Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
ELIZABETH
The Treehouse
I’ve never seen this part of the Montgomery estate. It’s much different from the lush, manicured landscaping of the grounds that surround the house. It’s a world of untouched deciduous forests with tall, massive trees that appear to touch the sky.
“No hints to where we’re going?” I step carefully over a tangle of roots, wishing I had worn tennis shoes instead of sandals.
A small, knowing grin teases the corners of Fallon’s mouth. “Nope.”
The intertwining canopy above shields everything from the intense summer sun and provides relief from the oppressive heat, but small trickles of sunlight do get through here and there, dappling the forest floor in shifting patterns like a kaleidoscope mosaic.
Spying some honeysuckle climbing up one side of a tree, I pluck off one of its yellow trumpet flowers and tuck it behind my ear.
Fallon matches my walking pace when I slow down to listen to the birds chattering from high branches. The distinctive cries of blue jays and the sharp screech of a squirrel sound the alarm to our presence.
“How many acres is the Montgomery estate?”
“You haven’t Googled it?”
Using our joined hands, I lightly punch his chest. “No, smartass.”
He brings our hands to his lips and lightly bites my middle knuckle. “Behave.”
That one small nip sends a punch of lust straight to my core, and it flusters the hell out of me.
“It’s about fifty-two thousand acres,” Fallon says.
I stumble to a halt, my brain having trouble doing the math. “How many square miles is that?”
He glances to the left. “About three by three.”
One acre is an eighth of a mile by an eighth of a mile.
“Jordan’s place in Texas is about seventeen times bigger,” Fallon says about his younger half brother.
The scope is boggling. I’m a simple small-town girl at heart, and I still find it hard to comprehend the wealth that Fallon and Jordan grew up in.
“Harper gave me an open invitation to visit anytime. Maybe Charlotte and Christopher would like to take a trip to Texas before school starts.”
“They’d love to see you.”
Harper, her husband Bennett, and their children live on Jordan’s family’s estate in the Lone Star State.
Jordan’s grandfather made his fortune in oil.
Jordan transitioned the company to renewable energy when he inherited it, but like Aurora, he now devotes his time toward Fallon’s nonprofit.
Jordan and Aurora oversee the charitable projects in the States, while Fallon does his thing internationally.
That’s something we should talk about soon.
Fallon said he’s not going anywhere, but surely he’ll have to travel for work and be gone for long periods of time.
Building hospitals and women’s shelters doesn’t happen overnight.
Speaking of things we need to discuss…
“You know that we need to talk about that letter.”
Fallon releases a quiet sigh. “I’m pretty sure two orgasms prove otherwise.”
My face goes up in flames because they were really good orgasms. “I’m being serious,” I splutter.
“So am I. Or do I need to prove my point again?”
God, yes.
I put a leash on that debauched thought. “I forgot how difficult you are to have a conversation with sometimes.”
“Because what you’re wanting to discuss is a non sequitur.”
“I think it’s very relevant. I don’t like secrets.”
Fallon pirouettes me around and crowds me up against the thick trunk of a longleaf pine. His thumb finds my chin, then lightly sweeps over my bottom lip. It’s both reverent and seductive at the same time.
“Kitten, the way I want you has never been a secret. And not to sound disrespectful, but I sure as hell don’t need Ry’s permission to do anything.”
I search his face for answers to questions I’m too afraid to ask before settling on an easy one. “Then why did you wait so long to come back?”
“Because you weren’t ready.”
I’m not sure that I’m ready now, but I want to try. With him.
“I’m willing to table the discussion?—”
“Good.”
“But it’s far from over,” I add, brushing a kiss over his stubbled cheek.
I slip out from under the press of his body and continue walking, but Fallon suddenly grabs my hips and stops my forward momentum. I immediately look down at the ground, thinking I’m about to tread on something I shouldn’t, like a copperhead.
“You ready?”
“For what?”
Fallon props his chin in the dip of my shoulder, his cheek pressing against mine. “Look straight ahead.”
