The Long Road Home (These Valley Days, #1)

by Bethany-Kris

  Something else Malachi had noticed and mentioned to her. The woodworking only downstairs, not the accident.

  “Let me chat with somebody about the molding, but I think I could definitely continue the theme if you can find the right stain,” he’d told her.

  She wanted to say yes.

  Right then.

  Gracen didn’t but only because the two of them had not had a conversation yet about what exactly the two of them were doing together now. The one conversation they did have on the back deck of a big lodge couldn’t exactly be taken as the gospel. It couldn’t be the same as it used to be. Nothing about them was the same as that first night they met, and for whatever reason, they continued falling into step together to reach where they were now despite the obstacles that kept popping up in the way.

  Was he standing here for the same reason she was?

  Had he fallen for her, too?

  “Why’d you get so quiet?” Malachi asked.

  Gracen tried to brush it off as she played with the squish beans on the bottom of the kitten’s front paws while he slept. “I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  No arguments.

  Just facts.

  Gracen turned away from the bed to see Malachi fall into the round cuddle couch in the corner of the room. He peeled off his staple black T-shirt and balled it in his fist to use as a rag to wipe the sweat from his face and neck.

  “Did I say something?” he asked.

  He had, but she didn’t want him to think he had done something wrong at the same time when that just wasn’t the case.

  “Did I notice duffle bags in the back of the truck when we brought the kitten’s things in?” she asked him instead.

  Malachi’s brow dipped. “What does that—”

  “I thought I saw a plastic tote on the back, too,” she interjected.

  One of those big ones that people had to use both hands to get a good grip.

  Malachi leaned forward with his arms over his knees and his hands clasped. “It wasn’t just the bike that I sold.”

  “No?”

  “No. Chip cut me a cheque last week to cover my wages for the next six months, and because I couldn’t find even one reason why I wanted to stay in the Miramichi for another day, I ended up cleaning out my place in the time between coming here,” he explained.

  Gracen stuffed her hands in the pockets of her shorts. “You quit your job?”

  “On paper, Chip let me go with severance—called it respect.”

  He didn’t say it with the same appreciation, and practically no fondness. What did she miss?

  “What happened?” Gracen asked.

  Malachi let out a gusty sigh. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I think it does,” she pushed.

  He had been on good terms with his boss not very long ago. She couldn’t wrap her mind around what would have changed so fast. Not for a second did she believe Malachi would quit just for her.

  “Everybody’s got a line,” Malachi said, shrugging almost indifferently. “Chip wanted to take things in a direction I couldn’t go—not without sacrificing a part of me that I wasn’t willing to lose. In the end, we weren’t looking for the same things.”

  Fair enough. People grew up and away from stuff they had once held close.

  “Are we?” she asked.

  Malachi raised a brow high in a silent question.

  “Looking for the same things,” Gracen clarified.

  His smile stretched wide. “I wouldn’t be here if we weren’t, gorgeous. Shit, I told myself I wasn’t coming back here until my sister was gone—”

  Gracen flinched, remembering Sonny’s descriptions of a young woman’s private abuse. “Do you think she’ll reach out—after they’re married and gone?”

  Malachi cleared his throat, but still managed a smile through the nervous energy. “I guess I wait and see, sweetheart. I mean, it worked out with you.”

  He wasn’t wrong.

  “Say it without pet names, and maybe make sure you mean it.”

  He stood from the cuddle couch, lumbering up straight with a cocky grin that had her belly tightening with anticipation as he stepped forward. “Maybe?”

  “Well,” she started to squeak out.

  He stopped right in front of her. Leaned in close enough that their lips almost touched.

  “Well, what?” he asked.

  Gracen’s heart spoke for her. “Mean it.”

  “I love you, Gracen Briggs,” he declared.

  Her whole world stopped for a second. He said it like it was easy. Natural. As if he’d already done it a hundred times and couldn’t wait to do it a hundred more. She instantly wanted him to do exactly that, too—say it again.

  Until it was just as easy for her to say it back.

  “I love you enough that I’m basically homeless because everything I own is in the back of a truck I bought on a whim to carry all of it back to you,” he said as he slid both arms around her waist and pulled her close. “It’s fine, though. I’ll figure the place-to-live thing, and work bullshit, out; I always do. I love you enough that the people I’d rather never see or speak to again are unimportant factors that no longer control how I’m moving with you because you’re what really matters to me. I didn’t ever want to come back here, and trust me, there’s a few people who’ve given me enough reasons to stay away, but there’s nowhere else I’d rather be if you’re not going to be there, too.”

  “You have a home if you have me,” she said, needing him to know it was true. “If you keep coming back to me ... if you stay.”

  Malachi nodded, still hugging her close. “It was a long road home, and I didn’t think it’d take this long in my life to find you, but here I am. It’s me and you, girl, if you want me, too.”

  She let him hold her weight, swaying them on the spot. Their silence stretched on, but Gracen was too content to study the planes of his handsome face that haunted her every waking dream to break the moment.

  If only for a second ...

