“Not your first glass then,” Chey said dryly.
“First glass of champagne,” Hannah said. She looked from Vivi to Avery and finally to Chey. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to toast our first success. We did really good today.”
Vivi lowered her chin and her perfectly painted lips pursed in a dry, perfectly painted curve. “Honey, if I had a man who looked like that dropping by for a little—”
“He didn’t drop by for a—what do they call it now?”
“Bootie call,” Avery supplied, eyes on her clipboard, already jotting down notes.
“Yes, that,” Hannah said. “That was not what this was. He asked me out on a date earlier today and he wanted to set the day and time.”
“Well, y’all must have had some hearty disagreements or really conflicting schedules,” Chey said. “Because, by my count, he was there ‘setting a time for your date’ for so long that it qualified as your date.” She’d used air quotes and a seriously-don’t-even-try-me look that normally would have had Hannah telling all.
But Hannah was still pleasantly blitzed on a lot more than good wine, and though the fearsome foursome had shared pretty much every last detail of their lives over the past six years, Hannah suddenly decided she really didn’t want to offer up details about her time with Will. That was intimate and belonged to her, to the two of them.
Avery spoke up before Hannah could find the words to politely decline their champagne-laden inquisition. “Your pupils are dilated, your cheeks are flushed, and not from prolonged sun exposure or embarrassment.” She leaned closer and peered at Hannah’s face through her glasses, then jotted a few more notes. “Some slight inebriation is my guess.” She peered again at Hannah’s neck this time. “Along with some razor burn.” She jotted more notes. “His.”
Vivi’s and Chey’s gazes shifted immediately to her neck, which Hannah wasn’t fast enough to cover with her casual hand gesture.
Chey lifted one brow. “Setting a time and place, huh?”
“Can I just ask,” Avery said, quite seriously, “about the progression of events that led from a casual discussion of date plans”—she waved the tip of her pen at Hannah’s neck—“to that?”
Hannah laughed self-consciously, but didn’t directly reply. “I appreciate that you care about me and want to make sure I’m okay.” Her expression turned a bit wry. “But you’re insatiably nosey.”
“You’re the first one,” Avery said. “So of course we are.”
Hannah didn’t have to ask what she meant by that. The four of them had discussed all manner of logistics before deciding to launch this grand experiment, and one of the major topics had been what would happen when or if any of them ended up in a serious, long-term relationship.
“Although I will admit the algorithm I used to predict the progression of this was way off.” She blinked owlishly at Chey. “I had you ranked at almost even odds.” She looked from Chey to Vivi. “And you were three-to-one.” She looked at Hannah. “I had you at five and me at eleven.”
“Eleven?” Hannah said, not surprised at her ranking, but dismayed that Avery had so little faith in herself. “Oh, Avery—”
Avery raised a hand to stop her. “My schedule doesn’t have me pursuing anything of that nature for another two years, ten months, and, well, it doesn’t matter now, because you’ve blown my projections all out of whack, so I’ll need to completely redo them.”
“Sorry?” Hannah said with an overly sweet smile.
“Har, har,” Avery said, but she had already flipped to a fresh page and was scribbling madly. Hannah had asked her once why she didn’t use a digital device for her note-keeping and had gotten a thirty-minute dissertation on organization and the brain’s greater capacity for organization when items were both noted and written.
“First,” Chey said, still stuck on Avery’s initial comment. “Me?”
Avery nodded, not fazed at all by Chey’s intense look of dismay. “It’s not a reflection on your character. Not a bad one, anyway. It’s just, of the four of us, you are the most forthright and confident in your decision making. You’re attractive, smart, funny, and your capacity for love is pretty much boundless, though why you’re so determined to keep anyone from knowing that, I don’t know. While you may not be actively looking, you strike me as the one who, when presented with the irrefutable evidence that you’ve met ‘the one’”—now it was her turn to use air quotes—“will not waste time playing any sort of societally imposed mind games.” She smiled brightly then. “You’ll just lasso him, jump him, and rope him.”
Vivi and Hannah laughed outright. Chey just rolled her eyes. But Hannah didn’t miss the speculative look on her face. Avery was a champion overthinker, and commonsense conclusions eluded her from time to time, but she was rarely wrong in her endless projections. Hannah had asked her about that once, too, her constant need to analyze everything, and she’d dryly responded that given how fast her brain processed things, she either had to constantly feed it data to keep it happy, or become a drug addict to dull it into inactivity.
Hannah had laughed, but she’d privately worried just a little that Avery hadn’t been completely kidding.
“But Hannah jumped a guy first,” Avery said sweetly. “So no pressure.”
