Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
T heo sat in the living room in his parents’ house with Gretchen right beside him.
Sunday dinners were the norm for his family, as it was the one night of the week the B&B was closed to visitors.
Mom insisted that—despite the fact they worked on the farm and saw each other all the time—sitting down to dinner once a week was good for them.
No one argued because his family truly enjoyed each other’s company.
Their Sunday dinners had shrunk by one member late last year when his cousin, Lucy, moved to Philadelphia to live with her fellas.
However, they’d more than made up for that loss this fall with the addition of Kasi’s dad, Tim, and her brother, Keith.
And now, Gretchen.
They’d invited Edith and Manny to eat with them today, but Edith was at a holiday craft fair in Leesburg with some friends, and Manny had joined her, offering to serve as driver and bag carrier for the elderly women.
Manny was as protective of his aunt as she was of him.
It was one of the sweetest relationships Theo had ever seen.
Jace and Mila were hanging out with him and Gretchen in the living room. A football game played on TV, even though none of them had a vested interest in either team.
“Where were you guys last night?” Mila asked. “You missed a fun night bowling.”
“We had dinner with Edith, then stuck around to watch a movie,” Theo replied.
Edith had been missing Gretchen. Over a week had passed since the Briggs showdown, yet he and Gretchen continued to share the cabin, neither of them quite ready to separate.
The sex was incredible and addictive. The pull he felt toward Gretchen wasn’t a mere tug anymore.
He was locked in a vise grip so tight he’d never break free. Never want to break free.
Gretchen had admitted a few days ago that she’d never experienced so much lust in her life.
He had to agree. In some ways, they were almost feral, coming together in a rush of passion and heat every single night.
Hell, he’d had so much sex over the past week, his dick was sore, but that didn’t stop the damn thing from getting hard enough to drive nails into concrete every time Gretchen took her clothes off.
Ten weeks.
Gretchen had arrived in Gracemont ten weeks ago, and it had truly been the best seventy days of his damn life.
Theo wanted nothing more than for the two of them to remain in that cabin for the rest of their lives, raising a brood of kids and living happily ever after.
But Gretchen wasn’t there yet.
She had feelings for him, that much he knew, and he was certain she was starting to understand how serious he was about the two of them going the distance.
However, as she’d explained last night as they were driving back from Edith’s, she’d never really been on her own.
She had been dragged from her childhood home to the residential home to Briggs’s house.
And while her single-girl pad wasn’t an apartment, but a room in Edith’s home, it felt like her first taste of true independence.
She was supporting herself financially and making her own decisions.
Theo got it. He hated it, but he got it.
She’d never felt any sense of control over her own life, and considering her only experience in a committed relationship was with a grooming, abusive asshole, he could understand why she didn’t realize she would still be free to do those things in a relationship with him .
In her mind, committed relationships didn’t include freedom.
Theo would never break those wings she was just now beginning to spread, but this was another one of those damn “have patience” things, because telling her he wouldn’t hold her back wasn’t as effective as showing her.
So, they agreed that after tonight, they would return to their normal lives. He’d move back into his room at the farmhouse, and she’d return to Edith’s.
“Oh my God,” Gretchen exclaimed, digging her phone out of her back pocket. “I have to show you Edith’s invitation to dinner last night,” she said to Mila and Jace, who muted the game. “It’s hilarious.”
Theo chuckled, because Gretchen had shown him the text yesterday, the two of them puzzling for ages over why Edith had sent it.
“I made the mistake of teaching Edith how to use emoticons in texts. Originally, she wanted to know how to make the heart or thumbs-up over people’s comments.” Gretchen and Theo shared an amused look. “I should have stopped there, but I didn’t.”
Theo jerked his thumb toward Gretchen. “She created a monster.”
“Yesterday, she sent me this.” Gretchen clicked on the text, then turned the screen toward Jace and Mila.
Mila’s eyes widened, while Jace frowned in confusion.
“Why the hell would she send you that?” he asked.
Gretchen laughed. “Right? Theo and I asked when we got to her house what she’d been trying to tell me with the peach and eggplant text.”
“What did she say?” Mila asked, grinning widely.
Theo imitated Edith. “She put on her reading glasses, squinted at the screen, and said she thought the peach was a tomato. It was her way of telling us we were having eggplant parmesan for dinner.”
