by Nicole Deese
So we’re doing this now? Fine. I grabbed my mother’s red-and-white-checked apron and threw it over my neck, covering the jade-blue sweater dress I wore over black leggings. I’d shopped for the outfit last week—for a certain holiday dinner that a certain young doctor was supposed to attend.
“Funny how that reasoning never stopped you before.”
He dumped a fistful of silverware into the murky sink water, splashing my face. “Maybe I’m learning to butt out where I should.”
That was impossible to imagine . . . but then again, I had never imagined myself hiking a mountain before last month, so? I opened the dishwasher and slid my mother’s cookware between the prongs.
“Is there really an opening at Lenox Elementary?”
I straightened, my face twisting into a mock smile. “Is this an example of how you butt out?”
“Key words, Willa: learning to.” He cocked his head to the side and air-quoted the words. “But since you mentioned it, is this job offer another example of how you hide things from the people who love you?”
My hands shot to my hips. “No.” Maybe. Probably. Yes.
He slapped the leftover green bean casserole into a Tupperware container and squished it down with a wooden spoon.
“That’s not the right lid for that,” I said, watching green ooze squish out the sides.
“Yet it still works, see?” He held the Tupperware up like a trophy. “Perfection is overrated.”
“So are brothers.”
He laughed and then sighed the sigh synonymous with surrender. “I should’ve asked you first—at the cabin. I shouldn’t have taken Savannah up the mountain without your permission. I’m sorry.”
“And I’m sorry for freaking out on you the way I did. You were right, Wes. About so much.”
He stared at me without blinking. “I can see it, you know?”
“What?”
“How hard you’ve been working. I was wrong to say you haven’t changed. You’re not the same woman you were three months ago. And not even close to the same woman you were a year ago.”
“I’m trying, Wes. I promise I’m trying. And not just for Savannah, but for me, too.”
He opened the fridge and tossed in the misshapen Tupperware while I turned back to the murky sink water and grabbed a handful of silverware.
A hard tug on my hair.
“Ouch.” I rubbed the sting out of my scalp with my dry hand and splashed him with my fistful of spoons.
“If you were Georgia I’d actually be scared right now. She has a talent for spoon throwing.” Weston’s crooked grin favored his right dimple.
“I’ve seen it in action, remember?”
He dragged a finger through a mound of Nan’s homemade whipped cream and popped it in his mouth, then leaned back against the counter. I opened the top rack of the dishwasher and reached for a soapy drinking glass.
“He cares about you, Willa.”
The spasm in my lower stomach caused my grip to weaken. The drinking glass plunged back into the soapy water.
“He said that?”
Weston dipped his head and shot me a look that said, “I’m a guy, I don’t speak relationship.” “Maybe you ought to take him some pie—you know, since it’s Thanksgiving and he’s been serving the needy all day.”
“Another prime butting-out moment, I see?”
He pulled an invisible zipper over his mouth and then quickly unzipped it. “How ’bout I finish these up and then challenge Alex, Georgia, and Savannah to a domino war so you can take off and do some goodwilling of your own.”
“Goodwilling? Really?” I asked with an eye roll.
I untied my apron and grabbed the pie Savannah and I had made the night before. “Thanks for watching Savannah for me.”
As I wrapped the pie tin with plastic wrap, Weston laughed. “Uh, you might want to fix your hair before you take off. There may or may not be a piece of stuffing in the back.”
With a violent shake of my head, a lump of mashed breading fell to the ground.
Brothers. They really were overrated.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
There wasn’t a soul in Lenox who hadn’t driven by the McCade estate and wished for an invite to teatime. Their property was located five miles past the fire station on the west end of town. The lush acres of farmland blanketed with snow were nearly as breathtaking as their view of the Cascade mountain range, but it was the house itself that was so coveted. Like a castle transplanted straight from the highlands of Scotland, the custom build looked stunningly authentic.
I parked in the driveway and my stomach somersaulted.
Only a man like Patrick would miss Thanksgiving to serve the needs of the community. The same kind of man who’d hiked a trail with me day after day, week after week, sacrificing not only his time but his sanity as well.
And then there was last night. The way he’d touched my face, held my hands, hugged me like he didn’t want to let go.
I reached for the pie in the front seat and stepped out of the car, scanning the property.
Two stone turrets stood like bookends at the front corners of the house. The covered porch led to glass doors etched with a landscape I’d never seen in Oregon. My legs shook as the wind sliced through me. My thin black leggings were hardly winterworthy, but at least my long sweater and ankle boots made up for their thin fabric.
I knocked on the glass and clicked my heels up and down to keep warm. After a full minute of waiting, I tried the bell. In a house this size it must be difficult to hear a knock, right? If he was upstairs in the library or downstairs in the wine cellar or even in a back bedroom somewhere taking a shower . . .
I shook my head, erasing the last thought entirely.
Headlights cut across the driveway.
It didn’t matter that I was temporarily blinded by the slash of light, there was no doubt that the figure emerging from the car was the man I was most thankful for on this holiday.
“Willa?” Patrick trotted up the porch steps, his gaze dragging from my heels to my head. “Is everything okay—?”
