by Marie Force
The vase had never been the same, and neither had he after his brother died. He’d coped, of course. He’d had no choice but to carry on. He had parents who needed him, a business that had been new to him at the time of Caleb’s death, and with everything he had sunk into it, letting it founder wasn’t an option. In many ways, the business had saved him by giving him something to focus on.
Last night Ella had shown him in only a few hours that there was a huge difference between existing and living. He felt more alive and aware and alert with her in his arms than he had in years. The constant, relentless pain that held him in its tight grip had lessened at some point, and he had her to thank for that.
She was taking a huge gamble with him. He hadn’t been joking when he called himself a fixer-upper. Disaster area might be a better term. But he was determined to be worthy of her, even if his better judgment was still telling him he ought to leave her alone.
After what happened last night, however, leaving her alone was the last thing he wanted. Though he’d gotten up and changed into clean underwear and flannel pajama pants, his hand had once again ventured inside the open front of the shirt of his that she wore. Her skin was so soft and her hair smelled so good. Like fresh air and sunshine and happiness. Ella was the most joyful person he knew—always smiling and happy and laughing.
It would kill him if any of that changed because of him. I can’t let that happen. She’d already nearly killed him once when she asked him to promise that he wouldn’t hurt her. It would ruin him if he ever hurt her, so he made a silent vow to be careful with her, to treat her like the most fragile, important, priceless thing in his life. Because she was. The way she’d come riding to his rescue more than once and kept coming back even after he’d sent her away was evidence of her commitment to him.
She stirred, mumbled something he couldn’t hear and then opened her eyes.
He got to watch her initial surprise at seeing him and then felt her relax when she remembered why she was there with him.
“Morning.” He kissed her forehead and ran his fingers through her hair.
“Morning.”
“Did you sleep okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
So she wasn’t particularly chatty in the morning, or perhaps she was rethinking her decision to spend the night with him. He couldn’t say he blamed her, but he really hoped that wasn’t the case.
“I . . . um, I should get going.” Clutching both sides of the unbuttoned shirt, Ella turned over, dislodging the hand he had on her ribs. She got up from the bed and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
Suddenly, Gavin was panic stricken at the possibility that she had regrets about what had happened last night. He couldn’t let her leave without making sure she was okay. Moving quickly, he got up, found a T-shirt and went straight to the kitchen to put on coffee and mix pancake batter. By the time she emerged from the bedroom fully dressed, he had pancakes cooking on the griddle and coffee ready.
He poured her a cup and pushed it across the counter to her along with the cream and sweetener she preferred.
“You didn’t have to do all this.” She focused on the coffee rather than him as she spoke.
“Seemed the least I could do for you after you came to my rescue last night.” Gavin put the first two pancakes off the grill onto her plate along with two sausage links. He slid it across the counter to her along with a knife, a fork, a tub of butter and a jug of her brother Colton’s syrup.
He could almost see her internal debate. Stay and eat or get the hell out of there. Until she decided, he poured more batter on the griddle and bit his tongue so he wouldn’t try to talk her into staying if she really wanted to go.
When she finally took a seat at the bar and began to spread butter on her pancakes, Gavin breathed a sigh of relief. He took his own plate and coffee to join her. They ate in silence for a few minutes before he couldn’t take the quiet any longer.
“What’s wrong?”
She looked up at him, seeming surprised. “What? Nothing is wrong.”
“Something is different this morning. Are you sorry you stayed? Sorry we did what we did in bed? Sorry you ever took that call last night?”
“No, none of that,” she said, but her face flushed with a rosy color that only added to her natural beauty.
“Then what? You’re having morning-after regrets of some sort.”
“I’m not.”
Gavin knew something was afoot, but he couldn’t very well drag it out of her. He ate his breakfast and drank his coffee and tried to figure her out.
“It’s terrifying,” she said after a long period of awkward silence.
“What is?”
“This, you, all of it.”
“Terrifying?”
She nodded and seemed to force herself to look at him. “The little taste I had of what it might be like . . . If you change your mind—”
“I’m not going to change my mind.” Turning his body so he faced her, he reached for her and when she leaned into him, he wrapped his arms around her. “I have no idea what’s going to happen with us, Ella. Maybe after all these years of wondering, we’ll find out we’re better as friends than we are as lovers. Maybe we’ll give it our very best effort but it just won’t work out for one reason or another. Maybe it’ll be the best thing to ever happen to both of us, the forever kind of love people dream about. I don’t know how it’ll unfold. But I promise you this—you’ll get my very best effort. I’m in this with you. I have been for a while now, and I’m not going to change my mind, especially not after having the exquisite pleasure of sleeping with you in my arms. I can’t wait to do it again.”
“I slept better last night than I have since before Hannah’s wedding.”
“So did I.” Brushing her hair aside, he kissed her face, her neck, and nibbled on her ear. “You know what that means, don’t you?”
“What?” she asked, sounding sort of breathless, which made him smile.
“We ought to do it again tonight. Maybe tomorrow night, too.”
“You think so?”
