by Keri Ford
God, not that he was aware of, anyway. If Mom was the biggest gossip in Happily, that meant she had a load of sources spread throughout town to pass stuff along and to be passed to her. So far as he knew, it would be the same old drama that just frankly wasn’t any of Tish’s business, but none of it could be ranked as useful for a calculating maneuver. What could she possibly do with knowing someone downtown was caught kissing someone in a parking lot? Unless Tish discovered he and Lanie were a thing, then nothing, and her knowing that was impossible. They had kept themselves too concealed, and since Mom was still pushing his buttons to get with Tish, his mother obviously didn’t know either. “Just letting you know I dropped lunch off. See you later.”
Mom blinked at him with that bewildered look. “I thought you were staying.”
“Something came up.”
His mom ignored him and stood. “Surely not so fast that you can’t eat first. It’ll give you a chance to catch up with Tish too.”
“I saw Tish recently. We’ve caught up.” The grin that came to him was natural. Then Tish smirked like she knew something he didn’t. He didn’t let that falter his step as he returned through the kitchen to leave. More and more, he understood there was always something she knew about that he didn’t. And if not, she was deceptive enough to simply look that way to pique someone’s curiosity and have them divulge information. It was one of her many talents, as she claimed it, in the boardroom for getting what she wanted. “Did you bring in grandma’s ring? You said you’d bring it back.”
She feigned innocence. “Oh, I forgot. It’s locked up in my safe so I don’t have to risk anything happening to it. Out of sight, out of mind.”
His mom grinned. “That’s good to hear. As long as it’s safe.” She remained ignorant of the undercurrents slicing through the room and opened the bag from The Beanstalk. “You didn’t tell me you two got together to talk.”
“We really didn’t too much. I wanted my chair. I made arrangements to get it when I took Hank to the city.”
Mom frowned. “Your chair?”
He nodded. “My recliner.”
“Yes he did. Stopped by and took a bottle of rum too.”
“That too.”
Tish eased to the hall. “I’m going to wash up.”
As soon as she left the room, his mother frowned. “I don’t know why you can’t stay.”
Careful with his volume because he was fully aware Tish was eavesdropping, he leaned closer to his mother. “I don’t know why you let her in our house.”
“Eriksen. That girl loves you.”
“She loves whatever she wants at the moment, and that something is not me. I hope you didn’t offer to let her stay here.”
“Of course I did.” She tugged her shirt straight. “I told you. She saved your life. She’s welcome here anytime.”
The growl worked up his throat, but he didn’t stop it. His teeth were clenched tight, and he had to put effort into letting the tension free. “She did not save me.”
He got a typical mom look in return, complete with an arched brow. “Stop being ridiculous.”
“I’m not. She didn’t pull me from the water. Lanie Lange did.”
His mom laughed. “That little slip of a thing? Impossible.”
Suddenly, Eriksen got it. His mother echoed Lanie’s fears, and he better understood Lanie’s predicament. “She’s a good swimmer.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t. I don’t know if she is or not. She couldn’t have pulled you that far. The emergency workers called it a mirical that Tish was able to get you to shore.”
Already he could see that would be an endless cycle he wasn’t going to be trapped in. He pinched the bridge of his nose to get to the heart of the matter. “Tish and I are not getting back together.”
“Eriksen. If you—”
“I’m dating someone else.”
His mom blinked at him, and hell. He just told the gossip of Happily after promising Lanie a day ago he’d leave it on her terms. Before the end of the day, it would probably be all over town, and how long before dots started being connected? Was there a moment they could be shuffled together? Fuck. He couldn’t even think. Maybe? He had to call Lanie. “I’ve got plans and need to go.”
He left it at that and got out of there. Great. He called Lanie to drop the news.
She answered in a chippered note. “Yes?”
“I just told my mom about us.”
There was a pause. “You told your mom about me?”
