Chapter 35 Willow
thirty-five
Willow
Minutes later, we hear whining from the kitchen. “Stay right there,” Noah says. “I’ll let Momma out.”
When he comes back, he sits on the steps, uncorks the bottle of expensive Bordeaux we’d ordered at Chloe’s Nook, and hands it to me. I take a gulp straight from the bottle. “That’s sacrilege, you know,” Noah says.
“I know. But it’s still good.” A drop of wine slides down the corner of my mouth, and he leans over to lick it. “Good boy. Don’t let it go to waste.”
“I’d say that’s… fifty cents right there.”
Horrified, I hold the bottle away from me.
“Just kidding. I wanted a reason to lick your neck.” He goes for seconds, suckling on the base of my neck.
“Are you trying to give me a hickey, Callaway?”
He growls, his mouth still against my skin. “I wasn’t, but fuck yeah,” he says as he nibbles hard enough on me to make me cry out in surprise and low-grade pain. “Oh shit,” he says. “You mark easily.”
I laugh hysterically, the wine and the release from sex and the overall easiness of this surreal setting and of what’s happening right now hitting me.
Me sipping expensive wine on the grand staircase of the Callaway mansion, having given head to Noah Callaway after he’d made me come twice in the master bedroom.
Me bearing the last name Callaway.
Me being Noah’s wife, when months ago crushing on him was just hurting me.
Me seeing the way Noah looks at me, with want and hunger but also more than just lust.
He leans and nibbles again. “That’s what happens when you marry into a vampire family.”
Right then, the grandfather clock strikes midnight, and I laugh again, the timing of the endless peals amplifying my deep happiness.
Noah reaches inside the paper bag and pulls out the appetizer—goat cheese puffs with a honey-base dipping sauce. I take a bite. “Man. All this sex made me hungry. You?”
His gaze glances down my length. “Made me hungry for more of you, Mrs. Callaway.” He drops his puff in the container, running his hand through his hair. “Ah fuck.”
“What?”
“I just… want you again.” He looks genuinely pained.
I giggle. “Eat something first. We have all the time in the world.”
He looks at me with a question in his eyes.
It’s a weird situation we’re in. Married and lusting after each other, getting to know and appreciate each other. But we have it all backward. The steps are reversed. We’re already at the end-game stage. I’m not ready to push the tough conversation.
Momma dog makes her way to us, followed by her three puppies. They’re steadier on their feet, but they struggle following her up the steps and keep tumbling down. “How was it, growing up here?” I ask.
“Depends. Before Mom got here, it was kinda dark and sad, I guess? I don’t have a lot of memories of that time. But mainly, it was a happy place to grow up in. Especially in the summer.”
“Why the summer?
“We were always outside, running around. Going up to the orchards, helping with the vegetable garden.”
I look around, at the hallway with the doors closed, the high ceilings. “It is kinda gloomy in here,” I finally say.
“I told you to make it yours. Make any changes you want. Mom never did—I don’t know why. This stuff around here is… it’s been here for over a century.”
“Maybe that’s why. She wanted to respect the history,” I venture.
He takes my hand. “And I’d love for you to make history here.” The pad of his thumb strokes the inside of my wrist, and he brings it to his lips.
My heart hammers inside my chest. What is he really talking about—the house, or us?
I’m too scared to ask and see my illusions shattered.
Because how permanent are we, really? What happens to us, to me, once his inheritance is secured?
He said he feels more than lust, but how deep do his feelings really go?
It’s all so new to him.
I clench my jaw, not knowing what to answer.
“You have an eye for things,” he says, misreading my anxiety. “I don’t. Griff seems to have given up on us and Emerald Creek. Beck is too busy spending all his energy outdoors to care about Lilyvale. And Lane… she wants a bigger life away from here.”
Noah’s voice betrays his distress.
I already have so much I never expected; so what if my feelings get bruised in the end?
“Sure, I’ll do it,” I say, focusing my thoughts on the heavy drapes gone, airy spotlights shedding light on contemporary art pieces, comfortable sectionals replacing the stiff settees, wicker baskets full of throws and local pottery vases with wildflowers bringing simplicity inside.
Mamma dog whines and nudges my hand, bringing me back to the present. “You tired of always giving your attention to your babies, aren’t you?” I dig my fingers into her thick fur, feeling how she’s filled up. “You need attention too. Yes you do.”
“We need to find her a name,” Noah says, reaching over my lap to pet her as well.
“I was thinking Calla, like the lilies? and like Callaway.”
Noah turns his face to me, grazing my mouth with his lips. “Oh, you were thinking about her name, huh?” He smiles and nibbles on my earlobe, making me want him again.
