Lavender & Mistletoe

by Donna Kauffman

  In the end, she’d missed having an opportunity to try her list of potential solutions to the myriad insufficiencies they’d encountered more than she’d missed Chad, who’d left that rainy, wintry afternoon, never to return. So perhaps it was for the best she’d left that research for a future, more suitable partner.

  The sudden loss of both her parents had occurred not that long after that, shattering her heart and her entire, perfectly planned world. Meeting a new guy had been the last thing on her mind then, much less sex. She’d met Chey, Vivi, and Hannah not long afterward when they’d forged their own unique brand of grief counseling, ultimately becoming the fearsome foursome. Life warriors, as Chey had tagged them. Piece by piece, her life had begun to take on a new shape, and new paths had opened before her. Exciting and terrifying in equal measures. Through that they’d all become friends. Now, owning and running Lavender Blue together, they’d become a family. Her new family.

  She liked this new path. No, she loved this new path. It was everything to her. In fact, it was more than she’d ever dreamed of having, a satisfying existence she hadn’t known was possible. That said, it was still new—they’d only just completed their first full season. She wasn’t ready for new uncertainties just yet. Men and romantic relationships definitely fell into that category.

  She set her folded butterfly on the plate and smiled, pleased with this effort. Pleased, also, about the idea that while she wasn’t ready to jump on the relationship roller coaster, she was perfectly happy to send her friend on that wild ride.

  The doorbell rang just then.

  “Looks like our guest has arrived,” Avery said, then turned to Chey, who had gone to retrieve the Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus salt and pepper shakers from the counter. Vivi had gotten them out to use that night. They might be dining in the kitchen, but Vivi always put on a presentation, and Avery loved that about her. She didn’t bother to point out that the corn bread ruse to get Chey out of the kitchen had apparently been completely abandoned.

  “Why don’t you show him in while I finish the last napkin,” Avery told Chey. She waved the red linen she’d just picked up and batted her eyelashes. “This one will be a rose. You can put it on his plate.” She laughed. “That is, if I can make it look like one.”

  To Avery’s surprise, rather than roll their eyes or tease her, Chey and Vivi shared a wink, then Chey strode out and down the hall toward the old manor house’s big oak front door. Just as Avery had asked her to do. Avery looked at Vivi. “What am I missing? Seriously.”

  Vivi merely winked at her, too. “Not a thing, dear. In fact, I think you’re picking up all the signals just fine.”

  Before Avery could ask her what she meant by that, Chey and Ben entered the kitchen. Chey was laughing at something he’d said, her cheeks flushed a happy pink, her pretty eyes flashing. Ben was…well, what wasn’t he?

  Avery once again was having a little trouble swallowing with her dry throat. She had tried to tell herself that while it was a fact that Ben was handsome and charming, she’d likely romanticized things a bit, what with her desire to see Chey have her chance at true love. Surely the amped-up dynamics of their first meeting, the adrenaline rush from battling the storm and making their rescue, then finding themselves stranded out at Doc’s farm, had led her to overreact, just a little.

  Nope. No, you didn’t. He’s every bit of what you remembered.

  And a lot more besides or so it seemed to her now. The kitchen was a cavernous space, made homey by the checkerboard tile floor, cheerful gingham curtains, a huge round trestle table, and the big stone fireplace. Yet he seemed to fill it all right up, just one step into the room. She wanted to loosen the collar of her blouse, allow more air to fill her suddenly constricted lungs. Only she wasn’t wearing a blouse, nor did she have a collar. Her thin, V-neck sweater suddenly felt a little too snug, too restricting. She would have liked to pull that off, too. Maybe a chill would cool the surface of her skin, which was altogether too warm at the moment. She felt…twitchy, as if standing still required far too much effort. She needed to move. She needed to put more distance between herself and Ben, until she figured out what was going on with her and fixed it.

  “Chey, why don’t you show Ben around the farm, the stables,” she said, and heard the anxious tone in her voice. Clearly so did Chey, who merely lifted one questioning eyebrow, but, Avery noted, didn’t stop smiling.

