20. Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Wyatt
Savannah reaches for my hand a few minutes outside Nashville.
No buildup. No question.
I turn my hand over and lace my fingers through hers.
This morning I kissed Savannah in the honey house, and I've been thinking about doing it again ever since.
Now she's sitting beside me after an entire day in Nashville, holding my hand like we've been doing it all along.
I could get used to this.
We make it another few miles before she gives my hand a squeeze.
“My name is Savannah Lane Blake.”
I groan.
She laughs. “You thought I forgot?”
“I was hoping lunch might distract you.”
“You greatly underestimate my ability to eat and hold a grudge at the same time.”
“I'm starting to see that.”
“Why Lane?”
“I told you. I needed a name.”
“And there are approximately four million of them.”
“Didn't need four million. Only needed one.”
“Wyatt.”
I smile at the road.
“Grandpa had been telling me for years I should sell my work.”
“After you left, I kept at it,” I say. “Mostly because I liked the work. Started selling a few pieces locally. Then a store in Nashville picked up some belts and wallets. One order turned into ten. Eventually I had more work than I could do myself.”
“So you hired people.”
“Yes, then we needed more space, more equipment. Salespeople came later. Wholesale accounts after that. It grew.”
“To twenty-three employees.”
“Twenty-two until Paul gets back.”
She bumps my arm with hers.
“And somewhere in there you needed a name.”
“Yeah.”
“Why my name?”
I know that's what she's really been asking all along.
I could tell her Lane was short. Looked good stamped into leather. Sounded like a company that had been around longer than it had.
All true.
Just not the reason I picked it.
“You were one of the first people who believed I could make something of it,” I say. “Before I had any idea it could become a business.”
“I was seventeen.”
“Didn't make you wrong.” I run my thumb over the edge of the bag. “Remember that wallet I made you?”
Her face brightens. “The one with the crooked flower?”
“It wasn't crooked.”
“Wyatt.”
“Fine. It was a little crooked.” I smile. “But you carried that thing everywhere.”
“Because you made it for me.”
“That's my point. Grandpa was always telling me I had a knack for leatherwork, but he was my grandpa.
He was supposed to say things like that.
You were different. You'd come out to the workshop and look through everything I was making.
You'd tell me which stitching looked better, which leather you liked, what I should try next.”
She smiles. “I remember.”
“You used to tell me I shouldn't just make things for Dad and Grandpa. That people would pay for them.”
“Apparently I was brilliant, even back then.”
I laugh. “Apparently.”
“You made it feel like it wasn't just some hobby I was good at. Like maybe I could do something with it.”
Her expression softens.
“And after you left, I guess I liked having a piece of you attached to something I was building.”
Her fingers tighten around mine.
I don't tell her the rest.
I didn't name the company after her because I thought she'd come back. I wasn't waiting for her. I built a life, raised Ellie, became sheriff, grew a business. I learned how to be happy without Savannah Blake in it.
But I kept a few pieces of her anyway.
Lane was one of them.
“Did Grandpa know?”
“Yes, immediately.”
“He knew it was named after me?”
“Grandpa knew everything.”
“What did he say?”
I can still see him sitting at his workbench when I told him the name, acting like he hadn't figured it out before I'd finished saying it.
“He said if I was going to name a company after a girl, I ought to have enough sense to call the girl.”
“I'm glad you decided on Lane.”
“Me too.”
After that, we let the conversation wander.
She tells me about a Blake Co. shoot where a model fell into a creek wearing a coat that hadn't even gone into production yet. I tell her about Ellie deciding at six that she was going to become a veterinarian and trying to perform physicals on every chicken on the farm.
We talk about the band. Lunch. Olivia and whether she actually needed all that honey or just enjoys making me haul things through her back door.
Nothing important.
Which might be my favorite part.
Her hand stays in mine the whole way.
After a few quiet miles, she shifts our joined hands onto her leg.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Savannah asks.
“Sheriff until four. Lane for a couple hours after that.”