I follow the direction of his gaze and am surprised by what I see in the distance.
Perched high among the branches of the trees is what looks like a treehouse, only on a much grander scale.
Dappled rays of sunlight throw golden patterns over the rustic wooden structure that seems to float above the forest floor.
A wraparound deck circumnavigates the cabin, its large windows like paintings on massive canvases, their reflections in the glass resembling watercolors of the surrounding forest.
“Want to check it out?”
“Hell, yes,” I reply, eager to see it.
When we get closer, I notice strands of patio lights suspended in all directions from the roofline.
I bet this place looks magical at night.
Walking under it, I check out the post beams that were added to help support its weight and look up at the underside wood plank boards that must be fifteen feet above my head.
“This is incredible.”
“I had it built right after Connor joined the family and Aurora started popping out kids. As soon as the teenage hormones started flowing, it became their go-to party place.”
I can only imagine the trouble my kids would get up to if they knew this existed. Drinking, partying…sex. Everything the guys and I did at their age, but as a parent, everything I hope my kids don’t do. It’s the irony of parental hypocrisy. Do as I say and not as I did.
But just to be on the safe side…
“Let’s not mention this place to Christopher or Charlotte.”
“Have Charlotte and Grant had?—”
Fallon chuckles when I cover his mouth with my hand. “No, thank God. Now, how do we get up?”
He reaches around me, and with a tug, he lithely catches a knotted rope when it swings down. So, this must be the climbing bit. It shouldn’t be any harder than climbing the oak tree that sat between our houses, like Jayson and I used to do all the time.
I hope.
Fallon lightly pats my ass. “Need a boost?”
I was going to say no, but if it means I get to enjoy his hands on me again…
“Sure.”
“Reach up and grab that knot,” he instructs.
When I do, gravity defies me as he lifts me like I weigh nothing. His fingers wrap around my right ankle. “Now grip this knot between your feet and use your legs to push up. Hands, then feet, like an inchworm. I’m right here with you. You won’t fall. You’re safe.”
“I know.”
Fallon has been protecting me almost my whole life, even when I wasn’t aware of it, like in high school. I was so clueless back then and hopelessly na?ve about so many things. I never saw what was right in front of me.
Taking my time, the ascent is surprisingly easy, mostly due to muscle memory and all the times I took the kids to play on the climbing walls at the Highland Youth Center.
“Right above you is a door. Push upward with your shoulder.”
Fallon uses his big body to brace me from underneath, and as soon as I heft myself up onto the deck, I reach down to help him. Grasping the ledge, his arm muscles bulge with effort and strain the short sleeves of his shirt as he hoists himself the rest of the way.
Giving him some room, I dangle my feet over the ledge. Everything looks different from two stories up. Bigger, not smaller.
I wipe the thin sheen of sweat from my face. “I don’t enjoy the thought of getting back down.”
Fallon scoots in close beside me, his hands loosely resting on the bottom wooden rung of the railing. “Good thing we have a ladder.”
I elbow him in the ribs. “You made me climb a damn rope when there was a ladder?” His eyebrows innocently shoot up, and I smack his thigh. “You do realize that people our age shouldn’t be doing stuff like that.”
He emits a masculine scoff. “Speak for yourself. I’m not old.”
I agree. Age is a mindset, one I refuse to give in to.
Fallon tenses when I smooth my hands down the corded muscles of his arms, checking out the ink I hadn’t been able to see yet since he usually wears long-sleeved dress shirts.
The designs are a continuation of the jasmine vines and butterflies that start on his hands.
I follow one of the vines as it climbs up his bicep to where it seamlessly transitions into a bramble of black thorns, their pointed tips dripping blood.
Symbolically, thorns represent sin and sorrow and pain, but in some cultures, thorns are seen as protectors and guardians.
I love how each meaning represents the man.
“Thank you for bringing me here. It makes me feel like I’m a kid again when I would play in the forest fort that Hailey and I built.”
