Chapter Six
When Cooper goes through the door to the office I let myself trail behind, claiming that I’m going to check on Lily with piglets first, which I should do to make sure she’s being gentle with them. But really I just need a minute away from Cooper to get my bearings straight.
I was surprised to see his comfort and ease with my daughter and hers in return. Clearly they’ve been spending time together when Aggie brings her to the inn. And then I started to worry about how much she might be bothering him while he’s trying to work.
Jack never wanted her around when he was working.
He’d call me and tell me to bring her back inside, that he couldn’t work with her incessantly wanting to be in his space.
She was two at the time and was just toddling around the yard.
I guess I should be thankful he didn’t want much to do with her since the company he was keeping wasn’t the best.
Turning the corner I see her snuggled in the pen with one of the baby piglets already curled in her lap sleeping. “Hey, baby, Mommy is going to go talk to Cooper and Uncle Tommy. If you leave the pigs, you come find Mommy right away, understand?”
“You got it, Mommy!” She juts two thumbs up at me, causing a chuckle to bubble up.
“Love you, baby girl.”
“Wuv you, Mommy!”
God, this girl is so full of life and nothing can keep her down. I wish I could have just a little bit of her attitude.
“Hey, sorry. Wanted to make sure a little piggy wasn’t being too aggressively loved.” I chuckle.
“Not my baby girl. She’s fine with those piglets. They’re resilient. They can withstand some aggressive love.” Tommy laughs, probably remembering the first time she got to meet them.
She immediately picked up a piglet and hugged it tight around the neck.
I had to run over and save them from her hugs.
Tommy took the time to show her the right way to handle the piglets and she’s been pretty good so far, but I did learn about cuteness aggression that night when I was researching how to teach children to be gentle with animals.
And she just can’t help herself when she’s overcome with love for a cute little baby.
“So, I wanted to talk about Easter and get some of the planning done.” Cooper starts the actual purpose of this meeting.
“With the success of the Christmas light show, I think we’re going to get a big turnout for the Easter season.
I also think we should do two weekends. The one before Easter and then the weekend of. ”
“I agree.” Tommy nods his head. “Aggie has already been getting emails about Easter when we posted that poll on the social media for interest. I think we could definitely fill up two weekends. Potentially three.”
“Two should be good. If everyone doesn’t get in it will just create excitement for the next event.
And the weather might keep them away the first weekend.
Easter is mid-April this year so the end of March might still be too cold to be outside for an egg hunt and Easter Bunny photos. ” I add from a mother’s perspective.
“I like that idea… build the anticipation for the weekends. Limited tickets equals a special event.” Tommy agrees with me.
“Great, so we will run the second and third weekends of the month, ending on Easter Day. I ordered the bunny costume and got Wyatt to agree to dress up. If not him, Ma will make any of the others do it. I’ll do the photos, and we’ll have the egg scavenger hunt with the fairy tales?
” Cooper reviews the notes they must have discussed prior.
“What is the fairy tale scavenger hunt?” I try to peek at his notes.
“Sorry, I forgot you weren’t there at our first meeting.
” He says it matter of fact and not accusatory.
“We want to give each kid an envelope so they aren’t traveling in one long line that jams up the photos.
They’ll hit the Easter bunny at staggered stages.
So they’ll get their list of clues and a map to follow.
Each fairy tale section has a different colored egg so they have to collect all the colors.
Hunt is working on some plywood cutouts of characters in each of the sections. Liam ordered decorations.”
I nod taking in everything he’s saying. “I really like the staggered stages of coming in for photos. I’d be happy to help you write the clues if you want.”
“Yeah, that’d be great. Since you have a little one it’ll be nice to have the perspective of a parent to see if the clues are easy enough for the kids to figure out.”
Tommy slaps the table. “Well, sounds like you kids have a good handle on things. I’m going to check on my little peanut and finish some seed planning for the spring.” He stands to leave after hitting Coop on the shoulder, and hugging me.