Hannah’s mouth dropped open at that, but she wisely closed it again because she had just kind of jumped Will. More than once. And it had been glorious.
Something of that truth must have shown on her face, likely in Las Vegas–style lights, as the other three all swiveled their attention back to her. She lifted a hand to stall further interrogation. “First of all, I want to thank you for your concern.”
“You said that,” Vivi told her. “New info please. This old woman needs to live vicariously through you young folk.”
Chey gaped. “Avery had you second, need I remind you.”
Hannah laughed and, to her credit, Vivi wiggled her brows, smoothed her lavender locks, and touched her beringed hands to her face as if checking her makeup. “Yes, well, be that as it may, sweetie, since Hannah here is being the overachiever, perhaps I could use a few pointers on how she managed to snag the most eligible and unattainable man in Blue Hollow Falls.”
“He’s not unattainable, he’s—it’s complicated,” Hannah said. “I can’t say why we connected the way we did, but somehow we have. We’ve been very open and honest with one another about a wide variety of things.” She lifted a shoulder, then smiled. “And, you know, there was all that screaming sexual tension.” She looked at Avery. “So, to partially answer your question—and this is as much as I plan on revealing—you put that kind of emotional bond in a room with that kind of sexual tension and—”
“Jumping happens,” Chey supplied.
Hannah grinned and took another sip of champagne, then nodded at Chey. “What she said.”
They laughed and Avery, bless her, did make additional notes.
Vivi was the first one to take a slightly more serious tone, but it came from a caring place. She reached out and covered Hannah’s arm. “It’s still a big step, honey,” she said.
Hannah could have passed off Vivi’s concern by claiming it was just sex, but each woman at that table knew different. A few awful attempts at first dates notwithstanding, none of them had trusted themselves enough to take any kind of serious step with a man since they’d met each other.
“I know,” Hannah said, putting her other hand on Vivi’s and squeezing. “And you all know I appreciate your concern and your love. I’m not sure what this is, or what it will become, or if I really want it to become anything more. All I know is . . .” She trailed off and thought about the wholly unexpected evening she’d just spent with Will McCall. “We talk, about important things, and frivolous things, and I make him laugh, which I don’t think he’s done very much. You’d be surprised how much he does both of those things when he lets his guard down and opens up. He’s actually very funny.”
That statement earned varying degrees of dubious l
ooks in response.
“I was surprised, too,” she admitted. “Beyond that, I will tell you that this particular evening was unexpected, unplanned, and a sincerely glorious surprise.” She looked them each in the eye and added, “And no, I’m not talking about sex.” She lifted her glass. “I promise I’m not leaping off any cliffs, but I do plan to revel in this bit of unexpected bliss. Then I’ll get my head back on straight and do my best not to make unwise choices.”
“A sound plan,” Avery said. “Although I can share with you research that shows the effect pheromones play on using good judgment. It’s not promising.”
Hannah laughed. “I appreciate that, and frankly, I’m not surprised.” She raised her glass. “To getting blitzed on pheromones, a little wine, a sip of champagne, and a man who does things to a white T-shirt that . . .” She simply closed her eyes, ducked her chin, and lifted her glass a little higher. “Am I right?”
“Show-off,” Chey muttered.
“I knew it,” Avery whispered fervently.
“Go get him, honey,” Vivi said, clinking her glass to Hannah’s.
“To new paths taken, and new tests yet to be determined,” Hannah toasted. “Go me! And that’s all I’m saying about it.”
Chapter Fifteen
Hannah was ready to eat every one of those words not three days later. “See?” she told her reflection in her rearview mirror. “This is why you shouldn’t do impulsive things.” She realized she was checking her face and the stupid makeup she’d put on—again—in case she bumped into Will. The same Will she hadn’t heard a peep from since the day of the party. Seventy-two very long hours ago. Which, objectively, didn’t seem like a lot. They’d routinely gone longer than that between talking before they had . . . done whatever it was they’d done. She wasn’t sure what label to attach to it now. She knew Will hadn’t come over with that purpose in mind. At the very least, he’d have brought a condom with him if that was the case. Surely he hadn’t expected she’d have one handy. She truly didn’t believe that had been his plan anyway.
They’d exchanged their contact information before he left, had even laughed about how odd it was they had done what they’d done and then swapped phone numbers. Later that night when she’d climbed into the very bed where they’d done what they’d done, she’d thought back to how unexpectedly comfortable it had been. They’d been so open about it all, had even teased each other about it. The whole thing had felt healthy, natural, and very real. To her, anyway.
