by Force, Marie
“Very true. I’ll check in tomorrow to see if you need anything for the launch.”
“Thanks again for all the help.”
“Always a pleasure to have the chance to work with you.”
“Same here.”
Lucy left the office and got into the four-wheel-drive SUV she’d bought to get around in Vermont and headed back up to the mountain where she lived with Colton. As she drove through town to the one-lane covered bridge and then past Hell’s Peak Road, where the Abbotts lived in their big red barn, she thought about everything that’d happened in the months since she met Colton. She’d come to Vermont with Cameron to present the first cut of the website and had taken one look at the burly mountain man, and her entire life had changed for the better.
She, who’d never needed a man to make her feel whole, now needed him as much as she needed air and water and food to survive. He was everything to her, and the life they’d put together between Vermont and New York worked far better than she’d ever expected it to. For the next few months, Vermont would be home during the upcoming sugaring season that she couldn’t wait to experience firsthand after hearing so much about it. This year, the season promised to be more intense than ever before due to the additional acreage the family had procured on the mountain, adding more than ten thousand new sap-producing trees to the twenty-five thousand they already had.
In April, they’d head to the city, where she’d meet with clients and he’d work on his side business of selling syrup to a wide array of gourmet shops in the city.
When she first met Colton and was faced with the enormous challenge of how to meld her city life with his mountain life, she never would’ve imagined the arrangement they’d ended up with. It was perfect for them, and things that had once seemed preposterous, such as the lack of indoor plumbing at his home on the mountain, now were routine. The cabin on the mountain was home to her as much as it was to him.
He’d brought color and adventure and laughter—so much laughter—to her staid and boring existence. A day without Colton would be like a day without chocolate, and that rarely happened. Emma was right. It was time for her to put her cards on the table with him and tell him what she wanted. She had nothing to fear from telling him the truth.
One thing in her life she was absolutely sure of was his love for her. He demonstrated that love in a thousand big and small ways every day, from the way he looked at her, to the way he cared for her, to the passionate way he made love to her every chance he got. She needed to have faith in him—and in what they’d built together—by being honest with him.
She drove up the winding road that led to home, noticing it had been sanded since she left and realizing Colton had probably done that with her in mind. In the driveway, she parked next to Max’s Subaru. He’d started back to work today, part time for now, until he got Caden on a more reliable schedule. As Lucy approached the front porch of the cabin, Max emerged from the retail building.
“Hey,” she called to him. “Have you seen Colton?”
“He’s up on the hill. I’m heading up myself. Want me to deliver a message?”
“Just tell him I’m back. I’ll see him later.”
“Will do.”
Lucy went into the retail building where they’d set up an office space for her and went straight to the woodstove to add more logs. Sarah and Elmer were asleep on their dog beds. She gave each of them a scratch behind the ears before she sat down to get some work done.
An hour later, she heard Colton’s distinctive footsteps on the wooden stairs. In addition to Max, Colton had several other helpers who worked with him on the mountain, but after nearly a year with him, she could distinguish his footsteps from everyone else’s.
And no one came crashing into a room the way Colton Abbott did.
Sarah and Elmer were jolted from a sound sleep and got up to greet him. Amused, Lucy spun around in her chair. “Hi, honey, you’re home.”
“Hey, babe. How’d the send-off go? You told them I had to work, right?”
“It went fine, and I did. They said they’ll see you soon.”
He unzipped the heavy coveralls he wore to work outside in the winter and removed the first of two insulated hats. “You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I know it’s hard for you to see them go home.”
“I’ll see them when I go down for Simone’s birthday.”
“That’s true. So what’s going to happen with Emma and Grayson now?”
“I don’t know, but she was pretty sad to be leaving him. They really hit it off.”
Now down to jeans and a flannel shirt with another layer of thermal beneath it, Colton came over to press his cold lips against her neck. “We know how that can happen, don’t we?”
Lucy jolted from the chill. “We certainly do.” There, she thought. He’s given you an opening. Take it. “Colton…”
“Hmm?” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and leaned into her, surrounding her with the now-familiar scents of fresh air and wood smoke.
“Can we talk?”
“Any time you want.”
“About something we never talk about but probably should?”
He looked down at her, hands resting on the arms of her chair. “What’s on your mind, Luce?”
She looked up at the face she loved so much and swallowed hard. “Our wedding.”
“What about it?”
“I’m just wondering if we’re going to have one.”
“Of course we are. We’re engaged, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we’re engaged, but when are we getting married?”
“Whenever you want to. I’m ready when you are.”
She stared at him, wondering if men truly were from Mars. “We have to plan a wedding.”
“Or we can just get married. I don’t need the big production if you don’t.”
“It doesn’t have to be a big production, but I’m thinking something slightly better than town hall.”
“Whatever you want, whenever you want. Let me know, and I’ll be there.”