She laughs. “I like knowing what Lane means now.”
“You're never going to let this go, are you?”
“Absolutely not. What about after Lane?”
“Are you asking me out again, Savannah Blake?”
“Maybe I'd like to see you.”
“Then yes.”
She laughs. “That's awfully confident.”
“You kissed me this morning and you've been holding my hand for the last hour. I'm feeling pretty good about my chances.”
She gives my hand a squeeze. “It's a date.”
“Good.”
I lift our joined hands and press a kiss to the back of hers.
“Come by tomorrow.”
“After Lane?”
“Or whenever you want. Dad and Ellie will be around even if I'm not.”
“Okay.”
By the time the roads start looking familiar, I realize I haven't thought once about where this is going.
I've just enjoyed being in it.
When I pull up in front of Texie's, neither of us seems in much of a hurry to end the day.
“I had a really good time,” she says.
“Even after finding out you've been doing business with a weird man for eight years?”
She laughs and reaches for the door.
I catch her hand before she gets there.
“Savannah.”
She turns toward me, and I lean across the console and kiss her.
No three-second wait this time.
No wondering whether I should.
Just a warm, easy kiss, and Savannah is smiling against my mouth before she kisses me back.
When I pull away, she stays close.
“Just so we're clear, this morning wasn't a one-time thing,” I whisper to her.
“Good.”
She kisses me once more, quick and sweet.
“Neither was that.”
I watch her walk up Texie's steps.
She turns at the door and lifts a hand before disappearing inside.
I drive home smiling like an idiot.
The next day gives me no time to see her.
I've got sheriff work stacked up from spending most of yesterday in Nashville, then a couple hours at Lane because now I have to call it that in my own head instead of the shop.
It's after four when Dad texts me.
Savannah's here.
I smile before I can help it.
I'd told her to come whenever she wanted.
I shouldn’t be surprised that she'd taken me seriously.
How long?
His answer comes back.
Couple hours.
Then another.
We're keeping her.
I put my phone away before this gets any worse.
By the time I get home, Savannah's car is parked beside Dad's truck.
I find the three of them out back.
Dad's in his usual porch chair. Savannah's sitting across from him with a glass of lemonade, and Ellie is on the porch floor between them with what looks like half the contents of a photo album spread around her.
Nobody seems to have missed me.
Savannah is laughing at something Dad's saying, head tipped back, completely comfortable.
Not waiting for me.
Not killing time until I get home.
Just here.
Dad sees me first.
“Look who finally decided to come home.”
“I live here.”
“Could've fooled us.”
Savannah reaches for my hand when I get close enough.
Just reaches.
Like she did in the truck yesterday.
I take hers.
“How long have you been here?”
“Couple hours. Your dad said you were at work, so Ellie decided I needed to see photographic evidence of your questionable hair choices.”
And I realize that even though I invited her, I expected her to come when I was here.
She didn't. She came when she wanted to, found out I wasn't home, and stayed anyway like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Dad decides Savannah staying this long means she's staying for dinner too.
He fires up the grill. Ellie sets the table with far more ceremony than a Wednesday evening requires, and Moose stations himself underneath it in the exact spot where scraps are most likely to fall.
Halfway through dinner, Ellie turns her full attention on Savannah.
“You knew Uncle Wyatt when he was a kid.”
“I did.”
“Was he always this boring?”
“I'm sitting right here.”
“I know.”
Savannah grins.
“He was not boring.”
“Savannah.”
She ignores me and turns to Ellie. “Okay, here are a few of my favorites. There was the time your uncle decided he could outrun a goose.”
Ellie grins. “Could he?”
“No. He ended up in the creek, and the goose stood on the bank watching him like it had won.”
“It was a mean goose,” I say.
Savannah waves me off. “Then there was the time he tried to jump his bike over three hay bales. He made it over two and landed face-first in the mud.”
Ellie is already laughing.
