Chapter 39
“Today’s Sunday,” Clem announced as she walked over to the chicken coop where Lily was currently collecting eggs.
Yep.
Collecting eggs.
Lily had never thought that she would be somebody who would collect eggs and do it gladly. Turns out, there were a lot of things that she actually enjoyed doing that she never thought she would.
Feeding animals. Collecting eggs. Wallpapering, which she was surprisingly good at. Filling up water troughs. Mucking out stalls.
Yeah, that last one she definitely didn’t like. She was sure that nobody could ever like that, right?
And, to be honest, the one time she’d tried to do it, Jaret had come along, given her a look, and shooed her away with a stern admonishment not to come back and try this again.
So she’d decided to listen to him.
She’d been here four nights now. In the beginning, she’d done these things in order to pay Clem and Jaret back for letting her stay here.
But at some stage, she’d actually started to enjoy herself.
She was getting up in the morning with a smile on her face, and going to bed at night with her muscles aching and her stomach full of food.
There was something about being here, working outdoors, that just made her feel so good. It filled her soul. And it was helping to heal her.
There was only one thing missing.
Harvey.
God, she missed him so much it was an ache. She thought she might have started thinking about him less by now, but if anything, it was getting worse. Lily thought about him from the moment she woke up until she closed her eyes.
It was difficult to sleep without his arms around her. It was hard to get through the day without a hug from him. Or seeing one of his smiles.
Lily wished he could see her now. Would he be surprised by how much she’d changed? She was surprised by how good she felt. Yeah, sometimes she still had nightmares. Sometimes bad thoughts came to her, but keeping busy was helping a lot. Being outside was helping, and so was being with Clem.
Clem was now staring at her expectantly.
“Is there something special about a Sunday?” she asked. “Am I not supposed to be doing this?”
“No, you can do that if you want, but it’s Sunday lunch day.”
She said that as though Lily should know what she was talking about. “Sunday lunch day?”
“Yep, Sunday is the day that we all go for lunch at the big house. Alec and Mia always host Sunday lunch for the entire family.”
“Oh, that’s a nice thing for them to do. Well, that’s okay. I can just putter around here and find my own lunch. Are you leaving now?”
“No, you won’t putter around and find something for lunch. You’re coming with us. Come on, we’re leaving in forty.”
“I really don’t have to go. I mean, I’m not family,” she protested.
“You’re my family,” Clem told her. “That means you’re welcome there.”
This was a bad idea.
Lily was completely overwhelmed. There were so many people. This was nothing like Sunday lunch at her house growing up, which had been a quiet and cold, formal affair.
This was raucous and loud. People were talking over each other. They were passing food to each other. Across from her, one of Jaret’s brothers stole a dinner roll off another brother’s plate. She wasn’t sure why, since there was a large plate of rolls in the middle of the table.
The other brother turned and caught him. Then, grabbing his fork, he tried to stab him in the hand with it. She gasped and nearly slid under the table in surprise.
“You two, behave yourselves,” Alec said, pointing at them both. “You’re going to scare Lily.”
Suddenly, everyone turned to stare at her, and they all grew quiet.
Everyone except Clem, who kept eating. “Lily’s not scared. She knows I’ll protect her from any dinner roll thieves.”
Lamb Chop let out a baa from outside as though he was backing Clem up. The window was open, and he was peering in.
“See, Lamb Chop’s ready to defend her too. He knows we don’t put up with no dinner roll thieves.” Clem pointed her fork at the thief in question, who just smiled back at her angelically.
The gorgeous woman next to him rolled her eyes. “Beau, stop stealing Butch’s dinner roll.”
“Everyone knows that dinner rolls taste better when you steal them from someone else’s plate,” Beau stated.
They did?
“But don’t worry, Lily, I won’t steal yours.” Beau stared down at her plate. “You’d actually have to have something on your plate in order for it to be stolen.”
And now everybody was staring at her empty plate.
It wasn’t that the food didn’t look amazing, and she was kind of hungry, but it had been sort of a free-for-all, and she hadn’t known exactly what she was supposed to do.
So she just sat there and watched in amazement, waiting for her turn, which had never really come.
“Jaret,” Alec said in a warning tone.
“On it,” Jaret replied.
Jaret picked up her plate and put a dinner roll on it, as well as some meat. Then he passed it to the person next to him. Suddenly, her plate was going around the table, and several of the Malone men placed food on it.
By the time the plate was back in front of her, it was bulging with food, and she knew there was no way she could eat it all.
But she simply smiled at everyone and nodded her thanks. Then, when they all returned to talking and eating, she leaned closer to Clem to whisper, “I can’t eat all of this.”
Clem shrugged. “Just do what you can.”
“But it’s a terrible waste of food, isn’t it? Will people be upset with me if I don’t eat everything? Is it not an insult to whoever cooked all of this?”
Clem looked at her, then turned to the woman sitting next to Alec. “Hey Mia, you going to be insulted if Lily can’t eat that whole plate of food?”
Oh my God, her sister didn’t just do that. But she had, and now Mia was glancing over at her. Then she grinned. “Lily, if you can eat that whole plate of food, I’ll die of shock.”
“No dying,” Alec warned.
“Fine, I won’t die, but I’ll do a naked dance on the dining table.”
His glare turned even more fiery. “No naked dancing, unless it’s just for me.”
“Ew, but not on the dining table, okay?” Beau said. “Save that stuff for the bedroom, will you?”
“My house, my rules,” Alec said. “Mia wants to dance naked on the table for my eyes only. She gets to do that.”
“Oh my God, how did this turn into a thing?” Mia placed her hands over her cheeks. “There are children in the room, you know?”
“Yes, someone cover Beau’s ears,” Jaret drawled.
“You’re just jealous because I still know how to have fun. You’re turning into West.” Beau pointed at Jaret with his fork
“Hey, there are worse things than turning into West,” one of the women said.
“Is there?” Beau drawled. “Is there?”
Suddenly, there was a debate over whether everybody would want to be West or not. The man, who she assumed was West, was the only one not participating, along with Alec. They were both sitting there and eating calmly, as if this was something that happened every day.
Lily leaned into Jaret. “Are your family’s lunches normally like this?”
“Actually, they’re being well-behaved. Must be because you’re here,” Jaret told her.
She waited for him to tell her that he was joking.
But he just started eating again.
All right then.
“You don’t have to eat everything on your plate, Lily,” Alec suddenly said.
She glanced over at him. Alec Malone was an intimidating man, tall and broad, quite serious-looking, but when he stared at his wife and kids, there was a softness to his face that was unexpected. “But you do have to eat something.”
All right, sure. She should eat.
She started off slowly with small bites, making sure that she was eating politely.
But as she stared around her, she saw that everyone ate with gusto.
They didn’t pause. They didn’t chew twenty times.
They didn’t lay down their cutlery between each mouthful.
The laughter was loud, the talking even louder, but she realized that the whole room was filled with fun and love.
She gradually started to relax. When she became full, she leaned toward Clem again. “You do this every Sunday?”
“Yep. It’s the rules. Alec expects everybody to be here.”
“You really did find an amazing life, Clem. I’m so glad for you.”
Clem glanced over at her. “Sounds to me like you could have an amazing life too, with Harvey.”
Lily shook her head, feeling that wave of sadness rush through her. “No, Harvey’s better off without me.”
Clem just sighed and shook her head. Lily knew that she didn’t agree, but that was okay. She didn’t have to.
Lily knew the truth.