“Happy Thanksgiving.” Was it possible to sound more eager?
There was a stunned grace to his features as he took me in. “Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.” His studied the plate of buttery goodness in my arms.
“You brought me a . . . pie?”
I nodded. “Everyone needs pie on Thanksgiving.”
He stared without blinking and then moved to unlock the door. “Would you like to come inside?”
Yes! “You don’t have plans tonight?” Again with the eager.
He held the door open, allowing me access to step past him.
“No.” Before I could analyze the slight pause in his response, he took the pie from my hands. “Let me set this on the counter and go change. Unless you want to smell gravy all night.” He pulled out his shirt to reveal a few soiled spots in the fabric, but all I could focus on was the phrase all night. Really, someone needed to spray me down with cold water. What is happening to me?
“Give me just a few minutes,” he continued. “Feel free to look around at my parents’, uh . . . museum.”
“Okay.” Although okay was a far cry from the roller coaster of giddiness going on inside me.
I turned my back to the staircase he climbed, feeling about a breath away from hyperventilating.
The house was a thousand times more impressive inside than I’d imagined. Just from the foyer I could see that each room was decorated with expansive canvases, colorful tartans, dueling swords, and Celtic art.
I clamped my lips together to keep from gaping. Every room was elegantly designed, but the hallway between the kitchen and dining room was my favorite—an entire wall was dedicated to Patrick’s sunsets.
My chest tightened and my heart swelled to two times larger than normal.
Footsteps sounded behind me. “Ah, so this was your plan, then? You wanted to see me with braces and tragically bad hair.” He stood at my side in jeans and a snug black the
rmal shirt. “I think my mum had a thing for the Scottish highlander look. Sadly, all of us rebelled against the shoulder-length locks before our tenth birthday. Dad took each of us to the barber while my mum cried at home.”
I laughed and studied the picture to my right—Patrick and his three older brothers.
“Well, I like the length of your hair now.” Geesh, why not just tell him he’s a beautiful human being, too? “Um . . .” I cleared my throat. “Tell me about your brothers?”
Patrick humored me as we moved down the wall at a snail’s pace. He pointed to each one of his brothers’ photos and gave me an abbreviated account of their lives: marriages, children, what kind of medicine they practiced.
“Do you miss them?”
His answer wasn’t immediate, but it was careful. “I’ve trained myself not to dwell on what I’ve left behind. Instead, I do my best to focus on the opportunity and task right in front of me.”
Despite the twist of pain his words caused me, I pressed on. “When’s the last time you saw them before covering for your dad?”
“I visit when I can between assignments—schedule my layovers on the West Coast since that’s where everybody lives. My parents usually drive or fly up, too. Although I suspect my parents will start traveling more and more once my dad retires in a few years.”
“I sort of hope he never retires,” I confessed. “He’s one of my favorite people here.”
“You’ve mentioned that a time or two.” His voice was teasing, but I knew he agreed with me. Ivar McCade didn’t have an enemy in this world, and I was willing to bet Patrick didn’t either.
“It’s just . . . he has this way of making someone feel important—valued. I think that’s part of what makes him such a great doctor. He’s willing to invest in people’s lives, not just in a ten-minute office visit. I’ve met a lot of doctors over the last two years and the contrast is stark. Your dad has a special gift.” A gift I could so easily see in Patrick, too.
He propped himself against the wall with his shoulder. “I’m sure Lenox will always be their home base; they love it here.”
What must Patrick’s family think of his drifter lifestyle?
He pushed off the wall before I could ask him anything more, and showed me a picture of his grandparents’ home in Scotland before meandering into the kitchen.
A massive slab of black-speckled, emerald-gray granite took up the majority of the space. My pie sat in the center.
Save for a messy collection of mail at the edge of an L-shaped counter, the room was immaculately clean. It opened into a quaint living area that looked surprisingly intimate given the size of the house.
“This kitchen is . . .” I ran my hand over the cold stone, searching for the right adjective.
“A great place to store three months’ worth of mail?” He pointed to the pile at the side of the fridge.
“Spoken like a true bachelor.”
This earned me a cheeky grin.
“Gorgeous,” I finally said.
Patrick’s gaze drifted down the length of me before he averted his eyes to the pie. “Did you make this last night?”
“Yes.”
My answer put a crease in the center of his brow, though I hadn’t the foggiest idea why.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
He blinked and did a quick scan of the cupboards and drawers. “I have no clue where to find a pie server in this kitchen.”
He gestured for me to sit on the stool at the corner of the island, placing his stool adjacent. Our kneecaps brushed as we sat and something inside me trembled.
I pushed the tin toward him. “The pie’s all yours, so I say you should eat it straight out of the pan.”
A glint of mischief sparked in his gaze. “Spoken like a true rebel . . . which you certainly are not.”
“Hey—you didn’t know me in high school. I had more than a few rebellious moments, believe me.”
That glint again. “Willa the Rebel. I’m picturing her now.”
“You can stop.”
He laughed and a sensation like feathers swept down my spine.
Patrick flicked the end of a fork so it spun like a compass. When the piece of fine silverware finally slowed to a stop, the prongs pointed at my chest.
