Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
“Ican’t believe I’m doing this,” Lark muttered to herself as she waited for Cash to round the front of his truck to open her door.
She liked that he played the gentleman and wanted to serve her first when they ate, open her door in the truck, and make sure she was comfortable. He’d gone out and started the truck a full ten minutes before they needed to leave just to make sure it wouldn’t be cold.
He was thoughtful, and when she’d said she felt like pasta, he’d spent twenty minutes reviewing their restaurant choices with her.
He’d then taken her to Three Ps in a Pod, listened to everything she said, and acted like he really enjoyed being with her.
Lark wasn’t sure why she didn’t believe he did, other than no one else ever had.
The conversation today had mostly been around her brothers’ departure tomorrow and what they both thought about Theresa. Lark had known her growing up, but seeing her through adult eyes was totally different.
Wade sure seemed to like her, and seeing as how Lark was about to start her own long-distance relationship, she really had no room to judge Wade’s. She actually needed to talk to him and see what he and Theresa were going to do while they were apart. Video calls? Texts? What else was there?
She at least had a plan for returning to Coral Canyon, but she had no idea how she was going to make it through the next hour as they searched through the woods for a Christmas tree.
Lark told herself she’d done plenty of things for longer than an hour that made her uncomfortable or irritated, and she could do this too.
She tugged her gloves on tight as Cash opened her door.
“All right,” he said. “Are you ready for this?”
“I suppose,” she said. “Are you sure we can’t just go down to that little parking lot? They already had trees cut.”
Cash, the eternal optimist, simply shook his head. “We’ve made it this far,” he said. “Let’s keep going. It’s actually pretty warm today.”
If by pretty warm, he meant only ten below freezing, Lark would give him the distinction.
He didn’t seem to feel the cold, though he claimed he did.
Lark checked her phone one last time just to make sure that Grammy hadn’t messaged with any emergency.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, she hadn’t, and Lark tucked her phone into her back pocket as she got out of the truck and let Cash close the door behind her.
He put his hand on the small of her back and guided her along through the parking lot to a path that said, Trees This Way.
Lark had never been up to Whiskey Mountain Lodge for much of anything, though she’d grown up with some of the Whittakers.
Apparently, Cash’s family knew them well, and as they left the paved asphalt in favor of a snow-covered path leading toward the trees, Lark glanced over to her midnight cowboy boyfriend.
“Tell me how your family is connected to the Whittakers again,” she said.
Cash glanced over to her. “Remember I showed you that picture of OJ yesterday?” he asked.
“And he played in the concert, too,” she said. “Right?”
“Right,” he said. “Well, he’s adopted, and Bailey McAllister, who’s Graham Whittaker’s daughter, is his biological mother.”
“McAllister,” Lark mused. “She’s quite a bit older than me.”
“Yeah,” Cash said. “She’s closer to Bryce’s age, and Bryce is OJ’s biological dad.”
Lark pulled in a breath. “Bryce? Were he and Bailey married before?”
“No.” Cash shook his head. “They weren’t married, and they decided not to keep OJ. Uncle Otis and Aunt Georgia were having a hard time getting pregnant, and they adopted him.”
“So OJ is Bryce’s son,” she mused, and that meant Tex’s grandson. “But he’s being raised as Otis’s.”
“Yep,” Cash said. “And we all know about it, obviously. OJ goes out to Bryce’s all the time, and since Graham is Bailey’s daddy, he’s biologically OJ’s grandfather, and OJ comes up here a lot as well.
Since I’ve been back in town, most of what I know about the lodge and what goes on up here comes from OJ.
” Cash chuckled. “That kid loves to talk.”
Cash didn’t seem to have a problem conversing either, and Lark wanted to tell him that there was nothing wrong with a man who could express his thoughts. But she wasn’t the greatest conversationalist in the world either, and she found she didn’t want to tease him about that.
Not only that, but a single string of Christmas lights hung across the path, connecting two trees together, and that marked the entrance to the forest. Lark glanced left and right, almost expecting a pack of wolves to be stalking them instead of walking on a well-worn path through obviously busy woods.
In fact, she heard laughter up ahead, and it comforted her that they weren’t alone.