  “Actually,” Ben said, “if there’s time, I have a little stop yet to make. I was going to do it on the way here, but I thought Avery might like to go with me.”

  All three women turned to him then, a mix of surprise and delight on two of their faces. Avery simply stared, still trying to regroup from whatever the heck her body was doing.

  Vivi spoke first. “I’m serving stew, which can simmer for a good while longer. I was thinking of throwing together some corn bread to go with it, but haven’t even started that yet. So we’ve got whatever time you need.” She’d rinsed her hands when Chey had gone to get the door and finished drying them on a towel tucked in her apron ties as she crossed the room. She extended her hand. “Welcome to Lavender Blue, Dr. Campbell. Pleasure to have you. I’m Vivienne Baudin. Please, just call me Vivi.”

  “The pleasure is mine, Ms. Baudin.”

  “Vivi,” she corrected him, her smile bright and her cheeks a little flushed as well. Avery didn’t think that was simply due to the steam from the stew pot.

  “Ben,” he said in response.

  “Ben,” Vivi repeated with a little nod. She gave his hand a pat before letting it go and Avery swore she’d never seen the usually unflappable Vivi look so uncharacteristically flustered. Even at sixty-eight, Vivi was usually the one making the members of the opposite sex trip over their words and look a little spellbound. It was her natural aura.

  Ben held his own just fine, his eyes all but sparkling as he held Vivi’s effortlessly. Avery thought maybe his superpower was his ability to make every woman feel like she was the only one in the room, giving whoever was speaking his full, undivided attention. “I hope you weren’t put out by the last-minute addition to your dinner table,” he told her.

  “Not in the least. Hannah’s snowed in with Will and Jake, so they won’t be at the table. Honestly, I’m hoping you can help take care of a few extra servings.” She gave him a once-over that was pure Broadway showgirl Vivi. “Big, strapping fella like yourself, shouldn’t be a problem.”

  She said it with a wink, but her cheeks flushed a bit brighter when he grinned and winked right back, saying, “If it tastes half as good as it smells, you can send any leftovers on home with me.”

  Vivi beamed, loving nothing more than someone admiring her cooking. She waved her hands. “Now, off you both go. We’re in no hurry. Just give me a shout when you’re on the way back.”

  This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. She’d had no back-up plan in place for this. “If it’s about animals—your errand I mean—then you should take Chey,” Avery blurted. “She’ll be a bigger help than I would.”

  Before Chey could respond to what Avery thought was a brilliant save, Ben said, “It is about an animal, but in this particular case, I think you’ll want to be the one to go.”

  “He’s got Scooter with him,” Chey said, eyes dancing.

  “Scooter?” Avery said, blankly. Why was it she felt a step behind this whole evening thus far when she was usually five steps ahead?

  “Turns out that’s the goat’s name,” Ben supplied; then he winked and said, “I thought you’d like to go with me to drop our co-star off.”

  Avery noticed Chey and Vivi share a very satisfied smile and was going to explain what the co-star thing meant, and how it wasn’t really so cozy and intimate as Ben had made it sound. However, Ben went on before she could decide where on earth to even begin.

  “Charlie was going to come out earlier this afternoon to get him, but he got hung up with
frozen water pipes in his barn, and since I was coming down this way, I told him it was no bother to drop Scooter off. I thought you might enjoy seeing your rescue mission to its full conclusion.”

  Avery’s heart filled right up. She’d been missing the little bugger, which was silly. He wasn’t exactly pet material, and she’d never had a pet in her life anyway, so it seemed a bit ridiculous to wish for one now. Not that she wanted to keep the goat, she really didn’t. But she couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d looked up at her in the cab of the truck, so trusting, so needing her help and protection. It had been a scary event, all told, but that one moment had been kind of marvelous. “I’d like that,” she said, before she could stop herself. She immediately turned to Chey. “Why don’t we both go? I mean, we both rescued him and—”

  “I’m in Doc Forrester’s old pick up,” Ben said, then looked apologetically at Chey. “Scooter’s in the back.” He smiled then. “It’s got a cap on it, and he’s in a crate strapped to the bed of the truck, so no worries about him being tossed out.”

