Surrender to Me (Boggy Creek Valley Book 4)

by Kelly Elliott

  She shrugged. “I saw a lot of trauma in the few years I was in medical school. And I have a habit of noticing things about people. I put two and two together.”

  All I could do was nod.

  “I won’t pretend to know what that’s like, Arabella. But I do see the way the two of you look at each other. And I can only imagine that when he touches you, that night in his truck isn’t the memory popping into your mind.”

  I pressed my lips together tightly.

  Candace smiled, and Lord, there was something about that smile of hers. It radiated love and peace. She squeezed my hand gently. “So, what you need to do is draw that memory up, and not the bad ones. You’ve given them enough space in your head, don’t you think? It’s time the good memories moved to the surface and the old get buried where they belong.”

  I walked around the island and Candace slid off the stool. We hugged for what felt like an eternity.

  When we stepped apart, she winked. “I can be deep when I want to.”

  Laughing, I shook my head. “You are like the female version of Kyle, I swear.”

  Her head dropped back as she let out a roar of laughter. “Oh shit. I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

  “Trust me, it’s a compliment.”

  The bell to the front door of the shop rang, and I felt the flutter of butterflies in my stomach.

  “Go and enjoy yourself. I’m going to experiment with some pies and cobblers.”

  “You’re sure this is how you want to spend your day off from the bookstore?”

  She waved me off with her hand. “Please, there’s nothing more I’d rather do than bake and fiddle around in the kitchen. Well, sex…I’d rather be having sex, but that’s not going to happen when Eric is on shift for the next two days. It’ll be the old vibrator for me tonight.”

  I snarled my lip as I mumbled, “Too much sharing, Candace.”

  “Pffft. That’s tame for me.”

  A knock sounded, and I turned to see Hunter step inside the small kitchen area of the store. “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “No! No, not at all,” I said, grabbing my purse and jacket. Glancing back over my shoulder at Candace, I said, “Have fun playing in the kitchen.”

  She shot me a wicked smile. “Have fun playing with—”

  “Okay, bye, Candace!” I shouted, pushing Hunter out of the kitchen.

  “In a hurry?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “Candace started talking about her vibrator, so yes, I’m in a hurry.”

  Hunter scrunched up his face in the most adorable way as I grabbed his hand and nearly dragged him out of the store. “Do I want to know what you two were talking about?” he asked while he held the door for me, then helped me up into his truck.

  “No, you don’t.”

  He reached in and kissed me softly on the lips. “I missed you.”

  I reached up and ran my fingertip over his soft lips. “I missed you, too, even though I just saw you a few hours ago.”

  Jack barked and poked his head up into the front seat, gave me a quick lick across the side of my face, then barked again.

  Hunter rolled his eyes and shut the door while I gave Jack some attention. “Hello, my handsome boy. I missed you too.”

  The driver’s side door opened, and Hunter slid into his seat. “Jack, in the back.”

  The dog whimpered and then promptly took his position in the backseat. Hunter had a hammock-type thing back there for Jack, so he’d be more comfortable. I swore when he laid down, he sighed.

  “What do you have planned for today?” I asked, buckling my seat belt.

  “I thought we could go for a short drive. There’s something I want to show you.”

  That flutter hit my stomach once again, and I had to force myself to draw my gaze away from Hunter. “Then I can’t wait to see it.”

  Hunter drove down Althorpe Street and turned right on Main. I watched as we drove past Annie James, the Gristmill building, and Turning Pages. He turned on Chestnut Street and drove along the river for a bit before turning down a dirt road.

  “I’m intrigued. Where are we going?”

  Hunter looked at me and winked. “You’ll see.”

  I couldn’t help the little bubble of excitement that was quickly building inside of me. I loved surprises, and I loved that Hunter remembered that.

  Glancing around as we crossed over the river, I said, “I thought this was the road to the Wickerman farm.”

  “It is…or it was.”

  “What do you mean, was?”

  Hunter gave me a quick look before he focused on the road. It looked as if someone had just plowed it, since we’d gotten snow recently.

  “Jeff Wickerman lived here. Do you remember him? We all went to high school together.”

  “Yeah, I remember him. Didn’t he move to LA and became a big-time movie producer?”

  “He did. His folks decided they were over the winters in New Hampshire, and Jeff gave me a call a few years ago. I had mentioned to him back in high school how much I loved his folks’ property. He remembered…and asked if I wanted to buy it.”

  I was positive my mouth fell open. “Their place was huge! They had cattle on it, didn’t they?”

  “At one point they did. When Jeff’s folks got older and decided to retire, they sold off all the cattle.”

  “Did you buy it?”

  Hunter nodded. “I did. I thought it would be a good investment. The house is in great shape. Older, but the Wickermans really kept up with it. And I’ve made a few changes to it.”

  “Why don’t you live there?” I asked, looking at the gate we drove up to.

  Hunter shrugged. “I don’t know. The house is a lot bigger than the one I’m living in, and I just sorta thought I would move in when I was ready to…”

  His voice trailed off, but I knew what he’d been about to say. Get married and start a family.

  “When did you buy it?”

  “Not that long ago. A couple years back.”

