Chapter 22
Tucker
On the surface, it’s not actually a big deal that Autumn and I both put giving oral first.
It was just good strategic game play. Even if I wasn’t a fan of giving oral, I’d be unlikely to broadcast that fact to a roomful of people.
If you want to receive, it’s always the generous move to also give—unless you truly dislike it, in which case honesty is the best policy—but again, not in public.
As for my actual feelings about it…
Or, more specifically, my actual feelings about giving it to Autumn…
I might have thought about it a few too many times.
I might have even thought about it as I was playing my one card next to it. I might have thought about whether that single whimper would turn into one long continuous needy cry as I stroked her clit with the flat of my tongue.
And whether she would be able to come from that alone or whether she would need two fingers—or three—curling up inside her to complete the circuit.
I might have also hoped that it would take a good long time, so I could really, fully, savor her.
So, yeah.
I’m glad—and not only from a competitive, game-winning perspective—to see that she’s categorized me correctly.
I’m glad in a visceral, my-jeans-are-too-tight kind of way.
Luckily for all concerned the game ends shortly after that, and Autumn and I drop Summer and Jane back at the hotel. Autumn has to run a wedding errand, and, well, that means I, too, have to run a wedding errand.
“So what is it we’re doing?” I ask as I steer us in my truck toward downtown.
“It’s kind of—weird? Rush Creek Bakery is making quiches for the wedding brunch, and the owner insisted that someone from the wedding party come by and sample the quiches ahead of time and pick flavors.
Apparently Summer told her she didn’t care about the flavors as long as there was one vegetarian one, but the owner insisted? So I got deputized.”
“Oh,” I say, because that makes perfect sense, in a Rush Creek kind of way. “Nan is the owner of Rush Creek Bakery. And probably she doesn’t need anyone to tell her what flavors she should make; she just wants someone to come by and fuss over her product and tell her she’s amazing.”
Autumn snickers. “Really?”
“You haven’t met Nan. In addition to being the bakery owner, she’s also the town gossip. Prepare for an earful.”
“About what?”
“Hard to guess, but it will be interesting.”
We pull up in front of Rush Creek Bakery and park. The front windows are enticingly laced with steam. My mouth starts to water as soon as Autumn opens the door and the smell of fresh-baked bread fills my head.
“Hello?” Autumn calls. “I’m Autumn Sato. Summer’s sister? About the quiches?”
Nan comes out from behind the counter, brushing flour off her hands.
She does a hard double take when she sees me.
“Tucker Hott? What are you doing here?” She recovers her equilibrium and envelopes me in a floury, baked-goods-scented hug.
Her head comes up barely to my chest. Looking from Autumn to me and back again, she demands, “Wait a second. You two know each other?”
I can see the calculations flying behind her eyes. I can see her assessing the nature of the relationship and deciding exactly what to make of the fact that the last Hott brother to fall has just entered her bakery with a beautiful woman in tow.
I have a split second to make a decision, and I decide that we’re best off with Nan spreading the news that we’re together. But before I can affirm it, Autumn puts her arm around my waist and snuggles close, and I’m too distracted by the feel of her warm body against mine to open my mouth.
She feels great at my side. I wrap her up and draw her closer, dropping a kiss into her hair. It smells amazing.
“Oh, if that isn’t absolutely adorable,” Nan says, delighted. “The last bowling pin falls.”
“Bowling pin?” I ask.
“That’s how I’ve been thinking of you Hott brothers,” she says. “Like bowling pins.”
“Does that make me a bowling ball?” Autumn asks, and we both turn to look at her.
“I guess it does,” Nan agrees.
Autumn and I exchange perturbed looks. The metaphor really doesn’t hold up well. Everything ends up in a pit. The pins bounce back, the ball returns, you start over. I remind myself to ask Nan who hurt her.
“What can I do for you two today?”
“We’re here to taste the quiches,” Autumn says.
Nan gets a look on her face. I don’t like it.
“The quiche order was canceled,” she says.
“No, it wasn’t,” Autumn says.
“Yes, it was,” Nan says.
We’re not making a lot of progress. I say, “Who canceled it?”
“Give me a second,” Nan says. She goes into the back room and comes back with a sheet of paper. She holds it out to us. “You did,” she says to Autumn.
And sure enough, scrawled across the paper, it says, Canceled—Autumn Sato (sis of bride), 5/25.
“That wasn’t me,” Autumn says.
“Then you should probably tell people to stop using your name,” Nan says.
Autumn and I exchange looks.
“Is it too late?” she asks. “Can we still get those quiches for Sunday?”
Nan mutters something about people who can’t make up their minds.
“It wasn’t Autumn,” I say, surprised by the intensity of my desire to defend her. “If she says it wasn’t her, it wasn’t her. Someone has been trying to sabotage my family. It was them, whoever they are.”
Nan looks from Autumn to me and back again. “It’s probably that toad, Weggers,” she says.
