up dirty dishes.
And they can all go shove their heads in a pile of cow manure if they decide to side with Daren over Robin.
He might be the one with a blood connection, but she’s still family.
Has been since that first Thanksgiving.
Uncle Jensen started putting together a wedding binder before dessert was served. That might seem odd for a fifty-year-old man to do, but not in the Kraut family. In past generations, my relatives were farmers. But when my granddad passed away and the fields stopped yielding as much as they used to, Uncle Jensen and my dad pivoted.
Their new venture: Farm Mountain Marriages.
The business helps couples create beautiful destination weddings around Green Valley and in the Smoky Mountains. All of my cousins have a role in the company. I even pitch in with some part-time work.
My father and his brother might have rough exteriors, but they’re hopeless romantics at the core. A trait they passed on to their sons. At least to some of us.
Daren’s actions aren’t a self-contained mess. Not only did he cheat on a woman he was seeing, but he also betrayed someone my whole family has loved from the start. He went against everything our fathers had taught us about being decent men and partners.
I love him, but I also kinda hate him.
I care about Robin, and she needs help. So, it makes sense I’d help her.
There we go. Sound logic.
“No way.” Robin waves her hands between us. “I shouldn’t have asked. Your family would be pissed. I’m not about to be the bomb that blows up the Kraut clan.”
I shrug. “You can’t be. They’ll still love me.”
She rolls her eyes, even as a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.
“But remember when Marvin didn’t pick up Stewart from school that one time ’cause he had a date? Your uncle crashed the date at Genie’s and showed that poor girl every single embarrassing baby picture of your cousin.”
“I remember.” Fondly. I remember that fondly.
“Just imagine what they’ll do to you if you date Daren’s ex. Even if it’s fake.”
Some creative torture, I’m sure.
Uncle Jensen has a happily ever after in mind for his boy Daren and Robin Dunn. I know for a fact that there’s a wedding playlist, multiple venues mapped out, and a father-of-the-groom speech already written. The man loves the curly-haired mechanic like a daughter, and he won’t give up easily on them mending ways.
But none of them were with her that night. I’m the only Kraut who walked into that bathroom and witnessed the strongest woman I know curled in a ball on the floor, sobbing her heart out. None of them held her and tried to figure out a response when she begged to know why she still loved a man who had hurt her.
And I’m supposed to be loyal to that man? Over her?
No blood is thick enough for that.
Leaning across the table, I push Robin’s breakfast closer to her, wanting to know she’s fed and she won’t be hungry later.
And when her blue eyes meet mine, I try to explain in the simplest way I can. “If it’s him versus you, I choose you.”
Her jaw goes slack.
Is it so surprising I’d pick her side? And not just pick it, but also stand firm on it?
“Arthur...” she starts, but runs out of words.
“Eat.” I tap her plate. “I’m taking you out tonight.”
Robin narrows her gaze at me, but finally scoops up a forkful of her eggs.
I go back to my coffee and reach for the newspaper I bought at the front counter.
“I want to offer a trade.”
My focus slides off the fine print at her words, and I find the mechanic staring at me with determination.
I heave a sigh. “I don’t need anything.”
“But you want something.” She jabs her fork my way, the eggs on it wiggling with the motion. “Your soulmate.”
My body stiffens at the words. How accurate they are.
I do want that. Badly.
And have no clue how to go about finding her.
I assume my one true partner is a woman, as I’ve never been attracted to any other gender before. Not that I’d stop myself if a man struck my fancy. But I’ve been around the world and never run into one who inspired any kind of passionate feelings in my chest.
The feelings that make me want to kiss a person just to see. To know if we’re destined.
“I think I know why you haven’t lucked out in that department.” Robin takes bites of her food between sentences but swallows before speaking. “You’ve got a problem. And I want to help you with it. But I also don’t want you to evict me when I tell you what it is.”
“You’re not paying rent,” I point out to cover how eager I am for her to keep talking. To tell me how to find that person who will fit into my life perfectly. Be the companion my dad always described my mother was to him, for the brief time they had each other.
“I knew. Within moments. All it took was a kiss, and I knew she was going to be my wife.”
That’s what I want. That surety and the person on the other end of it.
“I know,” Robin continues, “but if I stay any longer, I will start paying because it’s only fair and you’ve bailed me out enough. Plus, FYI, Green Valley isn’t exactly rife with rentals. I might need some time.”
“You’re staying?” I ask before I can stop myself. For some reason, the answer to this question holds an equal weight of importance to the other topic of the conversation.
Robin scowls. “Yes. I’m not letting Daren run me out of town. I love it here. And I have my job. And Malcolm has been talking about retiring. Not immediately, but maybe in the next year or so. I’m the best person to hand Green Valley Aviation off to, and he knows it.” Her surly expression splits into a beautiful grin. “I’m going to buy it, and then I’ll have the shop I’ve always wanted. Can’t exactly do that if I leave, right?”