  Hunter put his truck in park and Jack jumped up and poked his head in the front to see where we were. He barked as Hunter got out of the truck and opened the gate.

  “He bought a farm, Jack.”

  Jack barked again.

  “Yes, I know you knew about it already but…”

  Hunter climbed back into the truck and gave me a wickedly handsome smile. “Ready?”

  I nodded, the excitement coming back.

  “I don’t think I’ve been here since they hosted that Halloween party when we were in like ninth grade!”

  Hunter chuckled. “I thought you were friends with his sister.”

  “Kathy? No, when Kathy told everyone in high school that you had sex with her under the football bleachers, we stopped being friends.”

  “What in the hell? I never slept with her! You and I were together nearly all of high school.”

  Turning to look at him, I said, “Hence why I stopped being friends with Kathy.”

  “Bella, I never even looked at her.”

  I reached for his hand and laughed. “Hunter, I never thought you did. She was just a drama queen who wanted to spread rumors. Besides, Greer punched her in the nose when we heard her telling a group of girls about the supposed incident.”

  Hunter snapped his head around to look at me. “That’s how she broke her nose? Greer hit her?”

  “Yep!” I said, popping the P loudly. I’d been horrified at the time, but also slightly giddy that Greer had knocked the crap out of Kathy.

  “Does Kyle know his sister hit Kathy? You know Kyle liked her.”

  I screwed up my face. “Gross. Why would he like her? She was so mean.”

  Hunter laughed. “Let me rephrase that: Kyle liked fucking her. They were fuck buddies nearly all of our junior year.”

  “Ugh, I didn’t need to know that. Maybe that was also why Greer hit her.”

  Hunter steered down the long drive, and I admired the snow-covered pastures. Nothing had distu
rbed the snow, so it looked like a giant white lake on either side of the drive. The way the sun hit caused it to sparkle like diamonds. The property was on the northwest side of the Boggy Creek Valley, and butted up against South Twin Mountain. Or at least it used to, unless the family had sold off some of the property over the years.

  “Does the property still stretch over to South Twin?” I asked as I looked at it in the distance. Most of the mountain was covered in snow. With the blue sky as a backdrop, it was almost too bright to look at. The color of the sky reminded me of Hunter’s eyes.

  “Yeah, they sold all of it to me.”

  I looked at him. “How much land?”

  He gave a half-hearted shrug. “Almost a hundred acres, give or take a few.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know it was that big.” With a chuckle, I asked, “Hunter, what are you going to do with all that land?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe put some cattle on it. Maybe grow shit on it. There’s plenty of land for an, um…an apiary. That’s one of the reasons I always liked this place.”

  My stomach flipped, and my heart melted. “An apiary?”

  He looked at me with a shy smile. “I mean, if you like the place. If you don’t, we can find another one.”

  I looked forward and stared out the window as his words repeated in my head. Hunter had bought this land with me in mind? Tears threatened to fall, but I blinked them back. No more crying. I was so sick of crying.

  Jack barked, and I jumped. The sound pulled me from my thoughts, and I focused on what was ahead of us. The house.

  “Oh my goodness,” I whispered, watching the classic colonial saltbox home come into full view. “I forgot how beautiful this house was.”

  “And it’s in great shape for being built in 1886.”

  I shook my head in disbelief as I stared at the two-story white house with blue trim.

  “Didn’t the house used to be black?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but I thought it was too drab looking, so I had it painted white and blue.”

  I peeked over at him and smiled. Had he remembered my favorite color was blue, or was it just a coincidence?

  “They added on to the house in the back around 1952. That’s where the kitchen and laundry room is, along with a half bath,” Hunter said while he parked his truck. Jack whined, clearly wanting to get out.

  “I take it Jack likes this place?”

  Hunter laughed. “Yeah, he loves coming here to run around. Grab your coat; I don’t have the heat turned up very high in the house.”

  I jumped out of the truck and quickly slipped my coat on. Jack ran all around the front yard, then took off toward the back of the house. He was on a mission.

  I looked around but saw no other cars. “No one lives here?” There were fresh car tracks in the snow that went around back. They went out a different way from where we had come in. That was strange. I was about to ask Hunter who had been here, but he started to talk.

  “Nah. I had a security system put in a few months back, since some local kids were messing around up here. Jack and I nipped that shit in the bud real quick.”

  “What did you do?”

  Hunter laughed. “Sat around back and waited for the little bastards to show up. Then I let Jack give them a little greeting with his bare teeth. Told them the next time they set foot on my property, I’d let the dog eat them.”

  I brought my hand to my mouth as I tried not to laugh. “You did not. Hunter Turner, that was mean.”

  He grinned, then winked. “I sure as shit did. Haven’t had a problem since.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said with a giggle.

  He shrugged. “It worked.”

  Hunter reached for my hand and walked us up to the front door as Jack came running back around the side of the building. “The house is a little over three-thousand square feet.”

  I nodded and watched him unlock the door. We walked inside and into a small foyer. Directly in front of us were two staircases.

  “One goes up to the second floor, the other down to the basement. Which has a pretty impressive man cave. I foresee Kyle being over here a lot.”