  “It’s easy not to believe in things,” she told him, voice soft like the emotions pouring from her heart. “God never cared; he wasn’t there. Today’s easier to live if I don’t have to think about tomorrow. Love’s a lie because it wouldn’t stay. It’s easier for me to tell myself these things, Malachi.”

  “Not with me,” he murmured.

  She shook her head, echoing, “Not with you.”

  His kiss came fast, and bruising. Her laugh muffled into the kiss, but it melted into a happy sigh the longer he held her there.

  “I love you,” she mumbled against his lips.

  Exactly the words he wanted to hear. The two of them turned and fell into the cuddle couch together. That innocent kiss turned much hotter when she was straddling him, and his hands disappeared under her hoodie to get more skin on skin. And then, the softest meow came from the other side of the room.

  Both froze.

  “Be quiet,” he whispered to her. “Maybe he’ll go back to sleep.”

  Gracen giggled.

  Too loudly.

  A second meow, slightly louder and more desperate than the first, followed. Then, a third. As much as it killed her to get up, she did. Just to see the black and white kitten already looking her way with a happy, fluffy tail flicking every which way. All the while, Malachi raked his hands through his hair and playfully glowered at the kitten standing up at the edge of the bed.

  “I did not get you to cockblock me, cat,” he grumbled. “We’re going to have to figure this out, you and me, Mister Kitty.”

  “Stop it,” she scolded back, “he doesn’t even know what that means.”

  “Yes, he does, the furry bastard.”

  “Malachi!”

  “A cockblocking, furry bastard,” he added when she laughed harder.

  “A cute one, though,” she pouted.

  “Definitely cute.”

  “I like Mister Kitty.”

  “Obviously,” he teased.

&n
bsp; “The name,” she shot back over her shoulder.

  “Ah, well ... shit. I guess you’ve got a name, cat.” Malachi laughed breathlessly. “At least, he’s too small to climb onto the bed right now.” Just like that, he seemed to find new energy to stand from the cuddle couch. “Let me go find that bed thing—oh, and his food, too. A distraction is what we need.”

  The tightness in her belly came back with more heat at the sight of his muscular, naked back exiting the bedroom added to the way his jeans rested low on his hips. His confident, fast strides said his mind was on the same thing as hers.

  “Don’t forget the toys,” she called after him.

  Malachi pointed a finger high. “Yes, cat toys, too!”

  Chapter 36

  The farmhouse came alive filled with guests. Thirty or so people trickled in just before dinnertime with a few more who were supposed to arrive later in the evening. The heartbeats and conversation infused the empty spaces lacking furniture and decoration with a different sort of life. Of course, the halls and rooms were alive to Malachi because of the way Gracen’s whole face lit up walking through one of them. He could practically watch the memories flood her on the spot. That sort of joy radiated.

  With others, he could appreciate the surroundings. Gracen, on the other hand, made Malachi see how the house could be a home.

  “When did you get here?” Delaney asked, sliding in next to Malachi at the kitchen island.

  “Yesterday.”

  Delaney looked up at him from the side with a knowing smile. “You’re all she talks about most of the day—happy or not, you know, you’re in her head—I hope you know that.”

  Malachi smirked. “I do now.”

  She only shrugged, but her gaze went back to the people moving between the kitchen and dining room.

  He thought it was fair to add, “And for what it’s worth, happy is what I want her to be all the time.”

  Delaney chewed on her inner lip, but didn’t act as if she’d heard his admission. In her arms, she carried the sweet kitten Gracen had fretted over all day because the cat showed far too much interest in the front and back doors every time they swung open.

  What if he gets out? He’s so small, someone might not see him at the door! He’s not been here long enough to know how to get home, and all of the people might scare him ... On and on and on it went. Malachi could still hear Gracen’s agonizing from that morning, so he made an effort to keep the cat on the forefront of his mind.

  Her worries never ended, but they also weren’t for nothing. Being small meant shit for Mister Kitty because those scrawny, fluffy legs of his could really move when he wanted them to. Trying to catch a kitten that could literally climb the wooden walls with his sharp claws was a trip. Until he promised fifty damn times that if he, personally, had to hold the cat all night so Mister Kitty wouldn’t remain locked alone in a room, then so be it. The damn cat would not be getting out of the house.

  Delaney helped once she arrived, too.

  Thankfully.

  The cat’s safety was made easier by the fact he won over the crowd with practically no effort at all. Too cute to be real, almost. Not one person who saw him that evening could stop themselves from cooing and petting him. Mister Kitty wasn’t going anywhere.

  Delaney leaned back into the counter, a pleased Mister Kitty watching the movement from his current safe place. His paws framed his furry face around his current captor’s forearm. “So, you’re gonna be sticking around for a while, then?”

  Her straightforward question made him take a second glance at her even if he did quickly return back to his unbothered posture. Natural oak cupboards framed the walls while white floors and countertops around them gleamed. The kitchen and bathroom were the only rooms with tiled floors instead of hardwood, but it fit. The tiles also made the fast, nervous tap of Delaney’s ballet flat against the floor easier to hear.

  “For as long as she wants me,” he returned.

  She had the nerve to roll her eyes and scoff low.

  Malachi didn’t take it personally.

  Much.

