Chapter 20
Easton
It wasn’t raining tonight, but somehow there was still enough moisture to bead on the windshield of my truck.
Maggie hummed next to me, just the sound of her happiness spilling out.
She hadn’t stopped smiling since we’d left Chapter she affected me that much.
Every time she was nearby, I caught hints of vanilla as she brushed past me, and just today, when our hands touched, I nearly came out of my skin.
All I wanted to do was toss her over my shoulder and carry her into the back, where I could dive between her thighs. I’ll bet she tasted just like sugar.
She’d caught me more than once. I’d looked away, of course, but the truth was I hadn’t wanted to. I liked watching her. The way her hands moved when she talked. The way she leaned into her customers as if they were the most important people in the world.
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
I had no business thinking about her like that.
Relationships weren’t my thing. Never had been.
I was good at building walls, not at letting people in.
But Lila made me curious, made me want to try letting someone else into the small circle I’d created.
Even my men on my crew in Boise, I’d kept at a distance.
Sure, they could loosely be called friends, but even they found me standoffish. Jett, maybe, was the exception.
“Earth to East,” Maggie said, her voice amused.
I shot her a glance. “What?”
“You’ve had that look on your face ever since we left. A distracted one.” Her lips quirked, and she gave me a considering look. “Don’t think I didn’t see you staring at our Lila tonight.”
Heat crept up the back of my neck. “I wasn’t staring.”
“Oh, you were.” Maggie chuckled, then leaned her head back against the seat.
“She’s a bright one. Reminds me of her grandmother.
Nora always had the whole town wrapped around her finger, and now Lila’s carrying the torch.
She makes people feel welcome.” She hummed a little, thinking.
“Nora and I were friends, you know. Way back when we were girls. We went to school together and everything.”
I shot a look over at Maggie for a minute. This wasn’t something I’d ever heard about before, or been interested in. “Really?” I offered, trying to inject just the right hint of curiosity in my tone, even though I was dying to dig into what made Lila who she was. “I didn’t know that.”
“That’s right. We were thick as thieves growing up.
She and her husband had a little boy, but he struggled.
” She shook her head a little on the headrest. “Never was able to take on responsibilities even after he grew up and had a family of his own. Nora was beside herself. She and Frank had tried so hard with him, poured everything they had into making him a good man, but in the end, he took off. Left his wife and little Lila.”
“What happened to her mother?” I had to ask. Our stories weren’t similar, but they weren’t dissimilar either. It made me wonder if that was one of the reasons she called to me.
“She passed away when Lila was just around four or five. Cancer. They lived over in Alder Valley, but she didn’t have any family other than Nora. That was that. Nora raised her. Did a good job too.”
“Seems like it.” More than a good job. Lila was pretty awesome. Even I could admit it. “She’s good with people,” I admitted grudgingly.
Maggie patted my arm. “That’s one way of saying she’s got you tongue-tied.”
I didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
The road stretched ahead, slick with the moisture that leeched from the sky, making the pavement dark and wet.
It wasn’t anything I was uncomfortable driving in, but you needed to pay attention and watch for deer that might dart onto the road.
It was the accident that took Levi’s life.
Nothing that any of us had anticipated, just a deer darting into the road on an icy night that he’d tried to avoid.
There had been clear skid marks showing that the truck had gotten away from him.
You always had to stay alert when driving around here. Sometimes livestock could be loose, and cows might wander now and then. That was just part of living out in the sticks. Sighing to myself, I had to admit I still loved every damn part of it.
Normally, coming back into Wildwood Meadows made me itch to leave again. The stares. The whispers. The feeling of not quite belonging, no matter how many years had passed since Maggie and Levi took me in.
But tonight, driving home from book club with Maggie humming beside me and the taste of cinnamon still clinging to the back of my throat, I didn’t feel that urge.
I felt… steady. The feelings weren’t chewing me up the way they always had.
Normally, it was Levi who would find me in the barn and calm me down, but now maybe … I could breathe here again.
I slowed as we pulled into the gravel drive, headlights sweeping over the white farmhouse. It looked tired in the drizzle, paint peeling a little more every day.
Maggie sighed contentedly, watching the porch come into view. “See? It isn’t so bad, being back.”
I cut the engine, sitting with her words hanging heavy in the cab.
She wasn’t wrong.
It wasn’t so bad.
Especially not with Lila’s laugh still echoing in my head. “No. It’s not. House needs painting,” I murmured. “I’ll get on that in the spring. Me, Wade, and Kipp.” And that was that. I was staying.