There was such a ticklish giggle in her tone that the knots in his gut unraveled. “Sort of. I told her I was dating someone. Tish is in. It’s a long story. It just tumbled out. I know you’re not ready to tell, but it slipped out. I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” All the cheer in her voice was gone.
“But I think it’s time to tell your brothers and dad.”
“Okay.” Her deep inhale echoed through the phone.
“That’s going to be a step for us. If it’s not what you want, we can stop and that will be the end of it.” God, that was a terrible idea. The thought of it had him fisting the steering wheel.
“If you’re ready, I’m ready.” That lightness was back in her voice, and it let him breathe easy. “I’ll text Dad and set up dinner for this evening and we can break the news.”
“I actually know where Tommy and Mike are. I’m going to drop in on them.”
“Eriksen, no. Don’t do that.”
He breathed out. “If I don’t, it’s going to look like I’m hiding behind you.”
“This is not a good idea.” Panic raised in her voice.
He foresaw threats of pain, lifelong misery, and death. Lanie, and the natural protective stream in her body, mixed in the middle of it, trying to shut down the standard-issued hazing by fathers and older brothers, would not make it better. “It’ll be fine. I’ll call you when I’m done.”
Lump firmly lodged in his throat, he headed back to The Beanstalk and didn’t feel any better about the immediate future when their truck was still parked outside. Tommy and Mike had settled at a small table down by the end, and he walked that way. He caught Mike’s gaze and waved, gaining both their attentions.
He slid a chair around from a nearby table and pulled up to the side of theirs. He saw no other way around this besides the rip-it-off-fast method. “I’m dating your sister.”
Mike’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline, but Tommy’s sank over his narrowed eyes. “What?”
“I didn’t want you hearing it through rumors.” It was hot in here. Now that he thought about it, he’d never had to ask permission when it came to a girl before. Before Tish, he hadn’t dated seriously enough where he had to show up at someone’s house. After Tish, and news of the rescue, it all but sealed them as a couple. He never had to do the awkward walk up to the front door. Eriksen swiftly reconsidered his criticism of guys never facing her family before to date her. He was a grown-ass man, getting sweaty while he sat between the pair.
Less because he feared for his life, but because there would be an unattainable bar set for how to treat Lanie in ways they expected. Eriksen would never be able to achieve that in their eyes. No matter what he did, they would find him lacking in some way.
From what he knew of her so far, she was worth it.
Tommy finally blinked. “Why don’t you come to the house with us? Dad will want to talk to you.”
“Just let me know when it’s a good time.”
Tommy’s expression never wavered as he nodded. “Now.”
Mike called to a nearby waitress to change their order to go, and less than two minutes later, they headed outside, then in vehicles, Eriksen following in his own truck to the Lange property. He slowed at the turn to the Lange’s house and drove past the mechanic shop, alongside the locked fence entrance of their junkyard, and up the winding drive to their double-wide on the hill. It hadn’t occurred to him until now how middle of nowhere they lived.
Tommy and Mike quickly joined th
e other three brothers and dad, Anderson Lange, on the porch. There weren’t many words said as they shuffled him inside. Mike’s hand slapping his back was a little rougher than probably necessary, but they seated around an old marked up table. Six pairs of eyes settled on him and Mike gratefully passed him a glass of sweet tea.
Lanie’s brothers were frightening, especially as a group. However, he’d rather take the five Lange brothers on at once than be caught in the attention of her father that now blasted him a judging look beneath bushy eyebrows. Anderson Lange was just a larger-than-life man. Eriksen could remember the man’s bellows across the football field as his boys had played.
“You were married before.”
Getting right to it then. Eriksen had regretted his marriage. Under the resentment-fueled stare of Anderson, for the first time Eriksen found himself ashamed of it. “Yes, sir. I was.”
“And now you’re not.” Anderson tipped his head over. “Why?”
Not a question and no punches. Not a bat of his eye or even a smudge of guilt for outright prying into Eriksen’s past. “It didn’t work out.”
“You consider marriage flexible like that? Something to just walk away from?”
