Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WILLA
Beau:
No video call again this week? You been busy?
Willa:
Yeah. You know how strawberry season is… Hopefully we can catch up next week.
Beau:
Counting on that.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been to Lincoln’s childhood home—far from it.
I’d been over countless times when we were kids, Beau, Lincoln, and me causing hell for poor Holly.
At least until high school when Lincoln and my brother had veered off in a different direction from me and I’d spent most of my time with my nose buried in a book or helping Dad on the farm.
But still, this felt different.
Because now, I was walking into Holly’s home under the guise of being Lincoln’s wife, and I absolutely hated having to lie to that woman.
I was mulling over the different excuses I could give to bail when Lincoln squeezed my hand as we walked up the driveway toward the back door.
“Relax, wife. We’ve got this.” He grinned down at me. “Besides, this is what all the practicing has been for.”
His gaze turned heated as he stared at my lips, then slid his attention down my body. No doubt remembering everything that had transpired between us.
No doubt also remembering what I’d confessed.
And the worst part? I felt his stare all the way to my toes and every damn traitorous inch in between. My clit pulsed, my stomach flipping as I recalled the words he’d rasped while I’d ridden him, how hard he’d felt beneath me… How I’d made him come undone too.
Before I could say anything in response, he turned the knob on the back door and opened it, forcing me out of my memories and leading the way to pure madness.
The sharp, smoky scent of something burned hit first, followed by Chloe’s muffled curse as she pulled out a very-well-done pan of cookies from the oven.
Declan stood in front of the open fridge, expertly dodging Holly swatting at him with a towel as she muttered about how dinner was in ten minutes and to stop filling up on snacks.
Just through the wide archway into the living room, Xander’s daughter, Emma, was in full five-year-old prowess, shrieking out a song I didn’t recognize while digging through a box labeled Imagination Station.
In front of her, both Xander and Atlas sat perfectly still, draped with feather boas and topped with a plastic tiara—Xander—and ostentatious fake earrings—Atlas—like it was just a normal Sunday.
At the dining table, Sutton sipped a glass of wine, watching Atlas play dress-up while Laurel hunched over her phone, thumbs flying, her entire posture screaming I don’t know these people.
And right in the middle of all the chaos, Holly stood at the stove. She ladled gravy with one hand, shooed Declan away from the fridge with the other, and managed the entire circus like it was second nature.
My stomach tightened as I took in everything, my nerves churning while I considered where exactly I’d fit into this little farce.
“Willa! Oh, thank god,” Chloe said, her hair pulled back, cheeks flushed. “You think I can salvage these cookies?”
Holly waved an unconcerned hand through the air. “Of course we can. We’ll just scrape off the brown parts.”
“Try black parts,” Declan muttered. “She really burned the shit out of those.”
Chloe reached up and smacked the back of Declan’s head just as Holly said, “For the love, Declan, we wanted to make a good impression on Willa tonight!”
“Why?” Declan lifted his chin toward me in greeting before turning back to his mom. “She’s not new here.”
“She’s new here as your brother’s wife, which means she’s new here as my daughter-in-law and your sister-in-law. Some manners, please.”
Those words were like a giant boulder landing in my stomach with all the subtlety of a grenade. I was someone’s wife…someone’s daughter-in-law. I was a lot of someones’ sister-in-law.
I was a liar.
“Afraid manners are a lost cause with that shithead, Mom.” Lincoln bent to kiss Holly on the cheek.
“That’s a dollar in the swear jar, Uncle Linc!” Emma called from the living room, not even glancing away from Xander’s tiara, which she adjusted with the seriousness of a royal coronation.
“I thought it was fifty cents?” Lincoln yelled back.
“Not anymore,” Emma said. “Infration!”
Lincoln snorted. “Inflation, you mean?”
“That’s what I said.” Emma’s duh came through loud and clear.
“Oh Jesus,” Lincoln muttered. Then louder, “Stop letting her spend so much time with Laurel, Xan! The teenage snark is brushing off on my little bean.”
“Better than the overgrown frat-boy vibes she gets from you,” Laurel muttered without even looking up.
“Hey,” Lincoln said, offended. “I’m a married man now, thank you very much.”
“I think you have me and our bet to thank for that.” Sutton smirked at him over the rim of her wineglass, her brow raised.
“What bet?” I asked, splitting a glance between the two.
“We made a bet, and if I lost, she told me I had to delete my dating apps.”
“And you did lose. Spectacularly,” she said. “Good thing, too. You’d been missing what’s been in front of you all along.”
Lincoln glanced down at me, his eyes soft, lips curved up in that half grin I hated to love. “Guess I just needed to wait for the right moment to catch her.”
It was a line. That was all it was—just a line because we were putting on a show for his family. For everyone.
But my stomach hadn’t gotten that message. It flipped over itself, unable to tell the truth from a lie. Something it’d been having a difficult time with more and more lately.
Lincoln settled his hand on the small of my back and guided me to the table. Then he sat down next to me, his arm going to the back of my chair and brushing his thumb softly against my shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And that was the problem—it felt natural.
Too natural for something that was made up entirely of lies.
Dinner unfolded the way I would expect in a family with four rowdy boys—now men. It was all loud voices, second helpings, overlapping stories, and at least three arguments over who grilled the best burger.
Through it all, Lincoln kept touching me—a hand on my knee, his fingers brushing mine, his arm resting on the back of my chair while he played with the end of my braid.
It was all so easy. Too easy. The kind of easy that made the lie simple to forget.
