Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LUKE
You could get a lot of work done in three weeks if you put your mind to it… assuming you also had the entire town of Little Pippin Hollow behind you.
With one day to go until my mom’s visit, the work on the house was almost done, from the new slate roof, to the updated kitchen, to the sturdy new front door under the repainted portico.
Even Mother Nature seemed to have gotten on board, with forsythia shrubs blooming yellow along one whole side of the long driveway and crocuses poking their fat, purple heads out of the soil.
Today was bright and sunny, warm enough to convince me maybe Little Pippin Hollow was actually going to come out of its winter shell one of these days. Regardless, it was a great day for a final push, and the town had turned out en masse to make it happen.
Jones Bell was here with a crew finishing the exterior painting on the house, several of my students and their parents were here painting the fence around the sheep enclosure, while younger children ran around the patchy grass or petted my very tolerant sheep under Em Sunday’s close supervision.
Mary Duarte and daughter-in-law Chrissy were busy directing a crew on cleaning up and staging furniture pulled out of the attics and one of the barns, while I helped Drew set up long folding tables to hold all of the potluck dishes that seemed to be multiplying before my very eyes, ready to feed the hungry crew.
Someone—I strongly suspected Jack—had even brought a portable speaker, and eighties rock streamed through the air, giving the afternoon a party vibe.
I was so incredibly thankful that so many people had been genuinely happy to pitch in and help me and that I’d hardly had to dip into the home improvement loan Ellie Walcott had fast-tracked in order to make it happen.
But it had been a long three weeks, and God I was ready for this all to be done.
I was ready to have a little bit of peace and quiet in my life again.
And, I thought with a sigh as I watched Webb disappear through the front door carrying a bedside table, I was really ready to see my gorgeous, sexy betrothed up close and personal for more than ten minutes at a stretch.
“Luke! Thanks so much for having us!” A Hooker named Estelle kissed me on my cheek. “This is my husband, Ralph. He brought his drill, and I’m ready to clean. Tell me where to put these pies, and we’ll get to work!”
“Oh, wow.” Had she actually just thanked me? “Nice to meet you, Ralph. Thank you so much for coming. Pies go anywhere you can find a spot. Drew’s got an organization system, I think, but he went to grab some—”
“Cider!” Drew finished, dragging a cooler across the grass. “It’s the batch from last fall. Just bottled it up a few weeks ago, so I thought I’d use you all as guinea pigs before I send some over to the Bugle. I’m calling it Pippin’ Good.”
“Always happy to try your cider.” Ralph set down his drills and rubbed his hands together eagerly.
But when Drew pulled out the first bottle and uncapped it, he handed it to me. “You look like a man who could use a cool drink, Luke.”
I sipped the cold cider gratefully. “Wow. This is delicious. Grown and brewed in the Hollow,” I read off the label.
He nodded. “Folks love the hometown connection. See the logo of the apple tree over the well? Emma drew that.”
“I love it. Did you—?”
“Luke, which room gets the iron bedstead from the attic?” Hawk called from the front door.
“Second-floor front room, please,” I called back. He nodded and disappeared.
“Luke!” Aiden rushed up, dressed in his Nature Scout uniform and brandishing a length of rope, breathless with excitement and panic.
“Can you help me with my constrictor knots? Please? My mom was s’posed to be here half an hour ago so she could help me practice before Scouts and she didn’t come yet, and I asked my dad and he said he would, but then Mr. Avery—not the actual Mr. Avery, but Mr. Avery’s son, who’s also Mr. Avery, you know?
—almost dropped a table going up the stairs, and Dad yelled, ‘Holy sugar, Anders, be careful or you’ll kill yourself!
’ and Mr. Avery said, ‘Holy sugar, Webb, you sound like your boyfriend,’ and are you and Dad boyfriends, like Uncle Knox and Uncle Gage, because Dad said the handfasting was all a misunderstanding, but I think he meant to say shit and didn’t, and do you stop swearing when you have a boyfriend, I wanna know? ” he spewed without pausing for air.
“Whoa! Deep breath. How much chocolate have you eaten, kiddo?” I ran my free hand over his head. “Yes, I can practice knots with you, but—” I began.
At the same time, a deep voice said from right behind me, “Aiden Sunday. Language.”
My stomach flipped giddily.
“Dad!” Aiden beamed. “You came!”
“Told you I’d only be a minute, then I’d help you with your knots.” Webb came to stand beside me, and as he always did these days, as soon as I was within touching distance, he pulled my front against his side and let his big hand caress my hip, erasing every square inch of space between us.