“Jesus!” Jace howled with laugher. “Did you explain what those symbols stand for?”
“Oh sure, Jace,” Gretchen replied sardonically. “I’m totally going to tell my eighty-two-year-old roomie she basically texted me that she wanted sex.”
They laughed loud enough and long enough that several other Storm family members came into the living room to see what was so funny. After retelling the story three more times, Theo had laughed so much his stomach hurt.
“Before I forget,” Mila said to Gretchen. “We’re doing a girls’ night out on Wednesday at Whiskey Abbey. You’re coming.”
Theo rolled his eyes. “You’re getting as demanding as Remi. Maybe I have plans with my girl.”
“Do you?” Mila asked.
“No,” Theo grumbled, as Gretchen shoulder-bumped him. “I need to get better at planning ahead.”
“You’re bad at sharing,” Gretchen teased him.
“It’s not that I’m bad. It’s just that I was one of seven boys. Growing up, you had to get in there and grab what you wanted or you’d never get anything,” he explained, giving her a quick kiss.
Gretchen’s cheeks flushed pink every time he kissed her or hugged her in front of his family, which was why he did it as often as he could.
He loved to see the color on her face, as well as the exasperated eye roll that always followed.
Gretchen thought they should keep their blooming relationship more low-key, while Theo would hire a plane to write in the sky that she was his if she’d let him.
“You guys are so sweet, I swear I’m getting a cavity,” Jace said, grinning widely.
Theo picked up one of the throw pillows from the couch and tossed it at his kid brother’s head. “You’re jealous.”
“Maybe,” Jace admitted. “I mean, I’m looking forward to meeting my girl and falling in love at first touch. But until then, I still have a lot of wild oats to sow.”
Gretchen shook her head. “You guys and that love-at-first-touch story. You do realize there are a ton of nice girls here in Gracemont who’d be perfect for you, Jace. Why not ask one or two of them out and try the dating thing? Why do you think there needs to be this instalove connection?”
Jace considered that. “I’m not saying I don’t already know my perfect match. After all, Levi and Kasi knew each other forever. It’s just that the time isn’t right yet for me and my Miss Right. When it is, fate will let me know.”
“With a touch?” Gretchen asked.
Jace nodded, confidence radiating from him. “With a single touch.”
She didn’t continue the argument, and Theo knew why.
She’d confessed a couple of days ago that she’d felt the same spark he had when they shook hands that first day.
She’d also heard Kasi and Levi’s story a few times, from both his brother’s and his girlfriend’s perspectives, as well as Mom and Dad’s, and he suspected she was slowly becoming a believer.
“I have been sent from the kitchen to fetch Gretchen to the queen,” Sam said regally, acting like some sort of squire.
On Sundays, they referred to their mother as the queen, because she presided over the kitchen and the dining room, treating both as her domain.
As such, they were used to following her orders on how to set the table and what the menu would be.
Just as they knew a summons to the kitchen meant Mom wanted a heart-to-heart…
over wine, of course. No doubt she was worried about how Gretchen was doing following the Briggs ordeal.
The fact Gretchen hopped up without reservation warmed him all the way through, because he loved the way his mom and his true love had bonded.
“I’ll be right back,” Gretchen said, with a sunny smile.
Theo chuckled. “No rush. I think it’ll probably take the two of you a little while to polish off the bottle of wine she’s got stashed in there for you.”
“Oooh, wine.” Gretchen clapped her hands. “I stand corrected. I won’t be right back.”
Sam waited a few beats, until Gretchen was gone, before he said, “Only two and a half months on this farm and she’s already acting like a Storm.” His brother’s grin told him how much Sam liked that idea. “You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Theo.”
“Buy the ring yet?” Jace asked.
Mila giggled. “I bet he’s had it for weeks.”
Theo leaned back and sighed. “Not going to lie. The last three times I’ve driven by Becker’s Jewelry store, I’ve been tempted to stop. But I keep on driving because Gretchen’s nowhere near ready for that. She’s just gotten out of a nightmare relationship that lasted six years.”
Jace moved to the couch and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “You’re doing the right thing, bro, giving her time. But considering the way Gretchen looks at you, I’d say she’s not as far away from where you want to be as you think.”
Theo hoped his brother was right, because every day he spent with her solidified his belief that the only life he wanted was one with her.