“That’s not how this works, Colton. We have to plan our wedding together.”
“We do? Really?”
She tugged on a lock of his hair. “Really.”
Without seeming to exert an ounce of effort, he lifted her out of the chair and brought her back down on his lap. Lucy let out an inelegant squeak at being hauled around like a sack of potatoes. “Quit doing that!”
“What?”
“Picking me up and moving me around like I’m a sofa pillow or something.”
He snorted with laughter. “You’re much more important to me than a sofa pillow, as you well know. How about you tell me about this wedding you envision and how we might make it happen?”
“If I could have anything I wanted…”
“You can have anything you want.”
“What about a tent in your parents’ yard in the spring after your season is over? Nothing too crazy. Just our families and closest friends?”
“That sounds good to me. You’re sure you want to do it here and not in the city?”
“I’m sure. At some point over the last year, Butler has become home to me.”
“You have become home to me. I’m at home wherever you are, and I absolutely hate the idea that you’ve been stressing out about whether or not we were actually going to get married.”
“I haven’t been doing that. Not really…”
He raised a brow. “No?”
“Well, kinda. We never talk about it, so I didn’t know—”
He kissed her. “What didn’t you know?”
“If you still wanted to.”
“Lucy,” he said on a long sigh. “How could you wonder that for even one second when you have to know that my whole world revolves around you?”
“I let my old insecurities take over, I guess.”
“Don’t do that. You don’t have one single reason to be insecure in this relationship.” Sud
denly, he was standing up and heading for the door with her in his arms.
“Colton! What’re you doing?”
“You’ll see.”
“You aren’t going to dump me in a snowdrift, are you?”
“Would I do that to you?”
“Ummm…”
He laughed, knowing she was right to be concerned about the unexpected with him. Rather than drop her in a drift, he walked her across the wide expanse of yard between the store and their cabin, kicking open the door and then kicking it shut behind them. “Slide the lock,” he said gruffly.
“What’re you up to, mountain man?” Lucy asked as she pushed the lock they rarely used into place.
“Apparently, I need to show my woman that she has nothing to be insecure about.”
“Colton, you don’t have to—”
Again, he kissed the words right off her lips as he deposited her on the bed and came down on top of her.
Lucy curled her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, wanting him as close as she could get him. When they’d first gotten together, she’d been under the mistaken assumption that the intensity of their relationship would wane over time. But the opposite had been true. The more time she spent with him, the more she craved him—his smile, his laughter, his earthiness, his scent and the wild, untamed way he loved her.
“Yes, I have to, Luce. I have to show you right now. I can’t have you doubting me or our relationship.”
“I don’t doubt you or us.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell me you wanted to talk about the wedding?”
“I don’t know, but whatever the reason, it was more about me than you.”
“If something involving us is on your mind, it involves me, and I always want to know. I can’t bear the thought of you worrying about whether I actually want to get married.”
“You’ve hardly said a word about a wedding since we got engaged.”
“Not because I don’t want to marry you.” He shook his head in obvious disbelief. “You’re the one thing in this entire world I can’t live without, Lucy. My only explanation for not mentioning our wedding is that I’m so damned happy with what we already have. I got comfortable and complacent, and I’m sorry if that hurt you.”
“I feel like a jerk now.”
His smile lit up his eyes. “You’re not a jerk. Don’t say mean things about my fiancée. She’s everything to me.” He kissed her once and then again, never taking his eyes off her face. “What do you think about the first weekend in May? We’ve never boiled past the thirtieth of April, so that ought to be safe.”
“How about the second weekend in May so you have time to recover before the honeymoon?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Are you planning to wear me out on this so-called honeymoon?”
“You know it.”
“Then I suppose it would be a good idea to give me a week to recover my stamina after the boil.”
“And you can be away for a week or two after the wedding?”
“Uh-huh.” He nuzzled her neck. “I’ll leave Max in charge. It’ll be fine.” Rolling her earlobe between his teeth, he bit down and sent a charge of desire rippling through her body. “Where do you want to go on this honeymoon of ours?”
“Anywhere. I don’t care. As long as it’s just us for days and days and days on end.”
“Don’t forget the nights.”
“Mmm, that, too.”
“So second week of May,” he said. “It’s a date?”
“Yes, Colton, it’s a date.”
“Good, now let’s get naked to celebrate.”
Lucy laughed at his boyish glee as he said those words and started tugging at her clothes, which were removed with the impressive efficiency she’d become accustomed to. Usually he was all about driving her out of her mind before they got to the main event, but today he skipped all the preliminaries and entered her in one deep stroke that had her gasping from the impact.
“Ah God, Lucy…” Raising himself up on his elbows, he gazed down at her, brushing the hair back from her face. “Don’t ever be afraid to talk to me about whatever is on your mind. Promise?”