I whisper the lie. “Only a little. Randomly, you know.” I like her and hate that I can’t call her… anything.
Noah chuckles and boops my nose. “Moose and Calla. That sounds good. Two names drawn from nature. I like it.”
“What do you think?” I ask Calla. She answers me by licking my cheek, then nips gently at one of her puppies who’s managed to climb the steps and is now biting at her nipple.
The two other puppies yap in frustration, wanting in yet bumping against the first step cluelessly.
“Almost there,” Noah says, chuckling. Grazing my cheek with the back of his hand, he adds, “And did you officially change your name yet?”
My cheeks burn. I wasn’t planning on it. It’s a pain in the neck. Why would I do that? Yet something warm coils inside of me. “Right,” I say. “Let’s not give Gail more ammo than she already has. I’m sorry, I should have—”
Noah’s gaze darkens. “Fuck Gail. That’s not why I was asking.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’ll do it. You’re right.”
He switches positions so he’s kneeling in front and below me on the steps, moving the puppy gently to the side.
“Willow. You’re my wife. I want for you what you want for yourself.
If you don’t think it’s right that a woman changes her name when she gets married, it’s fine by me.
” He stands. “We should definitely add that to the spreadsheet.”
I grab his hand before he can go anywhere. “What did you say?”
“I’m gonna add it to the spreadsheet.”
“Before that.” The thing about being your wife. “About…” I lick my lips, unsure how to phrase this. He dropped a bomb on me, not even realizing it. “You wanting for me what I want for myself.”
He pulls me up, and being above him on the staircase, our eyes are level. “Absolutely. My wife calls the shots in this household. Anybody who doesn’t like it can go to hell.” His mouth closes on mine, his kiss giving me the strength I need to process what he just said.
Noah Callaway sees me and treats me as his real wife.
“Come on, let’s finish this dinner in style,” he says, grabbing the takeout bag in one hand and pulling me against him.
The adventurous puppy tumbles down the steps as Calla jumps down, and we all snuggle in the parlor in front of a real fire. “They get a pass for today,” Noah declares as he pulls out a couple of china plates and crystal glasses that we set on a small bench in front of us.
“Fire dinner! Much better than a TV dinner,” I say, leaning over to press a kiss on my husband’s cheek. Calla settles at my feet while the little ones go and explore. “Don’t get lost!” I tell them.
From the corner of my eye, I detect movement. “I can’t believe you guys!” I hiss. The two young women in white are in a corner, whispering to each other. Noah glances at them. “Oh, they’re harmless,” he says. “The one you want to watch out for is Elsbeth.”
I lean closer to him and whisper, “The one who hanged herself?”
Giggles sound from the corner of the room, while Noah takes a healthy bite from his flank steak. He moves the food in his mouth and answers, circling his fork around to make the point. “That’s the thing. That’s what she wants people to believe. In reality, Elsbeth died of pneumonia—still sad.”
“Okay,” I say, relieved that the story of the hanging bride isn’t true, but a little disappointed at the same time that the most gruesome ghost story in Emerald Creek turned out to be fake.
“However,” he says, “Elsbeth’s widower remarried. And Elsbeth turned out to be the jealous kind.”
“Okay?”
“She appeared to each of his new wives as… you guessed it, hanging from the bathroom ceiling on the night of their nuptials. Before the wedding could be consummated.”
“You said wives? As in several?”
He nods, forks another healthy serving of food into his mouth, and continues. “First wife ran straight back to her parents’ home. Got the marriage annulled. The next two, ditto. That was the end of the wedding adventures of the first Noah.”
“Wait—his name was Noah?”
“Yeah, we’re all called Noah. Every first born.”
“Holy shit. So Elsbeth is—”
“My great-great-great grandmother. Seven generations back.”
Seven generations? Wow. “Why don’t you guys set the record straight? Tell the true story?”
He laughs. “Yeah, like people are going to believe we’re perfectly okay people if we come out and explain it was just a ghost playing a prank?”
I shrug. “I guess. People are silly.” I glance to the corner of the room, now empty.
“Who were those two?” I ask.
“No idea. We sort of have an agreement. We let them be, they let us be. We start asking them questions, they might get social with us. I don’t mind them, but I prefer live people.”
“Depends which live people,” I answer.
“Fair enough.” He drops a kiss on my head. “Mmm… Fuck,” he says, a slow smile spreading on his face.
“What?”
He twirls a strand of my hair between his fingers. “We’re gonna be sleeping in the same bed.” He leans in for a soft kiss, then pulls me tighter to him with one hand on my nape. A low growl comes from deep inside him. “You get the puppies, I’ll get the food?’
“Uh-huh.”