Chapter 18 #2
My heart raced when a log house with a wraparound porch came into view. The home stood proudly in a clearing through the trees. Beyond a wide, open lot was a shop building. Opposite it was an enormous barn and stables.
Every roof was dusted with snow. A plume of smoke came from the house’s chimney. A string of vehicles was parked outside.
“Are we late?” I asked.
“No. We’re not eating until later,” he said, parking the car. “But I’m guessing everyone’s been here most of the day, hanging out.”
“Okay.” My fingers shook as I unclipped my seat belt.
My family’s holiday meals were usually short and quiet. We’d sit around the table, staring at our phones through the meal. After our last Thanksgiving, the staff had barely begun clearing the empty plates before we’d all scattered.
Dad and Houston would disappear to Dad’s office to talk about work.
Mom would drink too much champagne and go to bed early.
Raleigh and I had never been close. Not as little girls, certainly not as teenagers.
She loved shopping and traveling with her friends.
She wouldn’t do anything to risk her trust fund.
We’d all been our own islands.
Except I was tired of being on an island. Today, I wanted to belong.
Knox climbed out of the car and retrieved Drake. He had the diaper bag over a shoulder and I was still stuck in the passenger seat. He bent, staring at me from his open door. “Need a minute? I can tell them you’re on the phone.”
He’d make excuses while I got my shit together.
“No.” I took one last fortifying breath and stepped outside.
The front door opened as we climbed the porch stairs. Harrison, tall and broad, like his sons, filled the threshold. The bright winter sun brought out the gray strands threaded through his dark hair. “Hope you two are hungry. Anne’s cooking enough to feed a hundred people.”
Knox laughed. “Sounds like Mom.”
“She made me buy all new plastic storage containers at the store so she can send the extras home with you kids. Which means if I want leftovers, I’m going to have to drive to your house.”
“I’ve got leftovers from the restaurant.” Knox clapped Harrison on the shoulder as we reached the top stair. “So you can keep ours. I’ll hide them in the garage fridge for you.”
“Attaboy.” Harrison laughed and pulled me into a hug. “Glad you’re here, Memphis.”
“Thank you for having us.”
“Come on in.” He shifted to tuck me against his side, making the squeeze through the door a tight fit.
But he didn’t let me go as he led me through the entryway to the kitchen.
It smelled as fantastic as the restaurant.
“Make yourself at home. I’m not much for house tours so just poke around until you find what you need. ”
Poke around. I hadn’t poked around at my parents’ house and it was the house I’d grown up in.
“Oh, good. You’re finally here,” Anne said as we walked into the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel before pulling me into a hug.
The moment she let me go, Lyla was there to take her place.
Then Eloise joined us from the living room with her famous smile, the one that never failed to make me smile in return.
Mateo wandered into the room with an older man I’d learned was Harrison’s brother, Briggs.
And finally Winslow and Griffin came from a hallway, having just put Hudson down for a nap.
“What are you working on?” Knox asked Anne, walking over to the stove and pulling a lid off a pot.
“Don’t touch that.” She swatted his hand. “I’m experimenting with the cranberry sauce.”
“Want some help?”
“You’ve been cooking all day.” She shooed him away until he stood beside me on the other side of the island. “Lyla and I are doing dinner.”
“Can I help?” I asked. “I’m not much of a cook, but Knox has been teaching me a few things.”
Our cooking lessons were infrequent and infused with foreplay. Whenever I’d stand at the counter, Knox would come up behind me to toy with my hair or drag his palms over my ass. But I’d learned how to make more than boxed macaroni and cheese.
Anne glanced past me to where Eloise was talking to Griffin. Then she nodded to the Ziploc bag of cookies on the counter. “If those accidentally found their way to the trash can in the garage while you went to grab yourself anything from the fridge out there, that would be fine.”
“Are they really that bad?”
Anne and Lyla shared a look.
“Cookie disposal. On it.”
“Thank you,” Lyla mouthed, then went back to peeling potatoes.
The front door opened and shoes stomped on the floor. Then Talia breezed into the room in a pair of teal scrubs. “Hello! Am I the last one to get here?”
“Yep.” Knox moved to kiss her cheek but she ignored him and threw her arms around me for a hug.
The Edens had more than blue eyes and chocolate hair in common. They all knew how to give a hug that made me want to cry.
They hugged without hesitation. They didn’t stiffen like my mother. They weren’t worried about their makeup rubbing off like my sister. They weren’t averse to general human contact like my father and brother.
The Edens hugged.
And with every one, I realized just how lonely my life had been.
“How’s my little Drake?” Talia took him from Knox, kissing his cheek. She’d gushed and fawned over him at his checkup earlier this month. And when she’d declared him perfect, I’d immediately agreed. “Look how big you’re getting.”
“Don’t be a baby hog.” Harrison waltzed into the room and lifted Drake from Talia’s arms. “Come on, buddy. Let’s watch some football.”
Drake let out a string of babble and drool, loving the attention.
“I’m not a baby hog.” Talia reached for an olive from the snack tray on the counter. “Where’s Hudson?”
“Asleep.” Knox plucked up a pickle and popped it into his mouth as Griffin and Winn joined us.
“Hopefully with a nap he won’t be a terror through dinner,” Winn said. “He was exhausted.”
“Because he wakes up before dawn,” Griffin muttered, pulling out a stool. “My boy’s a morning kid.”
“Not mine.” Knox pulled out the stool beside his brother. “Mine’s a night owl.”
The entire room went still as my breath caught in my throat.
Mine. One short word, four simple letters, and if there’d been any doubt that I was in love with Knox Eden, it vanished.
I loved him because he loved Drake.
All eyes were on Knox. Anne stared at him with her hands clasped against her heart.
He simply shrugged and ate another pickle. “Lyla?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell Mom that her cranberry sauce is about to boil over.”
“It is no—oh, shit.” Anne flew into action, ripping the pan off the stove.
A tiny cry carried from the hallway and it didn’t belong to my son.
“So much for a nap,” Griff said. “I’ll get him.”
But before he could go rescue Hudson, Talia flew down the hallway. “No, no, no. He’s mine.”
“She has baby fever,” Lyla said. “Thank God it’s not contagious.”
The room laughed and settled into easy conversation.
Griffin and Knox talked about the ranch and the upcoming calving season.
Winn told us about the 9-1-1 call that had come in yesterday from a woman who’d mistaken a squirrel in her garage for a burglar.
Then her grandpa, Pops, arrived with a small bouquet of flowers for every woman in the house, including me.
I had the bundle pressed to my nose when Mateo returned to the kitchen with Drake on an arm. “Do you need me to take him?”
“Nope. Talia thinks she’s going to be the favorite aunt. But Uncle Mateo is about to steal her thunder.” He tickled Drake. “Isn’t that right, dude? You ever need anything—candy, toys, junk food—I’m your guy.”
Knox chuckled. “This will be interesting to watch.”
My throat closed. My lungs wouldn’t fill with air. I held up a finger and slipped away, finding a powder room down the hallway. I eased the door closed, forcing oxygen into my lungs as I braced on the counter.
My eyes flooded as the door opened again and Knox was there, wrapping me in his arms.
“Your family is . . .” I looked at him through the mirror. “It’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful I couldn’t breathe.”
“Better now?”
I nodded, blinking away the tears. Happy tears. “This is the third.”
“The third what?”
“The third-best day.”
A magnificent smile stretched across his face. “Like I said, honey. I’ll take them all.”
I stood on my toes, stretching for his lips. “Promise?”
“I swear it.”