“I do. I definitely do. We’ve got a lot of sleep to catch up on after months of sleepless nights.” He drew back so he could see her face and the lovely eyes that gazed at him with such adoration, even when he didn’t deserve it. “Don’t be terrified. Not of me. I couldn’t stand to make you feel that way.”
“I’ll try not to be. You’re filling me with giddy hope, something that’s been in short supply where you’re concerned.”
“You’re filling me with hope, too, which has been sadly lacking in my life for far too long.” Because he couldn’t resist the sweet temptation of her lips for another second, he kissed her, hoping he’d earned the right to with his reassurances.
She relaxed into his embrace, her arms encircling his neck as she fell into the kiss, her tongue stroking against his. God, she was so sweet and so sexy.
“You taste like maple syrup,” he said, his lips still touching hers.
“So do you, but that’s what we’re supposed to taste like. We’re from Vermont. It’s in our DNA.”
He smiled down at her. “What’re you doing today?”
“I need to hit the grocery store before dinner at my parents’ house at three.”
“Dinner is at three?”
“Every week. Why?”
“It’s just kind of odd that your dad asked me to stop by there today—around three—to look at some acreage he wants me to clear for him.”
“My dad called you and asked you to come on Sunday at three to look at trees?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t believe it! They’re out of control.”
“Catch me up. Who’s out of control?”
“My dad and my grandfather. They’ve been up to no good for a while now trying to get us all married off by interfering and butting into our lives.”
“How do you mean?”
“Take Will and Cam, for example. They hired her to build the web
site hoping she’d fall for one of my brothers, and we all know how that worked out. They actually messed with Hannah’s battery so Nolan would have to come to help her. Can you believe that? They sent poor Colton to a sex toy conference in New York so he’d be able to spend more time with Lucy. My grandpa bought the diner to keep Megan in town because Hunter was in love with her.”
Gavin rocked with laughter. “They sent Colton to a sex toy conference? Seriously?”
“Yes! Totally serious! They’re crazy!”
“Um, I hate to point out they’re also crazy successful.”
“And getting more brazen by the minute if they’re inviting you to come to the house on ‘business’ at a time when they know I’ll be there.”
“So you think they know about us then? That something has been brewing?”
“Oh, they know. No doubt about it. They don’t miss a thing. We had no idea how closely they pay attention until recently.”
“What if we beat them at their own game?”
“How do you mean?”
“Invite me to dinner at your folks’ house, Ella.”
She studied him for a long moment before a smile stretched across her face. “Gavin, would you like to come to dinner at the Abbott asylum?”
“I’d love to. I thought you’d never ask.”
CHAPTER 6
Gavin went with her to the grocery store, where they picked out things they both liked for breakfast, lunch and dinner. More than once Ella wanted to fan her face just from having his extreme hotness close by, debating the merits of ham sandwiches versus turkey and wheat bread versus white. She let him win on the ham when she’d rather have turkey, but she refused to back down on the bread.
“You’re thirty-four years old. There’s no way you should still be eating white bread.”
“Why not? I like it.”
“It’s bad for you. It’s all flour and sugar and nothing much of anything else. You may as well be eating your sandwiches with cookies on either side of them.”
“That actually sounds pretty good.”
“Gavin,” she said, laughing, “I’m serious!”
“Am I allowed to buy cookies? Because I do like my cookies.”
“Only if you get some fruit, too.”
“You’re kinda mean, like my mom was when I lived at home.”
Ella hip-checked him as they turned a corner, nearly sending him into the row of mac ’n’ cheese.
Naturally, he zeroed right in on that. “Oh, I love orange cheese food. Can we get some of that?”
“Keep walking, Guthrie.” Never had grocery shopping ever been this fun or romantic. Not once had she ever gotten giddy over bread or deli meat, but she had never bought enough for two either. This was happening. It was actually happening, and it was all Ella could do not to break out in song right there in the meat aisle, where Gavin was pondering the difference between two kinds of pork tenderloin.
“That one,” Ella said, pointing.
“Are you going to cook this for me? Because you basically saw the outer limits of my culinary prowess this morning.”
“I’ll cook it for you.” I’d do anything for you, she thought but didn’t say. Dangerous thoughts. All the giddy hopefulness was messing with her better judgment where he was concerned. A tiger’s stripes didn’t suddenly change overnight, despite what the tiger would have you believe.
“What’re we having with this tenderloin?” he asked, snapping her out of her grim thoughts.
“My grandmother used to make these baby potatoes that I love and her own applesauce.”
“Am I drooling?” He pointed to his chin. “That’s drool, right?”
“Attractive.” They went back to the produce area to pick out the fruits and vegetables they needed.
Gavin got some bananas that met with her approval. “You’re going to be a good mom someday, Ella.”
She nearly buckled under the weight of that statement, coming from him of all people, the only man she could imagine fathering her imaginary children. On top of everything else that’d happened, it was almost too much to take in one twenty-four-hour period.
“El? Hello?”
“Um, oh, sorry. Those.” She pointed to the apples she needed to make her grandmother’s recipe.
“Was it something I said? About kids, perhaps?”
