Chapter 34
Autumn
The rehearsal dinner is a blur—I hug family members and friends, try to stuff my face as best I can between hugs and conversations, and help Summer do the same.
You’d think there wouldn’t be a big difference between having someone be your fake date to an event and having them be your real date, but psychologically it really matters.
We’re not as dressed up as we were last night for prom—I’m wearing a really cute pale gray linen maxi dress with a halter top, and Tucker’s wearing a dark gray button-down and black slacks that fit him waaaay too well.
My eyes keep doing what my hands want to do, caressing their way over the snug fit of the pants across his ass and thighs, the visible heft of him in front.
But that’s not what makes this night feel singular. Tucker’s always been a glorious visual, the perfect arm candy. And he’s kept close to my side through the whole wedding week.
Tonight feels different because—at least for one night—he’s really mine.
And when we head upstairs afterward, we barely wait for the elevator doors to shut before he presses me, hard, against the wall and kisses me until we’re both breathless.
The door opens—of course—to let in another few passengers, and we jump apart.
But as soon as we’re disgorged onto our own floor, we practically run back to the room.
We’re laughing and holding hands, and once inside the room, I toss my clutch purse down and we tear at each other’s clothes, trying to get each other naked as fast as possible.
Tucker growls as my dress resists him. “You look so beautiful in this stupid fucking dress and I don’t want to rip it, but—”
I take over, lowering the zipper, dipping my head to lift the halter over, dropping the dress to the floor.
“Holy shit,” he says. “I was suspicious, but—oh, God. The whole night. What does it feel like?”
No bra, no undies.
“The linen’s a little rough on my nipples,” I say. “And I felt a little exposed, but in a good way. The air on my—”
I don’t get to finish the sentence because Tucker is on me, his mouth devouring me whole, his hands calloused, rough, and sure on my body. Cupping the body part that’s been exposed to the cool air all night, a finger slipping into my core.
“You’re still wearing pants,” I complain, trying to climb him.
He remedies that, then digs out and rolls on a condom. He kisses me again, backing me up to the wall, erection steely between us as he lifts and braces me and shoves into me in one swift, thick, slick movement.
“Ohhh,” we both say at the same time.
“I’ve never fucked standing,” I groan against his ear.
“Me neither.”
“I like it.”
I do. I like what gravity does, the feel of falling onto him, letting go of effort. I’m on fire, my belly hot and liquid, the heat radiating everywhere.
“That’s it, pretty girl.”
“Deeper.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
Then he’s there, filling me, my body tight against his so every thrust has the effect of grinding my clit against him. The pleasure is so lush and bright, in my core, in my clit, in my nipples, I can barely breathe.
I’m winding up so fast, too fast—I don’t want it to be over…
I’m whimpering. Over and over again.
“It’s okay, pretty girl. Let go, come for me…”
And then we’re both coming, hard, clutching each other everywhere we can get purchase, pressing our faces close, murmuring each other’s names, like something, anything, will keep the tsunami at bay, like anything could protect us from how deep under we’ve gotten.
It takes us a while to move. Through the fog of limp pleasure, I admire Tucker’s strength and endurance. He’s still holding me against the wall.
After a while, he lifts me and sets me down.
He eyes me with concern. “You okay?”
I think I’m swaying.
When I don’t answer, he scoops me up and carries me to the bed, setting me down. He covers me with the quilt and goes to take care of the condom while I struggle to keep my eyes open.
“You want to get up to brush your teeth?” he calls from the bathroom.
I force myself through the lovely afterglow and into the bathroom. We brush our teeth side by side, the first time we’ve done that. I meet his eyes in the mirror, and his mouth crooks into a grin.
And I know it’s done. The last little bit of falling.
I’m in love with this man, and there’s nothing at all I can do about it.
But it might be okay because the tenderness in his eyes tells me that maybe he’s right here with me.
We go to bed together, wrapped in each other.
My head on his chest, one of my arms draped over him, my thigh between his.
Both his arms around me. He’s huge and warm, and I have never felt this happy or this safe in my life.
I want to savor it. I lie awake, doing that, as his breathing slows into sleep.
As he sinks, his body heats and softens, and it’s like being wrapped in the biggest, best blanket ever.
Except my phone chimes from my purse on the floor.
Damn it, it’s going to make noise all night.