I like that I feel this way. I like that Fallon can bring out that innocent, untainted part of me—the part that I never allowed that night and everything it took from me to ever destroy.
“You’re welcome. But I still owe you lunch.” Fallon gets to his feet and offers me a hand up.
I’m disappointed that we’re departing so soon after we only just arrived. “Can I take a peek inside?”
“Of course.”
He leads me around to the other side of the treehouse, passing the most obvious point of entry—the front door.
“Wait—” I start to say but don’t finish when I see a blue-patterned quilt spread out, a large wicker picnic basket sitting in the middle, and several large throw pillows situated at each corner. “You made me a picnic?”
Fallon renders me stupid with the most refulgent smile I’ve ever seen. “Thought you’d enjoy a picnic more than lunch at a café.”
My heart trips over itself. “You thought right.” Slipping off my sandals, the wooden planks are warm beneath my feet as I walk over and ease down to sit on the quilt. “Whatever you brought smells delicious,” I tell him when I detect the savory aroma of fried chicken.
Fallon joins me, stretching his long legs out and lifting the basket’s lid. “I brought all the Southern comforts.”
He pulls out a plate covered with aluminum foil and peels it back for me to see the fried chicken I had smelled, followed by a container of pasta salad and a cloth-wrapped bundle of golden biscuits.
Next comes a clear plastic tub of carrot and cucumber sticks and a small bowl of red seedless grapes.
Fallon opens a separate compartment and takes out two wineglasses filled with banana pudding, topped with vanilla wafer crumbles.
“Hope you’re hungry.”
Starving, but it has nothing to do with the food.
He pours iced tea from a glass decanter into two mason jars, the ice clinking gently as he hands one to me.
“Did you make all this?”
Fallon’s bark of laughter startles a cardinal to take flight. “I have many talents, but cooking isn’t one of them. I ordered from Ruby’s Diner.”
“I love Ruby’s Diner,” I gush, eager to start eating.
“I know.”
My gaze lifts to his, and I take a sip of my tea, the chilled liquid wonderful against the smoldering heat firing behind his aqua-blue eyes.
“As first dates go, how am I doing?” He picks up a piece of cold fried chicken, offering it to me with a boyish smirk.
I take a bite. It’s damn good, but everything from Ruby’s is delicious. “As I recall, you never formally asked me out. Your exact words were, ‘ I’ll pick you up tomorrow. ’”
I become enamored at the blush that tints his cheeks.
“I’ll make sure to do better next time.”
Next time.
All our next times.
I shake thoughts of Jayson from my mind and eat in silence, enjoying this rare moment of quiet that I seldom get to enjoy. The tension I didn’t know I was carrying melts off my shoulders, and I’m able to relax for the first time in…I don’t know how long.
“You’re being unnervingly quiet,” Fallon observes, tilting his head as he studies me. “Is it a good quiet or a bad quiet?”
“Good quiet,” I admit, my thighs clenching together as I watch him pluck a red grape from the bunch and suck it into his mouth.
I recline back against one of the throw pillows and nibble on a cucumber spear. “Would you rather,” I begin, playing the word game I used to love when I was younger, “live in a world without color or live in a world without sound?”
“Color,” Fallon replies.
I angle my head to the side and look at him. A spear of sunlight catches in his hair, turning the dark blond into burnished gold.
“Why?”
“I would still be able to see things, even if they existed only in black and white.”
He scoops a spoonful of banana pudding from a glass and brings it to my lips.
I blink at him, the teasing glint in his eye daring me to take it.
Propping up onto my elbows, my eyes never leave his as I take a small taste.
His soft grin turns into something breathtaking as I lick the sweetness off my lips.
His voice is laced with something dangerous when he says, “You keep looking at me like that, and?—”
“And what?”
He bends over me, the scent of his cologne tantalizing. “And I’m going to have to kiss you again.”
“Fallon?”
“Yeah, Kitten?”
“Kiss me.”
And that’s how I spend the next couple of hours. Fallon, good food, and breathtaking kisses.
Perfection.