“Oh, and once he climbed the old oak tree on a dare, got stuck, and refused to admit it for almost an hour. Your grandpa finally had to bring him a ladder.”
Dad laughs. “I'd forgotten about that.”
“I hadn't.” Savannah smiles at Ellie. “But my personal favorite was the afternoon Wyatt spent looking everywhere for his sunglasses.”
I already know where this is going.
“They were on his head,” she finishes.
Ellie loses it.
“I was distracted.”
“For forty-five minutes?”
I shake my head, but I can't stop smiling.
And while Ellie’s busy thoroughly humiliating me, I realize Savannah is giving her something I can’t.
Stories about who I was before I became Uncle Wyatt.
Before I became the person responsible for making sure homework got done and teeth got brushed and permission slips got signed.
Before Casey died.
Before any of us knew how much could change.
She's handing Ellie pieces of me I didn't even realize were missing.
Dad leans back in his chair, watching the two of them.
He catches my eye across the table.
He doesn't say anything.
For once, neither do I.
Later, Dad dozes in his porch chair while Ellie chases Moose around the garden, and Savannah and I sit on the steps.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For giving Ellie stories.”
“I liked telling them.”
“She loved hearing them.”
“I liked remembering them too.” She rests her arms across her knees. “I spent a long time thinking about Stonebridge as the place I left. I forgot how much life happened here before that.”
I reach for her hand.
She laces her fingers through mine.
“We're doing a lot of this lately,” she says.
“I'm making up for lost time.”
Her smile softens. “We have a lot of that.”
“Yeah. We do.”
Ellie throws a tennis ball across the yard.
Moose watches it land.
Then sits down.
“Excellent retriever,” Savannah says.
“Top of his class.”
Ellie runs after the ball herself, muttering something about useless dogs.
Savannah leans her shoulder against mine.
Yesterday I wanted her beside me in Nashville.
Last night I wanted another five minutes in the truck before she went inside.
Not today.
Today, I just enjoy having her here.
Savannah stays until the sun starts dropping behind the orchard.
I walk her to her car, and she turns before opening the door.
“I liked today.”
I lean down and kiss her.
“I'll see you tomorrow?”
“Count on it.”
Savannah's phone buzzes in her pocket before she gets into the car.
She pulls it out, checks the screen, and frowns.
“Liv?”
She nods. “Give me one second.”
She steps away to answer it.
I don't try to listen, but I catch enough.
How bad?
When?
Then, after a pause:
No. Don't move the meeting. I'll be there.
That one I hear clearly.
She ends the call and stands there with the phone still in her hand.
“I have to go to New York for a few days.”
I hate how quickly the words hit me.
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
I guess tomorrow isn't going to look anything like I thought it would.
“We’ve got a production issue. Liv can handle almost anything, but this one needs me there.”
“Okay.”
Her eyes search mine. “Okay?”
“Savannah, it's your company.”
“I know, but—”
“You don't have to explain why you need to go do your job.”
I take her hand.
“You spent fifteen years building Blake Co. I'm not going to ask you to stop caring about it because we finally figured out how to kiss each other.”
She laughs, but her eyes have gone a little shiny.
“I'm coming back.”
There's the sentence I wanted.
“Take whatever time you need.”
“You make this very difficult, you know that?”
“Pretty sure I'm making it easy.”
“That's the problem.”
I pull her against me and kiss her again.
Not the easy kiss from the truck last night. Not the playful one we'd shared five minutes ago.
This one lasts.
When she finally pulls back, she stays close.
“I'll call you.”
“You better.”
“And I'll be back.”
“You said that already.”
“I'm saying it again.”
“Then I'll see you when you get back.”
She gets in the car, and I watch until her taillights disappear down the drive.
I stand there another second before heading back toward the house.
The screen door opens as I reach the porch, and Ellie steps out with Moose right behind her.
“Savannah leave?”
“Yeah.”
She watches the empty drive for a second.
“I like her here.”
I climb the steps and put an arm around her shoulders as we head inside.
“I do too.”