Chapter Eight
I moved to Wayward Harbor last month. We bought a home on Seacrest Lane, but somebody on our road lets their chickens roam free.
They can be quite aggressive, and they make it difficult to drive by constantly being in the road.
I’m attaching a photo so you can see how large they are. Why don’t they have to be fenced in?
First comment: I’m not sure where you’re from, but those are turkeys.
Second comment: If you grab the big one that looks like a rooster with the feathers on the back end instead of the front and move him, the others will follow.
Theo Slater: Ma’am, as one of the first responders who will have to patch you up, do not try to engage with wild turkeys. There’s nothing you can do but be patient until they’re out of the road. Wildlife has the right of way.
—Wayward Harbor Online Community Group
By the time Nick got home from work, Lucy was practically glowing. She had a job. She’d reconnected with an old friend. Dolly liked her enough to take a nap on her lap.
And, while she was trying not to think about it too much, remembering the feel of Nick’s arms around her for the second time was hard to resist.
Even though it only happened because he was much too nice of a guy to let her fall on her face, Lucy was almost sure Nick had thought about kissing her.
She’d definitely thought about kissing him. For a moment, with her body so close to his, with their gazes locked and her hand on him, it would have been so easy to bring her mouth to his.
The sound of his truck door closing jerked her thoughts back from the delicious detour they’d been taking, and she pulled the lasagna out of the oven. She hadn’t made it from scratch, but since she’d found it in the freezer, she assumed it was one he liked.
“That smells good,” he said as he stepped out of his boots at the door.
“Perfect timing,” she said. “It’s almost time to eat.”
“Sounds good. I’ll just go wash up really quick.”
The lasagna looked good, as frozen foods went, and she hadn’t burned the bread she slathered with butter and garlic salt and stuck in the oven.
And Nick responded to her attempts at small talk while they set the table, mostly about Helen because they’d exchanged text messages about her new job after Lucy got home, but she could tell something was bothering him.
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you in front of the whole town,” she said when it was time to put the lasagna on the table, but she couldn’t take it anymore.
His brow furrowed and he tilted his head. “What are you talking about?”
“When I…stumbled on the sidewalk earlier. I know I embarrassed you, and you seem kind of angry.” She frowned. “Or maybe you’re upset because we were talking about your dad. Either way, I’m sorry.”
“I’m not angry, Lucy.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, messing it up in that way she loved so much. “I don’t really want to talk about this, but I also don’t want you thinking you did something wrong and that I’m mad about it. I’m not angry or upset. I’m just…tense, I guess.”
“Tense?”
“I wanted to kiss you.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m tense because I’ve spent pretty much the entire time between then and now thinking about what it would have been like to do it.”
As if the words weren’t enough, his dark eyes were locked on her face with an intensity that made it hard to swallow. To even think, really. Vulnerability felt like such a risk, her fingernails bit into her palms. But if he could confess he’d wanted to kiss her, she could admit she’d wanted him to.
“I…wouldn’t have minded.”
“I would have minded,” he bit out, and she winced at the belated realization he might not be too thrilled about being attracted to her. “When I finally kiss you, it’s not going to be in the middle of the sidewalk with the entire town gawking at us out the windows.”
When I finally kiss you.
When.
Finally.
The words echoed through Lucy’s mind in time with her racing pulse. She wanted to move—to close the distance between them—but he was still scowling, so she kept her feet still. “Do you have any idea when that might be?”
The question startled a chuckle out of him, clearing away the frown lines. “Maybe when I can wrap my head around why it’s not a bad idea.”
“Oh, it’s totally a bad idea. We live together, so if it’s a bad kiss, it’ll be incredibly awkward. One of us will have to sleep on a pile of blankets in the shed.”
Nick’s mouth quirked up at the corners, making him look almost smug. She hadn’t seen that expression on him before. “It won’t be a bad kiss.”
“You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I am. Partially because if one of us has to sleep in the shed, you know it’ll be me.
And there’s no way you’re going to let me take all the blankets, so that’s a lot of pressure on me to succeed.
I’m good under pressure. But mostly because I’ve spent enough time thinking about kissing you to know it’s going to be good. ”
“But it’s still a bad idea.”