  Chey smiled. “No worries,” she said. “I have this dessert recipe I wanted to try, and this will give us the time to put it together, once we finish the corn bread.”

  “But you hate baking.” Avery looked meaningfully at Vivi. Why wasn’t Vivi helping her with this? Apparently, Avery was as bad at giving nonverbal cues as she was at deciphering them. “I thought you said we were having the leftover—”

  “We’ve got it under control, dear,” Vivi assured her, smoothly shutting down Avery’s last-ditch effort. “You two run along now. Get on over there before it turns dark, make sure that little one settles back in at home.”

  Ben lifted a questioning eyebrow and shifted to allow Avery to exit the room in front of him.

  Avery looked at Chey and Vivi, already running through some mental scenarios of how she could balance the scales later, during and after dinner, to shift things back in Chey’s favor. A moonlit stroll to the stables, perhaps dessert in front of the fireplace in the front room. Alone, just the two of them. Avery would take Vivi aside and explain it to her if need be. She would make this work. “If you all truly don’t mind,” she said.

  “We don’t mind,” Chey and Vivi said in unison. Vivi lifted her hand in a wave. “Drive safe.”

  “Let me grab a coat then.”

  “Probably not a white one this time,” Ben said with a fast grin, then glanced down at her feet. “And please don’t kill another pair of party shoes on my account.”

  Avery looked down at the perfectly sensible loafers she had on. “These aren’t party shoes.”

  “They aren’t barn shoes, either,” he countered.

  “Point taken,” she said, glancing at him, meeting his direct gaze as a wry smile curved her lips. “Although the white coat I wore last night might as well be a barn coat now.”

  Ben laughed. “Point taken.”

  All the itchy, fluttery, claustrophobic sensations she’d been feeling earlier seemed to ease with his teasing, which also made no sense. She wanted badly to grab a fresh notebook from her lab, record all the things she was feeling, then not feeling. Surely that would be of some help with her plan to get Chey and Ben together.

  “Take the mud room exit,” Chey said. “Your raincoat and rubber boots are in there. Those should work.”

  And before Avery knew it, Ben was right behind her, guiding her to the mud room on the opposite side of the kitchen, his hand settling on her lower back to help balance her as she leaned down to struggle first one foot, then the other into the rubber boots, feeling both clumsy in her efforts and steadied by his touch, all at the same time. Which also made no sense. Her fingers itched to grab a notebook and pen.

  But he had her coat in his hand when she straightened, his presence filling all of the available space in the little mud room as he stood close behind her and helped her put it on, lifting her hair from under the collar, his fingers brushing the nape of her neck.

  She shivered as little shocks of pleasure raced straight down her spine and pooled in a place where…well, where pleasure hadn’t pooled in quite some time. She found herself pausing, just for a second, to soak in that moment. She could smell his scent, a mix of laundry soap and something woodsy, spicy. She felt the heat of him, standing so close, and found herself wondering what it would feel like if he reached around and fastened her coat for her, and what other parts of her his fingers might brush then. She had to clamp down on her teeth to keep the soft little moan of anticipation from escaping her lips. While she was at it, she clamped her thighs together against the growing ache blooming there.

  “You ready,” he said, his voice a deep, quiet whisper next to her ear.

  Yes, she thought, feeling shaky and warm, and so, very, very ready. She wanted to glance back and up at him, see if what she found in his eyes reflected anything of what she was thinking, of what she was feeling. And not for note-taking purposes this time.

  For the first time in her life, all thoughts of note-taking and chart-making went forgotten. Her plans for Chey, her study of human relationships, her need to keep her big brain fully occupied at all times…none of those things were currently pinging around inside her head. In fact, she was having a hard time stringing even the most basic thoughts together.