Ella shrugged, reluctant to let him see her emotional reaction to the subject of children. On their first official day together, he didn’t need to know how she’d once dreamed of having a big family like her parents had. Now at thirty-one, she would be perfectly thrilled to have one baby.
“We need ice cream.” She took off for the far end of the store without waiting for him. If they were going to talk about kids, she needed the kind of fortification only Ben and Jerry could provide.
Gavin caught up to her, reached around her and plucked a pint of Cherry Garcia from the cooler, dropping it into the basket. Then he went back and grabbed a container of Cake Batter for himself.
“You’re like a twelve-year-old.”
“Thank you.”
“You would take that as a compliment,” she said laughing.
“I was a cute twelve-year-old.”
You’re a cute thirty-four-year-old, too, she thought.
He trailed behind her as they headed for the checkout and nudged her aside when it came time to pay, sliding his card through the reader before she could reach for her wallet.
“I don’t expect you to pay for my groceries.”
“They’re our groceries, and you can pay next week.”
How could she argue with that? Even as her heart did a happy little leap at the mention of next week, his comment about kids and her future as a mother had popped Ella’s giddy balloon, leaving her out of sorts and not at all sure what she had to be out of sorts about. It was a nice thing for him to say, and it wasn’t his fault—entirely—that she didn’t have kids yet when she’d always hoped to be a young mother.
But wasn’t it his fault in a way? After all, she’d been waiting for him, whether actively or passively, for years. There’d been other guys. A few that might’ve been serious if the specter of Gavin Guthrie hadn’t hung over everything, larger than life and exactly what her heart desired, even when he didn’t seem to know she was alive.
No other man had a chance against the possibility of Gavin. How many times had she ended fledgling relationships with the words It’s not you, it’s me? And Gavin, she should’ve added, because he was always smack in the middle of her relationships even if he never met the guys she dated.
In the parking lot, Gavin loaded the bags into the back of his truck, which they’d retrieved from the biker bar, while Ella went around to the passenger side and got in. She watched him stow the cart in the corral before he got into the truck. For the longest time he sat there, looking straight ahead.
Ella was on the verge of saying something—she wasn’t sure what—when he turned to her.
“Tell me what I did wrong in there.”
She’d been unprepared for such a blunt question. “You . . . I . . .” Jesus, Ella. Get it together. “Nothing.”
His eyes flashed with the starting of what might be anger. “Don’t do that. Don’t say it’s nothing when it’s clearly something. I told you I’d give this my all, Ella. You’ve got to do the same. You gotta meet me halfway.”
He was right. She couldn’t even try to deny that he was absolutely right. But how was she supposed to broach this particular subject on day one of the relationship she’d dreamed about having with him?
Reaching for her hand, he curled his fingers around hers. “Talk to me. I want to understand. I want to fix whatever I did.”
“You didn’t do anything. You struck a nerve that you didn’t know was there.”
“The kid thing is a nerve?”
She was on the verge of saying sort of or kind of, but that wasn’t the truth. It wasn’t what he deserved from her. “Yes.”
“How come?”
In for a penny . . . “I used to think,” she said with a sigh of resignation, “that I’d have a lot of kids, the way my mom and my aunt Hannah did.”
To his credit, he didn’t blanch or recoil or jump out of the truck in horror. Rather, he calmly said, “A lot, huh? Like ten?”
“Aunt Hannah only has eight.”
“Not much difference between eight and ten.”
“Most people only have two kids. They’d tell you that’s a lot.”
“Do you know that in all the years since Caleb died, neither of my parents has ever reminded me that I’m their only hope for grandchildren?”
“Oh,” she said, caught off guard by the change in direction. “That’s nice of them.”
“My mom would be an awesome grandmother, don’t you think?”
“They’d both be terrific, and you know Hannah’s children will consider them grandparents.”
“I do know that, and so do they. However, the continuation of the Guthrie name? It’s all on me.”
“That’s a lot of pressure.”
“They’ve never pressured me, but I’m aware of it. I don’t want the Guthrie line to end with me.”
“That’s not a good enough reason to have kids.”
“I know it isn’t, and until recently, I’ve been too unsettled to even think about having a family. But now . . . Now, it doesn’t seem so far off in the distant future.”
“Now . . . What does that mean?”
“Now that there’s an us and the possibility that you could be their mother—”
“Gavin, please. I have to stop you right there. It’s way too soon for us to be having this conversation, and frankly, my fragile heart can’t take it. I just can’t allow myself to go there. Not yet.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to poke at a nerve or your fragile heart.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m glad to know you aren’t totally opposed to having kids someday, but I can’t talk about that someday today.”
“Fair enough.” He started the truck and drove them back toward her place in town, where they’d dropped off her car on the way to the store.
They were quiet on the short ride, and Ella wished she could know what he was thinking. Her thoughts were all over the place, scattered and unorganized. He was saying—and doing—everything she could possibly want him to, but she was still wary. She wanted so badly to believe everything was possible for them, but until last night he’d not given her any reason to have one ounce of faith where he was concerned.