“Right.” I nod, the tension easing in my chest.
“Back to you.” Robin sets down her fork. “I don’t know a way to say this where I won’t sound like a bitch, so I’m just going to say it and hope you keep in mind that I love you and I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, okay?”
I grunt, not sure what to say to that dismal lead-up.
Robin reaches over our empty breakfast dishes to clasp my forearm. Comforting me or keeping me in place?
“Arthur”—she sucks in a deep, bracing breath—“you’re a bad kisser.”
I’m . . . what?
I can feel my entire face dissolve into a frown.
That is not what a guy wants to hear.
Worse, it’s not the first time I’ve heard it.
But the last person who called my kissing god-awful was my friend and coworker Gwen, and she had been drunk the time we locked lips.
To be clear, she was the kisser. I do not molest drunk women.
Still, that’s two.
And I’ve never had anyone tell me I’m a good kisser.
I went out with Marley Rivers, who has a dating podcast I agreed to be a guest on. Doubt I was as talkative as her normal guests, but she still gave me some tips about improving my dates.
But nothing about kissing.
“We’re not a match,” I point out. That has to be why. Not that I’m bad at it.
When we were in my kitchen and I stepped between Robin’s legs, I had a brief worry that she might be the one for me. That I was about to find out my cousin’s ex of less than twenty-four hours was the woman I was destined to be with.
Then, our lips met and . . . nothing.
Robin smelled mildly sweet, like coconut. Her lips were soft. Her body was pleasantly warm.
But no mind-rattling revelation. No punch in the mental face, saying, This is her! The love of your life.
I was relieved.
And maybe a small part of me was disappointed, but I reasoned that was because I’d have to keep looking.
I’ve never considered that the way I’ve been searching might be faulty.
“Okay, here’s the thing,” Robin says, her tone no-nonsense. “If you kiss every woman the way you kissed me, you’re never going to find the one. Because—and remember that I love you—that was a bad kiss. The technique was atrocious. In that, there was none.”
I shake her hand off my arm and lean back in my booth seat, not liking where this is going at all. But Robin slides out of her seat to join me on my side. Boxing me in so I can’t escape. And she keeps talking about my lackluster make-out skills.
“I think you think that when you meet your soulmate, the kissing will just magically improve. But what if it doesn’t? What if you find the perfect partner and you kiss them in your terrible way of kissing and they say, Thanks, but no thanks?” She gazes up at me with her sky-blue eyes, full of sincerity and concern.
With no answer, I simply glare at the infuriating woman who’s picking at my insecurities without the decency to wait until I’ve finished my first cup of coffee.
“Okay.” She pats my shoulder and smiles, as if I’ve agreed with her. “Now that we’ve established your mouth-to-mouth skills could use some work, I want to offer you a trade.”
I grunt, not understanding where this is leading.
“You pretend to date me, not just tonight, but for a few weeks.” Her face lights up with an eager glow. “And I’ll give you plenty of kissing practice!”
My brain stutters to a stop at this.
“I mean, think about it,” she says, unaware that I’ve temporarily lost my ability to reason. “If we’re dating, then people expect us to kiss. So, we will. All the time. I’ll make out with you all over the place to really sell it. Except at my job.” She leans a chin on her hand, elbow propped on the table. “I want Malcolm to think of me as boss material, not see me making out with my mailman boyfriend. But other than that, we can kiss anytime you want.”
Kiss Robin more? All the time? Anytime I want?
That offer shouldn’t sound appealing.
So, why does it?
“I never agreed I was a bad kisser,” I grunt out.
Robin stares at me, gaze unrelenting. Eventually, I drop my eyes.
“Fine,” I concede. “Maybe I get a bit stiff.”
It’s only, every time I kiss someone new, there’s all this anticipation building up in me. Bracing myself for the moment. To get bludgeoned with the knowledge that I’ve finally found my life partner.
And maybe that works against me.
“Exactly.” Robin snaps her fingers and points, as if I gave her the right answer to a question. “You go rigid. Like a block of ice. But I can help. We’ll kiss so much that you’ll be a pro. And I’ll have my revenge on the cheating asshole, and all the world will be perfect. Deal?”
Kiss Robin. Kiss Robin all the time.
There’s a hot, heavy thrum in my blood at the thought. The pressure shouldn’t be there. Now that I know she isn’t the one for me, this attraction should fade.
Still, the idea of experiencing more of her soft, warm, nice-smelling kisses isn’t terrible.
I’ll be a pro. That’s the part of this equation I should focus on. When I kiss my soulmate, they’ll be impressed rather than disappointed.
“Deal,” I say, possibly making the worst decision of my life.
Robin whoops, then lifts herself to kneel on the bench seat, cups my bearded cheeks in her hands, and plants one on me.
I knew it was coming. My body tensed up.
She leans back far enough to meet my eyes, hers twinkling. “We’ll work on that.”