And the worst part was, it worked.
The longer I sat there, surrounded by warmth and commotion and people who egged one another on but clearly loved one another without question, the harder it became to remember this was fake.
Nothing more than a temporary fix dressed up as forever.
I was still trying to come to terms with that when a sudden scrape cut through the noise—metal against glass, aggressive and not at all subtle. Atlas was digging into a jar of my jam, scraping the bottom of it like a man starved.
Chloe stared at him in horror. “You ate it all?”
Atlas didn’t even look up as he smothered his roll with the last remnants of lemon blueberry basil. “Fuck yeah, I ate it all. Have you tried this shit? It’s delicious.”
“Two dollars, Uncle Atlas!” Emma chimed in, munching on her own roll.
Chloe threw her hands up. “I know it’s delicious! But you weren’t supposed to use the whole thing!”
Atlas shrugged, eating half the roll in one bite. “Then why’d you put it out here?”
“Because I thought you’d have a normal amount like a normal human!”
“Well, that was your first mistake,” Sutton said dryly, tipping her wineglass in Chloe’s direction.
Chloe huffed out a sound that was half groan, half whine. “But I was saving the rest for waffles tomorrow.”
Atlas popped the other half of the roll into his mouth. “Fine. Tell me where to buy it, and I’ll stock up with a whole fucking case. Two, actually.”
Emma opened her mouth, but Atlas held up a hand. “Another buck. I got it, little bean. How about I just give you a twenty at the end of the night and call it good?”
“Deal!” Emma beamed at him with a toothless grin.
Which was quite different from the fiery stare Chloe was pinning him with.
“You can’t stock up, you big oaf! It’s handmade by Willa.
” She threw an arm in my direction. “And it’s special.
She only gives them to her favorite people a couple times a year.
And you just downed my only jar like it was keg beer at one of your sportsball parties! ”
Atlas turned his attention to Lincoln, eyes narrowing. “How come you’ve never shared her jam with us?”
Lincoln smirked, leaning back in his chair. “You think I’d waste this on you? It’s fucking delicious, and you’re an animal.”
Declan raised a brow. “Or maybe it’s because she only shares it with her favorite people, and you’re not one of them.”
Lincoln held up his left hand, his black wedding band stark against his finger, and my stomach swooped just like it always did when I caught sight of it.
“This ring says otherwise. Besides, I’m the certified taste tester at home.
” He turned to me, his eyes dipping deliberately to my mouth. “Isn’t that right, wife?”
Lincoln’s voice had dropped low, and I prayed I was the only one who’d noticed. Prayed, too, that no one was paying close enough attention to me to catalogue my flushed cheeks or my glare that was actually hiding my persistent arousal when it came to this man.
But that hope fled the second Laurel said, “Don’t make it weird, you horny perverts.”
Emma cocked her head to the side, her gaze curious on her cousin. “What’s a horny peevert?”
Laurel cringed and glanced at Xander. “Shit. That’s on me.”
Emma gasped and bounced in her seat, delighted. “That’s a dollar in the swear jar, Lolo!”
“You’re gonna have more money at the end of the night than I made all week,” Xander said.
“I know, Daddy!” Emma grinned. “I love Sundays!”
Laughter erupted around the table. Even Lincoln’s broody, grumpy brothers cracked some grins.
“Will I get money out of you, Aunt Willa?” she asked, those wide eyes staring up at me, and I nearly lost my breath.
“Um…” I cleared my suddenly dry throat. “I—”
“You’ll have more luck getting paid from me, little bean. The only time Aunt Willa really swears is when she’s yelling at me.”
That earned another round of chuckles, and I forced a smile, pretending my world hadn’t tipped on its side thanks to one word from a little girl.
I’d thought it would be easy to come here and stay on the fringes. Hold myself back. But the Steeles didn’t half-ass anything. And they had no intention of leaving me out in the figurative cold.
After the plates had been cleared, the kitchen had been cleaned, and we’d played four rounds of charades with Emma leading the game, everyone headed out for the evening.
Lincoln was just ahead of me, laughing and joking with his brothers, and an ache settled in my chest as I watched the four of them.
I missed my brother. Missed laughing with him and teasing him and yelling at him.
I missed movie marathons and ATV races on the farm.
I missed the everyday moments I hadn’t had with him since he’d left.
And now, especially, I missed him. Ever since I’d made it a point to dodge his calls and reply sporadically to his texts.
Before I could start crying right there in my fake mother-in-law’s kitchen, Holly stopped me with a gentle hand on my arm. She smiled and placed a stack of warm containers in my hands.
“Just some leftovers,” she said. “I’m sure you and Lincoln are exhausted at the end of the day, so the last thing you want to think about is making something for dinner.”
“Oh…” I said, breath catching. “That’s really thoughtful. Thank you.”
Holly waved away my gratitude. “No thanks needed. I also packed up the blueberry crumble you liked. You make sure my bottomless pit of a son doesn’t eat the whole damn thing before you get any, okay?”
I breathed out a laugh, though I wasn’t so sure it didn’t sound like a sob with all the emotion clogging my throat. My mother hadn’t called me in over six months. Didn’t even know I was “married.” And here Holly was, taking care of me without a second thought.
Her eyes softened as she wrapped an arm around me, tucking me into her side. “I’m so happy to have you in the family, Willa. Truly. I’ve always hoped someone would see Lincoln the way he deserves. I’m just so glad that person is you.”
My smile felt brittle…fragile.
Fake.
“Me too.”