  I chuckled.

  “Let’s start in the living room. I looked at the original blueprints of the house and this used to be called the keeping room.”

  Smiling, my heart beat faster. I loved old houses so much.

  “It leads into the formal dining room. Then here—” we walked toward what had to be the back of the original house, “—was were the original kitchen was.”

  I gasped. “Look at that fireplace.”

  Hunter gave me a wide grin. “I know. It’s the original fireplace. One of my favorite things about the house.”

  We both turned and looked at the newer addition. The kitchen was stunning.

  “My goodness, they remodeled the kitchen?”

  “No, Kyle, Bishop, and I did. Adam helped a little when he wasn’t saving lives.”

  I gaped. “You guys did all of this?”

  He nodded and leaned against the large kitchen island.

  “Hunter, this is beautiful.”

  “Thanks. This is the breakfast area. The, um, the window seat was my idea.”

  I snapped my head over to look at him. “I love window seats.”

  “I know. That’s why I put it in.”

  Warmth radiated in my chest, and my stomach fluttered again. “You did?” I whispered softly.

  “Yeah. I guess somewhere deep down inside, I never truly gave up on us, Bella.”

  I walked over to him. “Oh, Hunter.”

  He smiled down at me and brushed a piece of hair that had come out of my ponytail behind my ear. “Come on, we’ve got more to see—plus, your surprise.”

  Laughing in disbelief, I replied, “The house isn’t the surprise?”

  “Nope.”

  He kissed me softly on the lips, took my hand, and walked us through the kitchen. “Here’s the laundry room. You have to walk through it to get to the half bath. That’s the only thing I don’t like about this house. But the pantry makes up for it. Look at this.”

  We walked back out of the laundry room and turned to the right. Another set of stairs went to the second floor, and on the other side of the staircase was a huge walk-in pantry.

  “Holy cow, this pantry is huge!”

  Built-in shelves covered one side of the pantry, with a small butler’s pantry at the very back. On the other side were more built-in shelves and drawers as well.

  “This is like a dream pantry.”

  “It was a giant closet in the back with a small pantry in the front. I just tore out the wall and made it into a larger pantry.”

  I spun around in the room. It was almost as big as my little kitchen.

  “There was a library down here at the front of the house, but I made it into a bedroom. I also created the full-size bathroom that’s down here and connected it to the bedroom.”

  We walked back through the kitchen and second living room and into a large bedroom.

  “There was a weird empty space behind this, so we knocked that wall down and enlarged the bathroom.”

  It was the kind of bathroom you might find in a spa. Black-and-white tiles covered the floor. A large clawfoot tub sat to the left, and a long, beautiful cabinet that looked like an antique piece of furniture ran along the wall to my right. There were two sinks built into it with the toilet sitting at the end. And against the back wall was the largest walk-in shower I’d ever seen.

  Making my way over to it, I marveled at the size. “This thing is huge!”

  When I glanced back at him, his cheeks were red.

  “What?” I asked.

  Hunter rubbed at the back of his neck. “Nothing. I just wanted a big shower.”

  “The tile is beautiful. I love the spin on the classic subway tile. This looks a bit more rustic.”

  “Yeah, I liked it too. I wanted something to keep the historical feel of the house, but with a bit of a twist. That’s why I went with bla
ck grout. It ties it in with the floor.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Come on, I’ll show you the upstairs.”

  We headed upstairs and found three more bedrooms and one full-size bathroom. In the newer addition to the back of the house was a large sitting room. A closet sat at the very back, as well as stairs that led down to the kitchen area.

  “The house is beautiful, Hunter.”

  A look of relief washed over his face. “You like it, then?”

  I nodded. “I do, I love it!” He looked out one of the windows and frowned. I placed my hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Tell me what’s going through your mind right now.”

  He let out a soft exhale. “I don’t want to push you or presume anything…but I guess my dream has always been for you to live here. With me. Someday.”

  I felt a grin explode on my face. “You really thought about me when you were making changes to the house?”

  He nodded and let out a small laugh. “I did. I kept telling myself I was crazy but…I just never gave up hope.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, lifted up onto my toes, and pressed my mouth to his. Hunter drew me against him and deepened the kiss.

  I heard barking from outside and realized we had left Jack out there.

  “Jack,” I said, stepping back from Hunter.

  “He wants to show you the surprise.”

  “Because a house isn’t a big enough surprise?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Hunter and I walked down the steps and out the front door to find Jack sitting patiently with a giant stick in front of him.

  “That’s one big stick, buddy,” I said as I picked it up and threw it. Jack looked at it, then back to Hunter. I frowned. “Is he really waiting for you to give him a command to fetch a stick?”

  Hunter laughed. “No, he knows where we’re going. Come on, Jack, let’s show her.”

  Before we started to walk around to the back of the house, Hunter stopped. “Do you need gloves? We’re eating outside, and I took measures to give us some warmth, but you might still get cold.”

  Reaching into my coat pocket, I pulled out my gloves. “Got them right here.”

  He smiled and kissed the tip of my nose. My dang stomach flipped over again, but this time a delicious pressure also built between my legs.