“No, sir. Not at all.”
“But you did it.”
“Yes.”
He crossed his arms over his barrel of a chest. “Then how do I know you won’t do it again with my baby girl.”
Eriksen had a passing thought that if he so much as hurt Lanie’s feelings he would be dead. This conversation took a slingshot leap from typical expectations and directly into his shirt clenching around his throat. Eriksen doubted fear was the answer her father was looking for. A cowering, sniveling excuse would not gain Eriksen approval from her family. “Because this time it’s not a mistake.”
“How often do you make mistakes like that?”
“When I was nineteen like I was then? Every damn day, but I’m not nineteen anymore. Circumstances put us together, we followed the path everyone said we should be on. It was years later before we both agreed it wasn’t working. I never loved her like a husband should love a wife, and she admitted to feeling the same.” Probably best to leave out Tish regarded him as useful as a lowly pawn on a chessboard.
Anderson eyed him, his chest seemed to broaden, or maybe it was Eriksen shrinking under his overwhelming dad-protective intensity.
Anderson took a drink of his tea, set it aside, and pinned him again. “Are you sleeping with my daughter?”
Heat slammed into him so fast he nearly fell over. The lie swiftly rolled to the front of his tongue, but they’d know he was lying. “Yes.”
His brow twitched and lifted with a quick flash of surprise. “I wasn’t expecting you to be honest.”
Eriksen lifted his hands and wished he had something better to say. “I don’t care for lies.”
Her dad nodded and pushed out of his chair. “Come look at something with me.”
Eriksen moved swiftly so Anderson wouldn’t have to wait. He followed her dad outside to the back porch where it was just him and Anderson. He pointed to a hill on the horizon. “Just over that hill there’s a little shop we use for some blacksmith work. More of a hobby-type thing.”
He wasn’t overly surprised. When it came to labor and hard work, the Langes knew how to do it all. “Lanie hasn’t mentioned it.”
“She doesn’t care for it. In the back of that little building is a forge large enough to hold a body.”
“Oh yeah?” Back to that strangling notion.
He nodded, deep in thought. “Big enough I could just drug someone and toss them in whole. No blood trail or hair ripped out. Just a little sedative in their sweet tea and a person vanishes.”
Eriksen faintly wondered if he was seeing stars by the delivered threat or whether there had been a little extra something in his drink. So he nodded. “I understand.”
He faced him and basically towered over. Even with just the two of them outside and all her brothers in, it was no less intimidating. Maybe it was the being-burned-alive threat hanging over, but Eriksen felt the tightening of his skin was all because a father looked at him, desperation in his eye to protect his daughter. That burden suddenly landed on Eriksen’s shoulders, and he wasn’t disappointed for having to hold it.
“So long as my daughter is happy, you and I won’t have any trouble. You’re free to go.”
Andersen stepped back inside and shut the door, so Eriksen headed down the steps and around to the front, he supposed officially being dismissed. He rounded the corner only to find one of the brothers standing by the vehicle—Luke, who Eriksen had graduated school with.
The joke of one more threat for the road? rolled up his throat, but he swallowed it and offered a polite nod and a handshake. “Luke. How you been?”
Luke, thankfully, returned the shake in a normal, nonthreatening kind of grasp. “At the moment, relieved.”
A breath of air unclenched out of his chest. “That’s good to hear.”
“Lanie’s always been secretive and kind of lost to her own world. The past few weeks, I could tell something was going on, and I’ve run circles trying to puzzle out what. This whole time it’s just been you.”
“I’ve been at Hank’s cabin and your mom’s is right down the bank. I ran into her there, and we just clicked.”
“How is Hank? I’ve barely seen him.”
With that, Eriksen and Luke ended up leaning on the bed of his truck, discussing Hank’s future for Happily over the next half hour, not a single concern uttered for how Eriksen would treat Lanie.