“That’s a pretty fancy party trick.”
He pointed to the fork. “If I’m throwing manners out the window tonight, then so are you. Dig in.”
“Deal.”
His fork sank into the pie. “Did you know apple pie is my favorite?”
I nodded. “You said so at Nan’s house, that night when . . .” I yelled at you for agreeing to a “setup” that never happened.
It was hard to believe how many moments we’d shared since that night two months ago—the bravery tests, the dinners, the hikes up Cougar Mountain.
His brilliant blue eyes met mine. “I remember that night well.”
“I really wish you didn’t.”
The lightness of his chuckle had me leaning toward him, my elbows braced on the smudge-free island.
“I believe your exact words to me were, ‘Forget this night ever happened, forget me,’” he said.
A silent exchange passed between us. His gaze dipped to my lips and for a moment I was certain he would kiss me, would slide the apple pie down the counter and take my face in his hands the way he had last night.
Foolishly or not, stupidly or not, I wouldn’t have stopped him if he had.
“But I don’t think that’s possible.”
I blinked him back into focus. “What?”
“Forgetting you.”
His face sobered as he shoved a forkful of pie into his mouth. Then his eyes grew wide. “Mm. Amazing.” The mumbled word warmed me as he pointed to the pan and shook his head. “Best I’ve ever had.”
I smiled at his enthusiasm and took a small bite of my own. He was right, this might just be the best pie I’d ever baked. And why wouldn’t it be? Patrick hadn’t only inspired me to deal with my fears, he’d inspired me to enjoy my life. My baking hobby didn’t quite compare with his extracurricular activities, but I was grateful I could share it with him.
With him. With this man with a wanderlust spirit, a do-gooder’s heart, and a nomad’s soul.
A new boldness—an aftereffect of last night’s victory—stirred inside me, pushing against my chest. “Do you ever wish you had a place to land between your adventures abroad?”
He took another bite of pie and then set down his fork, his face apologetic. “I don’t play wishing games, Willa.”
Of course he didn’t. Wishing games fell into the same forbidden category as the what-if game he’d refused to play. But sometimes rules needed to be ignored. He’d been the one to teach me that.
“It’s a holiday, and you skipped out on a riveting round of ‘What are you most thankful for this year?’ So technically, this is your makeup game.” He didn’t return my smile, but even so, my question needed an answer. I needed an answer. I needed to understand once and for all whether there was any possibility of an us.
“Can you . . .” I tried again. “Can you imagine it? Having a home base?”
The terrain I treaded now felt far more hazardous than the cliffside on Cougar Mountain. But whether it was the mountain’s edge or a pile of burning coals, I’d walk whatever path I had to. I needed to hear it—from his mouth, in his own words.
Our knees bumped again, Patrick’s unspoken boundaries fading as fast as my filter.
“I leave for the Pacific Islands next month.”
A reminder I didn’t need.
As the queen of deflection, I knew when someone was steering a conversation away from topics they weren’t ready to discuss. From answers they weren’t ready to divulge.
“That isn’t an answer.”
He gave a weighty sigh, then said, “No. I can’t imagine it.”
Apparently, we didn’t only share the art of diversion, we also shared the same tells: no eye contact, a wavering tone, and an
immediate swallow after the last spoken word.
The look on his face grounded me, but the slight heave of his chest and the tick of his jaw sent my pulse soaring. He’d told me once that risk was everywhere and in every decision we made.
The key was to make that risk count.
Suddenly I had every intention to do just that.
I licked my bottom lip and slid off the stool. Intoxicated by the way he drank me in, I moved toward him. With shaky hands and shaky breath, I touched my fingers against the hard planes of his solid chest. Under the pressure of my touch, his toned muscle tensed, but he didn’t stop me. Not when I traced the contours of his shoulders. Not when I mapped the curved bones of his collar. Not when I followed the arc of his neck and skimmed my fingertips along the stubble of his jaw.
But as I brushed my thumb across the scar at his temple, a pleasurable pain shadowed his gaze.
“Willa.” My name was a quiet warning on his lips.
But I was done listening to warnings.
I memorized every inch of his face and the soft curls at the nape of his neck.
His tentative touch at my waist expelled a soft whimper through my lips.
And then Patrick’s entire focus shifted to my mouth.
In half a heartbeat, he was up on his feet, the stool clattering to the floor.
Chapter Thirty
Patrick’s hands dragged up the sides of my body until his fingers tangled in my hair. His hungry lips, charged with frustrated heat, found mine as the cold granite seeped through the thin fabric at the curve of my back.
Urging, desperate, and deliciously thorough, he kissed me deeper, the taste of cinnamon and clove dancing between us.
Eyes glazed and heady, he cradled my face and spoke against my mouth. “Willa.”
My name sounded broken and breathy and a thousand times more beautiful than any poem I’d ever heard—a melody that awakened something far more powerful than need or desire, or even the two combined.
As our kiss continued, he wrapped my waist tightly in his arms and steered our steps into the living room. When we bumped against the sofa, the frenzied exploration of moments ago slowed into a steady simmer. I sunk into the pillows as he settled beside me, one arm braced above me.