He rested his chin on the top of my head, sucked in a big lungful of air, and made a little noise in my ear halfway between a grumble and a sigh.
So as I always did these days, I sank into the firmly muscled, pine-and-clean-flannel-scented warmth of him and tried very hard not to pop wood.
He took the drink from my hand and studied the label. “Drew’s new batch of cider?”
His familiar voice made me shiver for reasons completely unrelated to the temperature outside. It was freaking addictive.
I nodded, and he took a sip, putting his mouth right over the spot where I’d drunk earlier. I repressed a lustful groan.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said in a strangled voice. “I’m great.”
And I was. Not just because my mom was coming and I’d missed her, not just because I’d somehow landed in the middle of a town that cared so much, but because when Webb’s arms were around me, I felt like I was actually living the fairy-tale adventure my mom had wanted for me… at least temporarily.
Now if I could just get some time alone with the man so my poor cock could stop responding to the slightest whiff of Webb, I’d be perfectly happy.
Thanks to my house, and his family, and my job, and his orchard, though we’d seen each other more than ever recently, we hadn’t had the chance to do more than kiss and a little handsy exploration.
And for a person who hadn’t had sex since moving to Vermont, suddenly going three weeks without seeing Webb naked and knowing we wouldn’t be interrupted in the span of ten minutes seemed incredibly difficult.
“So do you?” Aiden prompted. He picked up my wrist and looped the rope around it, frowning in concentration. “Because I think Knox and Gage are doing it wrong.”
“Doing what wrong?” Knox demanded from over by the food table. His hair and his sweatshirt were both covered in a fine layer of plaster dust.
“Being a boyfriend,” Aiden said matter-of-factly. “You could take lessons from my dad and Luke.”
Knox looked from Aiden to me, then settled his gaze on Webb and lifted one eyebrow mockingly. “Is that so, Webb? You offering boyfriend lessons now? Interesting.”
Webb flushed. “No. I didn’t say—”
“What do you think, Goodman?” Knox interrupted.
“Do we need Webb to show us how it’s done?
Oooh, maybe he could get Genevieve York-Muller out here for a Very Special Episode of Hand-Fast Watch, where my brother shares some tips and tricks on boyfriending.
Enlighten us poor idiots who’ve been half-assing it up to now.
Tell me, kids, how many more handfasting requirements have you knocked off the list in the past three weeks? None?”
The answer should have been none, but I’d had an icy patch on my driveway, and when Webb had taken me to Ed’s Pippin Pickings to buy some salt on the Orchard discount, Ed had been so excited, he’d contacted the mayor immediately.
He and Genevieve had stopped us in the parking lot for an impromptu Scroll-Ticking, where they marked off Part the Fourth.
But that hardly counted, and Knox knew it.
So far, the count stood at three tasks completed. And that was plenty.
Gage laughed out loud. He offered Knox a bottle of cold water and grinned around the half a brownie he’d stuffed in his mouth.
“I dunno, I think we do an okay job on our own, babe.” Then he looked down at Aiden’s handiwork.
“Ooh, constrictor knot? The Nature Scout’s best friend?
The purpose of it is to tie multiple things together.
Like…” He handed Knox his half-eaten brownie, grabbed Webb’s wrist to place next to mine, and demonstrated the knot. “There you go. Practice on Luke.”
Knox’s eyes softened, the way I’d noticed they tended to whenever he looked at Gage… but especially when Gage was with Aiden. “You’re right. I have no complaints. Besides, Goodman and I won’t be boyfriends for long.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Aiden’s eyes widened. “You won’t?”
Gage blushed beet red. He snatched his brownie back and poked Knox in the solar plexus for good measure.
“He means we’re going to get engaged eventually, bud, not that we’re breaking up.
And stop teasing the thing like that, Knox Sunday.
Either ask me or don’t. Jeez. You keep bringing it up and then…
not doing it.” He ruffled Knox’s dirty hair with the hand that wasn’t holding a brownie, sending up a cloud of dust. “Put a ring on it.”
“Me? You’re the one who wanted to wait some arbitrary amount of time. You told me, ‘It’s okay, Knox. We’ve only been dating four months, there’s no rush.’ Then you said, ‘Half a year’s probably too fast still, right? Maybe… maybe after a year would be better.’”
“I said that to make myself feel better ’cause you were taking forever!” Gage spluttered. “I thought Sundays were supposed to be efficient.”