Chapter Twelve
Whoever took my wooden cow from the end of my driveway on Windward Avenue, please bring it back. No questions asked.
First comment: Is there a reward?
Original poster: The reward of being a good neighbor.
Second comment: There’s a wooden cow on the roof of the police station. I don’t think it was there yesterday? Maybe it’s yours?
Original poster: I doubt there are multiple wooden cows.
Third comment: Get there fast before it starts moo-ving around.
Fourth comment: How do I delete this app?
Original poster: That isn’t the search bar, Colleen.
—Wayward Harbor Online Community Group
“I think maybe your head is on crooked.”
Lucy laughed, even though Nick’s tone implied he might not have been totally joking. “That looks straight to me.”
He sighed, dropping his forehead to the piece of deck railing he was holding in place. “If you’d just go get the level out of my truck, that would be great.”
“Fine. What does it look like?”
The growl that rumbled out of him would have driven bears back into hibernation.
“It… I don’t know. It looks like a level.
A long wooden tool with windows in it, and air bubbles that you set between the lines to see if something’s level when your helper’s head is crooked and she wouldn’t know straight if it bit her in the ass. ”
“I should start a union and invite your brothers to join,” Lucy called over her shoulder as she walked around the cottage to Nick’s truck.
She had no trouble finding the level because of course she knew what it looked like. She just really liked the sounds Nick made when he was thoroughly exasperated with her.
It had been three weeks since the day Taylor sought her out at the Scuttlebutt, and so much had changed.
She was only working Friday through Sunday at the Keel now.
Billy had been cleared to work the bar again, and though there were already tourists in town, it wouldn’t be busy enough for two of them until school let out.
Of course, Nicole—the teacher—would be available by then, and it would be almost time for Gran to come home.
But for now, she was working weekends at the Keel and helping Nick with the deck after his regular workday was over during the week.
And she might have a sister. Taylor had gotten a sibling DNA test with mail-in cheek swabs and stopped by the cottage on her lunch break.
Now all they could do was wait for the results that would tell them if they were undeniably sisters.
It would be a crushing blow if the results had been negative, since they’d already developed quite the text history by talking every day and learning everything they could about each other in a way that nobody could see.
She learned that, assuming the test was positive, she’d have a brother-in-law soon, and also—though it was early days to be talking about it—become an aunt.
Taylor’s fiancé, Carson, managed the bank next to the post office, where Taylor worked.
It was hard building a relationship in secret, but it was worth the effort.
Walking back around the house with the level, she chuckled when she remembered the last text message from Taylor.
If Carson and I have a Halloween wedding, you can come in a costume and my mother will never even know you were there.
“What’s so funny?” Nick asked when she handed him the level, so she told him about the text from her sister while he set the level along the railing and peered at the bubble.
“Not making any progress with Kim, I gather?”
“I’m not sure she’s even told her mom she talked to me yet, and I can’t really blame her. It’s going to be a mess, and she’s already got a wedding to plan and a baby on the way.”
When Nick’s head whipped around, Lucy realized her mistake and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Dammit. I’m not good at being a sister yet.”
“I won’t tell a soul,” he promised, and she believed him.
“I talked to Gran earlier,” she said, changing the subject.
“Come over here and hold the level, please. How’s Helen doing?”
“Great. She’s gotten a lot of sun. Or it could just be the joy radiating off of her.
It’s hard to tell through a phone screen.
” Lucy took over holding the level while Nick grabbed his drill and stuck a screw on the end of the magnetic tip.
“She offered to cut her time in South Carolina short so she can be home by my birthday, but I know one of the reasons she was staying down there was her friend’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, and she was the maid of honor.
I told her we’d grab a cake from Willow when she gets home. ”
He pressed the tip of the screw against the wood. “Is that level?”
“Looks it.”
She was rewarded with another exasperated sigh. “Is the bubble in the center of the sight?”
“Yes.” She turned her face away while he put the first screw in. “Did I ever tell you my mother’s first husband—the one whose last name I got—made extra cash by stealing tools?”
“Um. No.”