  “What?” he asked, the chuckled question making Delaney glance up sharply. “Just say whatever you want to tell me and get it over with. You were here first. I better not change things. Those come to mind. Anything else?”

  She tried to hide the smirk.

  It didn’t work.

  “I guess I don’t have to, huh?” Delaney asked. Despite her friendly expression, he saw a vulnerability there, too.

  Malachi rolled his shoulders and shook his head. “If you think I came into this thing with Gracen blind, guess again.”

  Her bond with Delaney couldn’t be matched or destroyed by some outside force. The two had been riding side by side for a long time, and it wasn’t about dependence. Their friendship was built on a lot more. He wasn’t here to get in between any of that.

  Delaney turned and handed over the cat without an explanation. “All in all,” she said to him, “I think I’m gonna like you.”

  Malachi grinned. “Oh?”

  She nodded. “Eventually.”

  That earned her a good laugh, too.

  Gracen found Malachi still in the kitchen, sneaking bites of finger foods set out on a packable table Delaney had brought from storage at the salon. She snuck in beside him in the corner, bending down to whisper sweet nothings to Mister Kitty who meowed back at every other word.

  Standing straight, she bumped his hip with hers. “You’re awfully quiet in here.”

  “I don’t really know anybody.”

  Only a handful of faces were familiar, and that wasn’t very much.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he told Gracen who watched him with unhidden sympathy. “I’m looking after Mister Kitty.”

  The news had her smiling wide. “Good.”

  “Kiss me?”

  She did, soft and sweet.

  The plushness of her mouth stayed steady against his, like her smile, until a whoop from someone in the next room broke the two apart.

  “You sure you don’t want to just wander about with me?” she asked, her cheeks a little pink. “I promise not to let anyone ask too many questions.”

  That wasn’t even the problem. Eventually, he’d get more comfortable around strangers who were already her friends. That just took a little extra time for Malachi.

  Malachi winked. “I’m fine, really.”

  He enjoyed watching more. To see her mingle with people she called family and friends in a space that was proudly her own—by her making and doing, no one else’s—was a moment she deserved. It made him appreciate the love for her constantly swelling in his chest even more.

  “Is there anything you’d like me to do?” he asked.

  Gracen’s eyes brightened. “Well, there is one thing.”

  “Ask me anything.”

  He’d do it for her.

  She clasped her fingers together under her chin, saying, “Mimi really wanted a moment upstairs.”

  Ah.

  That was an easy answer, too.

  “Right now?”

  Gracen nodded.

  Malachi held the now-squirming kitten out for her to take. “Let’s do it.”

  *

  He helped by carrying Mimi up the stairs while the guests down below found a genre of music they could all agree on. A popular country-pop crossover that was way overplayed on the radio, but it was catchy and upbeat.

  Gracen brought Mimi’s wheelchair up behind them, and then pushed her grandmother down the hall. The second she was inside the bedroom and the bed, made up with sheets, duvet, and the many sham pillows Gracen usually just threw on the floor at night, came into view, the change in the air became palpable. Much like the moments when the woman had first arrived—a late day away from the care home facilitated by Gracen and the staff, but aided by a support worker who would travel Mimi back and forth.

  First, the sight of the house took her by surprise. Then, every room on the inside had the woman tracing w
oodgrains and beveled edges that took her back to another time.

  Malachi almost turned around to leave the bedroom, but a quick flash of a smile from Gracen kept him standing in the doorway with his hands tossed into his pockets.

  “It’s been a long time, right?” Gracen asked her grandmother who had turned noticeably silent as they neared the bed. Once close enough, Mimi reached out to clasp the footboard, and then she ran her palm along the smooth wood’s edge. “Do you want to sit on it for—”

  “N-no, n-no,” Mimi stuttered, but the conviction was clear. The old woman peered back at Malachi with a smile pulling at the edge of her wrinkled mouth, but Gracen didn’t notice. She turned back to her granddaughter, saying, “It’s your bed, n-now.”

  Malachi did have to look away at that statement. He didn’t want either of the women to notice the way his gaze tried to shift to the mattress, remembering the night before and how he could still hear Gracen’s breathy moans as she worked on him so hard for that third, and then the forth, orgasm. If he tried, he could taste her sex on his tongue, all tart and hot. Every one of her kisses on his sweat-slicked skin might as well be tattooed there forever.

  It wasn’t just about the sex, or the way the chilly air in the house—he needed to get her firewood for the furnace downstairs, and soon—had kept the two close under heavy blankets until the sun crawled high in the sky come morning. Even as a mewing kitten who clawed at the dust ruffle seemed determined to pull them out of bed before it was time.

  It was the way their fingers talked in soft touches and fleeting grazes. It was how being in bed with her chased away demons in his mind that otherwise, never left him alone. The bed wasn’t just a bed, even with its history, because all he thought about when he looked at it was Gracen lying beside him. The place she was unequivocally meant to be.

  Perhaps a bed was just a bed to some people, but it could be a sacred place to others as well.

  Mimi gave the bed another pass with her hand and let out a wistful sigh. “It took him a whole year to get the stain-n just right.”

  “Didn’t you and Popop get married a year after you met?” Gracen asked.