I move my seat over next to Cooper as he opens to a new page in the notebook that sits on the table.
He reviews the different fairy tales with me and we start working on the clues.
Sitting close to him again fills my senses with his manly scent of fresh cut wood and something else I can’t figure out yet, but it’s intoxicating.
Cooper leans in close when I grab a pen and jot down a riddle for Goldilocks and the Three Bears. His breath is hot on my cheek. His stubble scrapes against it when he leans over to make a change with his own pen.
My body freezes, my throat catching the breath I was about to take. When he finally pulls away, he’s staring at me. I know he’s feeling what I’m feeling, but he’s waiting for me to acknowledge it, and I’m not ready to do that just yet.
“I think this is good for now. I can work on some more when Lily goes to bed tonight.” I pull away, swallowing hard.
“Oh, yeah, sure. Do you want me to come by? I can bring some wine and whatever Violet made today.” He looks at me earnestly, waiting for an answer.
“I… um…” Stammering, I can’t seem to answer.
“You know what? It’s okay. I have a meeting with… Emma tonight.” He subtly shakes his head.
He’s obviously lying to save me from rejecting him. The worst part is, I don’t want to reject him. I want to say yes. I want wine and baked goods with this man after my daughter goes to bed. But that scares the shit out of me. To want something with another man opens myself up to too much hurt.
“Oh, okay. Um… maybe another night?” I offer.
“Yeah, you just let me know.” He hands the notebook to me, standing to leave. “You can text me, I think you have my number?”
Shit. I thought I could get away with ignoring his text message. I didn’t mean to. I read it and wanted to respond, but then Lily got hurt and it was time for bed, and before I knew it, three days had passed. I didn’t want to randomly respond three days later. What was I supposed to say?
Hey, really sorry. I’m a big mess, so is my life and chaos is my best friend but yeah, totally. Let’s hang out and invite you into this.
No. It was safer to ignore it. Until now.
“Yeah, I do. I’ll text you.” I smile weakly, watching him nod and walk out.
Speaking of chaos, I should probably go find my little tornado. Who knows where she wandered off to in the time since I left.
Walking toward the piglet’s pen, I hear giggling.
“Coopa, that’s not what a piggie says!”
“What? Pigs say moooo.” Cooper makes his best cow noises.
I smile, watching them from a distance. Listening to Lily’s giggles is my favorite sound on Earth.
“Nooooo, they say oint, oint!” She corrects him.
“I don’t think either of you is correct.” I walk toward them out of the shadows. “A pig says neighhhh”
“Oh no, Mommy. You so siwwy.” She falls on the ground laughing harder at the two of us, making us both laugh. “Mommy can Coopa eat dinnew wiff us?”
I find myself pausing once again. But one look at my daughter’s smile and I know what I need to do. “If Cooper would like to join us he’s more than welcome. But we do eat early so we can hit the bath and bed by seven.” I eye him.
“Early dinner is my favorite. What can I bring?”
“Not a thing. Lily has requested breakfast for dinner so I already have everything, I just hope you like pancakes and bacon.” His eyes haven’t left mine, and for a moment I almost forget we aren’t alone.
“I wuv bacon!” Lily tugs on his arms, breaking the moment.
“What a coincidence. Bacon is my favorite.” He scoops her up in his arms and tickles her belly before putting her down. “I do need to get back to talk to Liam quickly, but what time should I head back?”
“How about five o’clock?”
“You got it. I will see you then. I’ll swipe something from Violet’s secret stash too.”
I sigh, my waist doesn’t love the accessibility to the best damn baked goods I’ve ever tasted. “Lily would love that. What’s a little sugar on sugar before bed?”
He leans into me, whispering into the shell of my ear. “I’ll make sure I run her ragged after, you can have a little break while we play and she gets tired out.”
My knees could practically go weak at the promise of a break ending with a tired kid. And if I’m not lying to myself, the company of an attractive man is more enticing than any of that.
I only nod before he says goodbye and leaves me standing outside the piglet pen with one very excited little girl.