“I promise. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to doubt you or us. I should’ve known everything would be okay.”
“You have nothing at all to worry about where I’m concerned, Luce. You’ve owned me from the first day I met you and every day since. I love you so much. You have no idea.”
“I think I do, and I love you just as much.”
“We got this, Luce.” He gathered her in even closer to him. “Don’t ever doubt that.”
With her hands on his face, she kissed him. “I won’t.”
* * *
Chapter 21
Love cures people—both the ones
who give it and the ones who receive it.
—Karl A. Menninger
Grayson switched seats with another passenger so he could sit next to them on the plane. Emma sat in the middle, between him and Simone, who’d wanted the window seat. Since they’d driven to Vermont with Emma’s dad, this was Simone’s first-ever ride on a plane. She was all but vibrating with excitement and had asked a million questions about what to expect.
“Is this really happening?” Emma whispered to him as the plane taxied out for takeoff.
“It’s really happening.”
“I was so sad when I woke up this morning.”
“And now?”
“Soooo not sad.”
“Good. I don’t want you to be sad about anything.”
Emma leaned her head on his shoulder, and Grayson realized right in that moment that he felt more at home with her and Simone sitting together on an airplane than he had with anyone else since he left his mother’s home to go to college. The powerful feeling of rightness that came from spending time with them was impossible to deny. He could only hope that feeling would continue when they returned to Emma’s real life in the city. Would there be a place for him in that life? That remained to be seen.
Grayson enjoyed watching Simone’s excitement as the plane roared down the runway and lifted into the sky, rocking and rolling a bit due to the gusty wind.
“Is it supposed to do that?” Simone asked, her brows knitted in concern.
“It’s the wind,” Grayson said. “Once we get up above the clouds, it’ll be fine.”
“How long will it take to get to New York?”
“About an hour and a half. It’s a quick flight.”
“I don’t know if I like it,” Simone said as the plane encountered more turbulence in the clouds.
“I don’t think I like it either,” Emma said.
Grayson extended hands to each of them. “Hold on to me until we get above the clouds where it will be a nice smooth sunny day.” At least he hoped so. Both of them took him up on his offer, which had him leaning in close to Emma so he could reach Simone. After making sure Simone was captivated by the view outside the window, Grayson nuzzled Emma’s neck and whispered in her ear, “Relax. It’s all good. Just a few bumps on the climb out.”
“I hate to fly. I haven’t done it in years.”
“I do it all the time, or at least I used to. I’ve done so many long-haul flights to Europe and Asia on behalf of clients. I won’t miss that. There’ll probably only be nice short flights from Vermont to New York in my future now.”
She smiled at him and seemed to relax ever so slightly as the plane reached altitude and leveled off in smoother air.
Grayson ordered Bloody Marys for him and Emma and a Sprite for Simone.
“Mom never lets me get soda,” she said after he’d gotten her what she said she wanted.
“Are you trying to get me in trouble?” he asked.
“Special occasion,” Emma said. “Don’t make a habit out of it. Either of you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Grayson said with a pretend glower at Simone that made her giggle. God, she was so cute and so fun to be with. He wanted to spoil her rotten but knew Emma would never
allow it. He’d have to choose his moments carefully. It was curious, at least to him, that he, who’d had heavy responsibility for his siblings at such a young age, was looking forward to spending more time with Simone. If you’d asked him a couple of weeks ago if he could picture himself involved with a single mom—and her daughter—he would’ve said no way.
Now, everything was different, and he was fine with that.
Simone had a million questions about how the plane stayed in the sky and why some clouds were big and puffy and others were wispy. He and Emma did what they could to answer her questions, but explaining aerodynamics and meteorology to a nine-year-old was complicated business.
All too soon, the plane began descending, which sparked more questions from Simone, who watched the flaps rise and fall on the wing with endless fascination. As the plane descended, Grayson explained what would happen when they landed to prepare Simone for the bump of the wheels touching down and the roar that would follow as the pilots slowed the plane.
She bounced with excitement as the city came into view in the distance. “This was the best trip ever, Mom. Can we do it again soon?”
“We’ll see,” Emma said.
“She always says that. ‘We’ll see.’”
“My mom used to say that, too,” Grayson said. “It’s a mom thing.”
“I can hear you two,” Emma said.
Grayson smiled at her and took hold of her hand again, needing that small connection to her after hours of trying to behave around her daughter.
The plane touched down with a thud and then the roar.
Simone’s eyes went wide as the reverse thrusters roared. “Whoa,” she said. “That was so cool.”
“She has a need for speed,” Emma said. “The crazier the cab driver, the happier she is.”
“Thus her affection for skiing.”
“And sledding,” Simone added. “I liked that, too.”
“We’ve created a winter monster,” Grayson said.
“I love Vermont,” Simone said, looking out the window at the activity on the tarmac. “It’s so fun compared to here.”