  Except for one. She grabbed blindly for the door and jerked it open. No, she decided, I’m not ready. For any of this.

  And I’m definitely not ready for you.

  Chapter 4

  As Ben slowed the truck to make a turn, he glanced at Avery. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet. At least, it seemed uncharacteristic given what he knew of her so far. He turned on to the lane that would lead back to Pruitt’s place and let the truck roll to a stop. “I’m sorry I couldn’t let you ride in the back with Scooter,” he said. She’d asked as soon as they’d left the house. In fact, she’d all but run to the back of the truck as soon as he’d closed the mudroom door behind them. “Not all the roads are fully plowed yet and Charlie lives back a ways. I thought it would be better to be buckled in.”

  “No, I understand,” she said, and sounded sincere. But after taking a quick look through the window behind the seat, checking on Scooter’s crate, she turned her attention back to the road. “He sounds pretty quiet back there.”

  “I think the motion lulls him to sleep.” He sent her a quick grin. “And we already know he has an affinity for truck beds.”

  She nodded but didn’t return the smile. Ben didn’t think she’d looked at him once since they’d both climbed into the cab and fastened their seatbelts. He had kind of barged in and pushed her to accompany him, but she didn’t seem annoyed with him, or anything like that. She seemed…preoccupied. Then another thought occurred to him.

  “If you’re worried that Scooter might feel traumatized, being put in a truck bed so soon after being thrown from one—”

  Avery did look directly at him then, her eyes wide. “Oh, I hadn’t even thought of that.” She immediately turned and looked through the rear window again, worry etched all over her face now.

  Nice going, Campbell.

  “He’s okay,” Ben assured her. “If I’d sensed any panic or unnatural behavior, I’d have used some other method of transportation.”

  Her gaze shifted to him, and he was relieved to see that focused spark there again. Not a spark for him, as there had been when she’d looked at him in the mudroom. Ben might have been single for a good long while, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten what mutual attraction looked like. Felt like.

  “Like what?” she asked, truly curious. “How else would you have gotten Scooter home?”

  He hid a smile, thinking if he did manage to find the key to getting Avery to give him a real chance, he’d already learned how to pull her out of wherever her quiet thoughts had taken her. Spark her curiosity. He couldn’t imagine that would ever pose a problem.

 
“Something smaller. My Land Rover, or a car. Smaller crate.” He sent her a quick smile. “Wrap him up in a muddy white coat and carry him if we had to. He seemed to like that just fine.”

  His suggestions elicited a responding smile from her, and Ben relaxed a little, thinking he wouldn’t mind being wrapped up and held by Avery for a long while, either.

  “What made you decide to become a vet?” she asked. “Have you always had a soft spot for animals?”

  Ben didn’t realize just how nervous he’d been that he’d somehow pushed things too hard or too fast back there in the farmhouse. Hearing that avid note in her voice, seeing her spark reignite, settled him. As if everything would always be right in his world as long as Avery’s big brain was spinning like a top.

  “My mum, actually,” he replied. “Much to my dad’s dismay,” he added with a chuckle. “Mum had—has—a way of finding or attracting every injured or abandoned creature within any reasonable distance of wherever she happens to be.”

  “Was he truly dismayed, or just—”

  “No, he never really minded.” Ben let out a short laugh. “Well, that time Mum and I decided to bring the ostrich eggs inside and set up an incubator in the tub, and then the things started hatching when he was the only one home. He had a few choice things to say about that.”

  Avery laughed. “I can imagine.” Her smile lingered. “Actually, I can’t imagine. We didn’t have so much as a pet goldfish.” At his questioning glance, she said, “My parents were stuffy academics. Intellectuals is the term they preferred, but both labels fit.”

  Despite the descriptors she’d used, there was honest affection in her voice as she spoke of them, and maybe something a bit more poignant.

  “And yet not a single cat?” he gently teased, not wanting her to be sad. “Isn’t that the intellectuals’ pet of choice?”