“Absolutely.”
Her resolve was crumbling like a stale cookie. “I’m the one who drove three thousand miles to see my grandmother without calling first, so if one of us is going to respect an idea being bad, it’ll have to be you.”
Nick was so close to her now, she was afraid he’d be able to hear her pounding heartbeat, and his dark eyes gleamed with promise. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Nick put one hand on her waist, and with the other, he cupped her cheek. He watched his thumb stroke over her bottom lip, and a shiver went down her spine. Then his hand slid to the back of her neck and he lowered his mouth to hers.
Lucy melted against him, her hands sliding up his back as his fingers bit into her waist. His other hand slid from her neck into her hairline as his tongue dipped between her lips.
She lost all sense of time as Nick kissed her with a hunger that matched her own. It was even better than the kisses he’d given her in her daydreams, and she never wanted it to end.
But eventually, Nick released her hair and broke off the kiss. His hand still at her waist, he rested his forehead against hers. They were both breathing too fast, clearly wanting more.
“Thank goodness we finally got that out of our systems,” she whispered, and he actually laughed before standing straight.
“Totally out of our systems,” he repeated, the lie as obvious as hers had been.
“The lasagna’s getting cold,” Lucy said, because she didn’t know what else to do. Going in for another kiss before ripping off his clothes would have been preferable, but pasta was a decent consolation prize.
“Right.” He pulled out his chair but didn’t sit down. “You know there are only two of us here, right?”
She considered the huge pan of lasagna. “We’ll definitely be having leftovers tomorrow. But I can freeze it in portions, too, so we don’t have to eat it for the next three days.”
“I won’t be here for supper tomorrow, actually. I’m going out.”
Going out? Lucy wasn’t sure what that meant. If he was going out with his brothers, wouldn’t he just say, “Hey, I’m going out with my brothers tomorrow,” or something like that? He’d said going out, not going home.
But he couldn’t be going on a date. He’d just kissed her, and he might have said it was a bad idea, but he hadn’t said it was a bad idea because he had a date lined up for the next night. She wouldn’t have kissed him if he had, no matter how much she wanted to.
“Okay,” she said when she realized she had to say something. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“My brothers want to cook out in the backyard,” he told her while he held up a plate so she could drop a chunk of lasagna onto it.
Then he set that plate in front of her chair and lifted his own.
“You want to go? It’s just burgers and dogs, but there’s no sense in you making something for just yourself when we always grill too much. ”
“I’d love to go,” Lucy said without hesitation. She wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to meet Nick’s family.
“This is delicious,” he told her after taking his second or third bite. “Thank you for making it. I know lasagnas are a lot of work.”
“I’d love to take all the credit, but it was a frozen one.” She chuckled. “And it gave me a good excuse to warm up the cottage without touching the thermostat.”
“Oh, I noticed,” he said, and his voice was grumpy, but the corners of his mouth twitched.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, but Lucy could practically see him worrying about something.
His shoulders were tensing again. The furrow in his brow was deepening.
And the way his gaze kept flicking to her and then bouncing away told her he might have something he wanted to say, but wasn’t sure she was going to like it.
“Maybe while we’re at my place tomorrow,” he finally said, “we could not say anything about…anything.”
Nick looked so uncomfortable, Lucy couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up. “So are we just ignoring your brothers? Or should we act out the conversations, like charades? Are we betting on which of us can make it through the whole cookout without saying anything?”
He dropped his fork onto his plate, that exasperated sigh she loved so much making her smile. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, I do,” she admitted. Toying with him was fun, but she didn’t want him to rescind the invitation.
“I mean, we agreed it was a bad idea ahead of time. We just needed to get it out of our systems, so there’s no sense in telling anybody.
I’ve been the subject of enough gossip in this town, thank you very much. ”
“Exactly. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
“And look at the bright side.” She waited for him to look at her, and then smiled. “At least neither of us will have to sleep in the shed.”
* * *
The most alarming thing about Lucy Macauley, as far as Nick was concerned, was how quickly he’d gotten used to living with her.
The second most alarming thing about Lucy was how much Nick had enjoyed kissing her and how much he wanted to do it again. And how much time he spent thinking about it.