Chapter Fourteen
Sweat dampened Lanie’s palms, and she wiped them off on her thighs for at least the hundredth time since last night. Eriksen’s parents seemed like super nice people, and so far, they had been really sweet according to Eriksen’s version of thing. But gosh, Lanie was meeting parents. It was so very real. Countless times she’d thought of moments like this, wondered what it would be like—would she ever get the opportunity to meet the parents. For a while there, she was starting to wonder.
She rubbed her hands down and Eriksen caught her fingers, twined them together, and held her hand over his knee under the table. He didn’t just hold it, he gave her a soothing squeeze.
His mom seemed oblivious to Lanie’s nerves, or maybe she was politely ignoring them. She chattered on, slicing through her eggs, and basically never stopped talking, which was a relief because if Debra didn’t stop talking, that meant Lanie didn’t have to start. His dad, Caleb, must be well used to it, as he mostly nodded, smiled, and occasionally sent a good-natured wink Lanie’s way.
“Oh.” Debra pointed with her fork. “I ran into your father, Lanie. Lovely man. I can’t imagine chasing after that many boys in my house all at one time. Just the one was enough to wear me out.” Her grin shifted to Eriksen. “Not that you were horrible, but my goodness, what a handful. Anyway.” Her attention rolled back to Lanie. “I told him I was so excited to have breakfast with you, and he told me that he was very impressed with Eriksen and he hoped we enjoyed our morning.”
Eriksen sent her a quick side glance, and Lanie stuffed back a retort. Not that she could have gotten it in as Debra moved on. Lanie hadn’t quite forgiven him for going to her dad and brothers like he had. She should have been there to make sure the lot of them didn’t act like idiots, but it was hard to argue with approval from her dad. Still, it didn’t mean she had to admit to being glad it worked out the way he did it.
Debra was just beginning to explain how they could add a number of craft items to their Happily On Your Shelf store and were welcome to her stash of supplies when a timer trilled from Eriksen’s phone. Everyone at the table knew what that meant, and Debra sighed, placing her fork alongside her plate. “I guess that means it’s time to finish up.”
Eriksen punched off the alarm that signaled for him to head to the airport. Hank had business in New York for three days, and Lanie was going to miss Eriksen while he was gone. Especially if they had
to make a swing through Chicago before coming back. There was so much about Hank that was a mystery to Lanie, and to top it off, Eriksen was basically the guy’s personal driver in the sky. What kind of man has a personal sky driver? Good lord.
She said her goodbyes to his parents, and with his hand warm against her lower back, he walked her to the car. “When do you leave?”
“Anywhere between as soon as I get there to about an hour and a half or so. Sometimes Hank runs behind. Sometimes he’s waiting early.”
“Last I heard, Jacob is taking the twins for all Saturday, and Violet has talked me into doing a spa thing at the house to do each other’s toenails with Cindy.”
“I’m sure you’ll have fun.”
“It will be nice to catch up with Cindy and Violet.”
He rubbed his thumb across her cheek. “I can’t put off leaving any longer.”
“I know.”
He cupped her cheeks and kissed her. It was hot, heavy, fast, and not nearly enough. Just as she tried sinking in against him, he pulled away. “I’ll call when we land, and I’ll see you in a few days.”
With that, he put her in her car, and the warmth in Lanie from his touch lived on for the next hour, and it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. They had breakfast together, at The Beanstalk, in front of everyone, with his parents. How she was supposed to work with the tingling threading through her, Lanie didn’t know.
The lack of progress in the shop was proof of that too as she spent more time fantasizing with her memories than she had spent staring at Violet’s drawings. It wasn’t Lanie’s fault that work wasn’t as interesting as reliving life with Eriksen.
The back door opened, and Lanie grabbed the first sheet on top. “I’m about to work on this one. I swear I’m about to do something.” She glanced up, ready to prove what she had going on to Violet, but Hank walked in. “I thought you left for New York?”
“Something important has come up suddenly. I’m about to head to the airport to leave now, or I may delay the trip until tomorrow.”