“I don’t think Arthur Weggers could imitate Autumn on the phone convincingly,” I say.
“He could hire someone to do it.”
This is true. We had more or less eliminated Weggers as a suspect for sabotage because it didn’t make any sense for him to be working against the family’s interests—the one thing we had never doubted was his affection for my grandfather, as misplaced as it was.
But he is the constant through this whole situation.
And maybe there’s something in it for him, something that isn’t obvious.
I make a mental note to do a little more digging.
“You should have him investigated,” Nan says, a little too gleefully. “Maybe even arrested. If they want me to come down to the station to act as a character witness—you know, the kind that says he’s a monster and probably did the crime—I’m available.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say.
She shuffles through some sheets of paper, humming to herself. “I can get the quiches made,” she says. “It’ll be a rush order, though.”
“Hott Springs Eternal will cover the rush cost,” I tell them both. I know this is going to hurt Hanna’s bottom line for this wedding, but there’s no other way. We’re good for it, no matter whose fault it ultimately is.
“Pickup at eight a.m. on Sunday,” Nan says.
We sign (again) on the dotted line and tell Nan that unless we come into the shop and cancel in person, she should assume the order is still in place.
As we’re finishing up, Autumn says, “I’ll take a chocolate-chip cookie to go!”
“And you, Tucker?” Nan asks.
“I’m fine,” I say, waving her off.
“Tucker Hott,” Nan says sternly. “Are you saying you’re going to walk out of here without one of my chocolate croissants?”
She pulls one out of the display case and waves it under my nose. “Breathe that in,” she says. “And then say no to me.”
It smells unbelievably good, but Elizabeth and I used to get chocolate croissants together all the time, and maybe that’s why I completely lost my appetite for self-indulgence after what happened.
Not only croissants. I can’t remember the last time I had a second drink or ordered a dessert or bought myself a book I wanted to read.
“No, thanks,” I say firmly.
“You’ll change your mind later,” Nan says. She shoves the croissant into the bag anyway but doesn’t charge us for either croissant or cookie, despite our protests.
Outside, Autumn says, “Turning down Nan’s baked goods seems like a dangerous choice.”
“She’ll live,” I grumble. Autumn shoots me a quizzical look, but there’s no way she’s getting any more on that.
From the bakery, we go straight to Hott Springs Eternal—where I chuck the croissant into the garbage when Autumn isn’t looking—and tell Hanna what happened.
“Jesus,” she says. “That sucks. And if someone did that, they probably canceled other things. I’d better start calling around.”
She looks exhausted. I know Harrison keeps both her and her husband, Easton, up nights, and now she’s taking the brunt of whatever this bullshit is.
She doesn’t deserve it.
“We can do it,” Autumn says. “Give us a list.”
Startled, I flip my gaze to her. She’s holding out a hand.
She means it, and her willingness to help my sister untangles something knotty in my chest.
“You two are supposed to be on the camping trip.”
Autumn looks at the clock on the wall. “We have to be at the rendezvous point at two. That gives us at least an hour to make calls.”
The gratitude on Hanna’s face unknots my heart even more. I’m soft, too soft, for Autumn. And that’s starting to feel like a problem.
An hour later, as I drive us to the camping trip rendezvous spot, I say, “So, what would you estimate? About half the vendors had been canceled?”
“At least.”
Autumn had been a machine, efficiently moving through the necessary calls, asking, begging, and then pleading when necessary.
We were able to reinstate all but a few of the canceled vendors, and Autumn found last-minute replacements for the ones we couldn’t, talking total strangers into helping her out.
I’d done as much as I could to help, but it was clear that Autumn’s persuasive powers were saving the day.
I watched with awe and something else, an increasing sense of admiration and affection and…panic.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she says. “Why would wrecking my sister’s wedding hurt your chances of fulfilling the will?”
I’ve been wondering the same thing. It’s hard to see any connection at all between the success or failure of this wedding and my ability to keep Autumn safe.
“Maybe it’s a distraction?” she suggests. “Supposed to throw us off the trail?”
“Trail of what, though?”
“Whatever the main sabotage is going to be?”
I’m worried that the main sabotage is going to involve Autumn’s safety in some way. Because if keeping her safe is my job, then making her unsafe would be the easiest way to ruin my chances of fulfilling the will.
If Autumn gets hurt because of me…
I almost can’t form the thought, because I can’t stomach the idea of it happening again, someone paying the price for my bad decision-making.
For the first time since Weggers read Quinn his letter, almost two years ago, I consider the possibility that the cost of holding on to the Hott family land might be too high, higher than I’m willing to pay.
I could walk away right now—
Except I can’t. Not because Hanna needs me. But because Autumn might. I’ve put her in danger, and now I have to see this through.
There’s no way out. If I go through with this, she’s in danger. If I walk, she’s in danger.
All I can do is find the assholes threatening the people I care about before it’s too late.