“Yeah. One of them was a level—a small torpedo level if you want to get all builder technical vocab about it—and Iris said I spent an entire day seeing if anything in the apartment was level before he threw it back in the box to take to the pawn shop.”
He snorted. “So you’re tormenting me why?”
“For my own amusement, mostly. It’s fun when you’re grumpy.”
“Anyway, it was kind of you to delay your birthday for Helen, considering it’s a big milestone for you.”
“Thirty. Yay.” She laughed. “I don’t mind turning thirty, to be honest, but I think being married fifty years is a much bigger deal.
And so many of her friends have moved south where it’s warmer—and who could blame them—but she must really miss them.
Also, my birthday is in two days, and I’d rather she not be racing to get here in time. ”
“Is that still level?” he asked as he prepped another screw.
“Dead center,” she confirmed.
When he bent to drive the screw in, Nick was so close to her, Lucy’s body tingled with the awareness if she just leaned a little to one side, they’d be touching.
She didn’t because she knew just enough about building things to know you didn’t startle a man running a power tool, but she wanted to.
Nick hadn’t tried to kiss her again since the night he’d finished the smaller bedroom and given her the tree that, outside of her notebook, was probably her most prized possession. And she hadn’t tried to kiss him.
But judging by how often she caught him looking at her, his gaze dropping to her mouth, he thought about it a lot. Maybe even as much as she thought about it.
Things were so good between them, though, that she was afraid to reach for more.
If things blew up between them, she’d have to leave.
She’d promised Gran she wouldn’t leave Wayward Harbor before she got home, but she certainly couldn’t stay with her sister without blowing up Taylor’s life.
She knew Willow would take her in, but it would be hard in the studio apartment she’d made over the bakery.
“You can let go of that, you know.”
Startled out of her thoughts, Lucy realized Nick had not only finished fastening the railing, but he was about five feet away. She laughed and stood, stretching her back.
“I just wanted to make sure your workmanship would hold up,” she teased.
“My work speaks for itself,” he said, and then he looked up at the sky. “It’s going to rain soon, so I guess it’s time to quit for the night.”
“Do you think it’ll be done before Gran gets home?”
“It’ll be done,” he said, but his jaw was tight again.
As she helped gather up the tools they’d managed to strew around the entire backyard, Lucy wondered what had triggered his inner grump again. He had to know Gran wouldn’t care if the deck wasn’t totally finished when she got back.
But then she caught him watching her from across the yard, seriousness of his mood apparent in his expression and the way he held his body. Once Helen came home, there would be no place for Nick here.
Lucy wanted to see her grandmother so badly. She wanted that squeeze hug, and she imagined them sitting on the porch wrapped in blankets, catching up on everything that had happened while they were apart.
Now the reality set in that, when that happened, this would end. Nick wouldn’t be the first person she saw in the morning and the last person she spoke to before bed anymore.
Was Nick just wondering where he was going to sleep once Helen returned, and going through lists of people with comfortable couches? Or was he also remembering this life they’d made together was only temporary?
And the clock was ticking.
* * *
Nick had gotten three weeks of blessed peace, not having to keep a secret from Lucy anymore. And now here he was, keeping another one.
On Saturday, Beck and the kids had moved back into their own house. Nick could have gone home two days ago, but he’d said nothing about it to Lucy.
Nick didn’t want to go.
He knew he’d have to soon. Helen would be home in less than two weeks, if everything stayed according to plan, and she was going to want to sleep in her own bed. Short of sleeping on the couch, which would be uncomfortable and also very hard to explain, he’d have to go home.
While it would be nice in a lot of ways, especially considering his mattress was a lot firmer than Helen’s, he was going to miss this. He would miss this bubble he and Lucy had been living in together, and he couldn’t bring himself to pop it.
They made it inside mere moments before the sky released a deluge of rain, and Nick left his tools by the door. He’d put them back in his truck later, though he pulled the battery from his drill to recharge.
Since the rain derailed their plans for the grill, they made BLTs for supper, cheating and using precooked microwave bacon.
They both loved bacon, but they also both hated cleaning up bacon grease, so he hadn’t protested when she brought it home from the market.
It wasn’t bacon like Pete made it, but it got the job done.