“Anyway,” Cash said, “I’m supposed to invite you to our family New Year’s Eve party. You know, if we’re still together.”
Lark blinked, taken aback for a moment at the casual nature with which he spoke about them. “Do you think we won’t be?” she asked.
“I’m absolutely hoping we will be,” Cash said, his voice turning serious in a single heartbeat. “I know it’s only been a short time, but my feelings for you are already fairly strong, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be the one who will end things between us.”
Lark didn’t know what to do with that, and she didn’t want to think about breaking up with Cash anyway. She also knew the future wasn’t exactly set for either of them, though he certainly seemed to have more roots and a better idea of what he wanted to do with his life than she did.
She’d gone to college because she hadn’t known what else to do in her life. She’d made a few friends there, but she still didn’t know if she wanted to go to more school and become a vet or not.
Coming home for this week had been magical, and she told herself that Cash had as much to do with that as anyone.
In fact, he was probably the whole reason she’d enjoyed herself so much these past several days.
He’d taken such good care of her, kept her and her brothers entertained with activities, good food, and the same homey atmosphere that Lark had come to expect from being in the house in Dog Valley.
It felt silly to quit her degree with only one semester left, and she couldn’t even imagine having that conversation with her parents.
At the same time, she had no idea what to do with her degree, or if it would even matter if she got it.
She wasn’t going to go off and find a job at a meat processing plant or anything like that.
As Lark walked through the snowy woods with Cash at her side, she realized all she wanted to do was come home.
Jet’s words from yesterday flowed through her mind.
He’d been gone so long, building a business and making a home in Texas, that coming back to the house where he’d grown up no longer felt like home.
It still did to Lark, though, and she really wanted to be there in case her grandmother needed her.
She wasn’t sure why her connection with Grammy was so strong, only that it was.
Lark wanted to talk through her options with someone.
But she had no one neutral, as neither of her brothers had gone to college, and her parents would want her to stay and finish up.
Grammy would tell her to follow her heart, and she suspected everything with Cash would be easier if she were just down the hall from him, instead of three hundred miles away in Pocatello.
She tightened her gloved hand in his. “Well, I think things are going really well between us right now, and I can’t imagine that we wouldn’t be together at New Year’s. So, if you need to give some sort of count to someone, you can add me to the list.”
“Everyone’s welcome at our family party,” he said.
“So it’s not a big deal if you bring a girlfriend?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s a big deal,” he said. “But you’re still welcome.” He grinned over at her. “You seem sort of serious today.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Jet and Wade are going home tomorrow, and that means I’m going home the next day, and I guess I’m just thinking about what that means for us.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too,” he said, and he cut a glance over to her that seemed a little bit nervous to Lark.
“What are you worried about when it comes to the distance that will soon be between us?”
“I worry that I’m going to annoy you,” he said. “With too many texts and too many calls. I’ll be in Vegas for part of it, and that should help, but remember how I don’t have a job?”
Lark grinned at him. “Oh, I remember.”
“I don’t want to irritate you,” he said.
“Are you kidding?” she teased. “From the moment I met you, you’ve lived to irritate me.”
“You were the one who said you had a gun,” he said. “When I was there helping your mom.”
“Well, she didn’t tell me,” Lark said. “I can’t be blamed for that.”
“You can’t be blamed.” He laughed. “This has been a great week, Lark, and I’m really glad you came with me today.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Lark said. “But so far, this has been fun.”
“There’s the check-in booth,” Cash said, and sure enough, a little wooden booth came into view.
Lark couldn’t even imagine having a job where she worked outside in the cold, and she hunkered down even further into her coat to stay warm.
A couple of people moved away from the front of the booth, and Cash stepped right into their place.
“We just want to get one tree,” he said.
“Are you looking for something ten feet or taller?” the woman there asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“All right.” She looked down at a book there. “Sorry, I’m still figuring a lot of this out.”
“Take your time,” Cash said, almost as if the woman needed his permission to do so. “You know, I think we went to school together. You’re Andrew’s daughter, right?”
The woman looked up, and it seemed to take her several blinks before she said, “Cash Young.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Chrissy, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “My goodness, what are you doing here?”