I very unwillingly extricate myself from Tucker’s grasp and tiptoe across to the room, bending down to pull it out of my clutch.
It’s from Hanna.
I know it’s super late and I’m so sorry, but if you get this, could you give me and Easton a little help with the family photos?
Summer and I had found a lot of family wedding photos to display on tables in the barn. And I’d meant to tell Hanna how to arrange them and straight-up forgot. I look at the clock. It’s almost midnight, but it doesn’t surprise me that she works late the night before a wedding.
Autumn
Where are you?
Hanna
You don’t have to come out if you don’t want to. I’m in the barn, but we can do this by text. I can send you photos.
It’ll take a million years of back-and-forth to arrange the photos that way. In person, it’ll take less than five minutes.
Autumn
I’ll come down there.
“Tucker,” I whisper, nudging him.
He doesn’t even move, doesn’t stir. He’s out cold.
He looks beautiful and peaceful in sleep. I watch him for a minute, adoring him.
No way I’m going to wake him. Not to run over to the barn for five minutes.
Hanna and Easton are both there; I’ll be fine.
Nothing weird happened today, and some snarky posts and a passel of mice aren’t that big a deal.
Even the stories of sabotage I’ve heard don’t sound like they put anyone in physical danger. They were more like financial hits.
I pull on clothes, pick up my purse from where I dumped it onto the floor, and grab Tucker’s AirTag from the nightstand.
I briefly think about leaving a note, but I’ll be back before he wakes up.
I hurry downstairs, then out the front door of the lodge and into the night.
There are plenty of lights along the paths; I don’t feel nervous as I trot toward the barn.
When I open the barn door, I see her standing by several stacks of my family’s photos, matted and neatly framed in matching black frames. They look amazing.
“Hey,” she says. “I wasn’t sure if you had a vision for how to do this.”
“I was going to arrange it by generations, if that makes sense? Great-grandparents, grandparents, parents. Hey, Easton,” I say as he appears from one of the hidden back areas of the barn.
“Hey, Autumn,” he says, giving me a blindingly handsome smile. Like Gabe, who led our camping trip, he’s one of the Wilder brothers, widely regarded as the most conventionally handsome. Before he and Hanna got together, he was also considered quite a player.
Now the look he gives her is gentle and adoring. “I’m going to head back and relieve my mom with the kids.”
“Thanks.” She pops onto tiptoes and plants a kiss on him.
Once he’s gone, she turns to me. “Great-grandparents toward the back, then grandparents, then parents up toward the front?” She shows me that there are hangers already set into the barn walls at intervals.
“There are a million reasons we end up hanging stuff that’s personal to the couple.
Grandmothers’ quilts, family photos…once an atrocious collection of watercolor paintings done by the bride.
She told me what each one was about, but otherwise I would have had no way of knowing. ”
I snicker.
We work along the wall, hanging the photos.
“This one’s great,” Hanna says, drawing my eyes to the one she’s hanging. My other grandmother, not Lola, in a white dress and pillbox hat, getting married on the front lawn of her parents’ house. Her fiancé—my late grandfather—gazes at her fondly.
It’s like a parade through time, one romance after another, the women in white dresses representing the fashion of the moment, the men in their best suits or rented tuxes, couples gazing into each other’s eyes adoringly.
And tomorrow Summer and Jane will join their ranks.
The thought makes me smile, and for the first time in days, weeks, I have the urge to get out my phone and record.
“You mind if I take some video?”
Hanna grins. “By all means! The more footage of Hott Springs Eternal that makes it onto your feed, the better.”
I slowly pan around the photos we’ve already hung. As I pass the door to the kitchen and storage area and swing around the final corner, I land on Hanna, who’s hanging a photo of my father and Nessa. She grins at the camera, and I linger there a moment.
And then the smile falls off her face and her eyes widen. “Do you— Is that…smoke?” She sniffs the air.
I sniff, and holy shit, yes. Smoke.
A crackle.
A snap.
Suddenly the room is awash in flickering light, the papery sound of wood igniting.
It takes a moment before the world resolves into flame.
It takes another moment before my mind grasps the situation.
Adrenaline shoots through my veins.
Flames have bitten through the wall between kitchen and main barn, and the dry wood of the gorgeous old barn is feeding a growing maw of fire.
“Oh, shit,” Hanna says.