Hannah couldn’t say with any confidence how the evening might have ended if Jake hadn’t texted Will, asking where he was. They’d completely lost track of time, and Will was a half hour late for his and Jake’s predetermined pickup time at the winery. Hannah was late for the celebration, too, so they’d said their good-byes a bit more hurriedly than maybe she would have hoped and had parted on a laugh that they hadn’t managed to do the one thing he’d come by to figure out. He said he’d contact her soon and they’d pick a time and place for their “real date,” as he’d called it.
“Soon,” she muttered as she got out of the Jeep and went around back to get out her painting supplies and the canvas she’d begun at the music venue weeks ago now. She felt like an idiot for being so moony over a man at her age, pining away for him to call her or text her. She felt even more like an idiot for being all walk-on-air ridiculous after their little interlude in the first place, thinking it was the beginning of something potentially wonderful and how amazing it had been for them both.
Only clearly it had only been wonderful for her. Because, if it had been up to her to set that date, she’d have had a hard time waiting until the next morning to contact him, hear his voice, make plans. Obviously Will didn’t feel the same. Even if he’d worried about seeming overanxious, one day, maybe even two days, was being cautious. Three days felt like rejection, no matter how you looked at it.
Hannah had wanted to talk to Vivi about it, ask her advice, but that still hadn’t felt right. “And, be honest with yourself,” she said under her breath, “you’re not ready to admit to anyone just how big a fool you were ready to make out of yourself for him, after just one time together.”
She continued the silent castigation, a familiar routine that had evolved into its own pattern over the past several days. She could have talked to Chey, but Hannah knew what she would say. Chey would ask her why the hell she hadn’t just picked up the damn phone and called him. If Hannah wasn’t sure what was happening? Then just ask. And Chey would have had a point, Hannah admitted. She’d even picked up her phone several times the first day to do just that. Call, or send a text. Something casual, but showing she was thinking about him, looking forward to seeing him again. Only she’d dithered too long, and now it wouldn’t seem casual no matter what she said.
Instead, as day three had dawned, Hannah had packed up her paints and her canvas and had come out to the music venue, not because she was so enamored of her painting-in-progress that she was dying to continue with it . . . but because the musicians were rehearsing again today, and that probably included Jake. And where Jake was, his father would probably follow, at least at some point.
So, what better way to gauge the lay of the land than to casually bump into each other. She’d established her reason for being there before they’d had their little whatever it was—she refused to decide on a label now—and so it wouldn’t seem needy or stalkerish. “Even though it’s totally both of those things.”
Hannah had played endless rounds of the stupid “maybe he had a good reason” game. Jake had gotten sick. Will had gotten sick. Will had been swamped with work. But she knew if a person wanted to connect with someone, they would. A text took two seconds. She’d worried that maybe he’d jumped too soon, had had second thoughts; after all, he was still actively dealing with a lot of baggage from his past. That possibility was the winner most often, except they’d been honest with each other about not rushing. And she felt, at the very least, he’d have contacted her to say he was having second thoughts rather than leave her hanging, wondering what had gone wrong.
Whatever the case, this radio silence wasn’t sitting well with her. And she was just old-fashioned enough, traditional enough that she wanted him to reach out first. Not that she had anything against a woman reaching out, or asking for what she wanted, but in this case, he’d been the one who had asked her out. It was his date to set, not hers to chase. The ball, she’d decided, was firmly in his court.
“Hannah.”
She paused for the briefest of moments, then swallowed the disappointment that had sunk in a split second after the momentary rush of joy. She pasted a polite smile on her face as she turned. “Addie Pearl,” she said, “it’s a pleasure to see you. I’m sorry I haven’t been back to the mill this week. Since our event—well, you were there, you saw the turnout.” Hannah’s lips curved more naturally now. “I know I thanked you on Saturday, but I can’t tell you how much it meant to us that you helped spread the word. Many of our guests told us that they’d found out about our event at the mill. And not just the poster, but from your artisans talking us up. That was very, very kind.”
“They’re your artisans, too, now,” Addie reminded her happily. “We all benefit when we support each other. Like you all linking the event with Seth and Pippa’s new label.” She beamed, but her unusually colored eyes were keenly assessing Hannah. “It’s good neighbors and good business.”
Hannah laughed. “It is at that.”
Addie looked past her to the canvas she’d just lifted out of the back of the Jeep. “Nice work. You didn’t mention you also worked in oils.”
“I don’t really, which is why I’m not sure where I’m going with this.” She smiled as she shrugged. “But it’s good to try new things, right?”
“Actually,” Addie said, even as she nodded in agreement, “that’s why I interrupted you just now. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” Hannah said, her expression faltering a bit at the serious loo
k on Addie’s face. Hannah sat her wooden case of paints and the quilted roll that held her brushes down on the open tailgate of the Jeep. “What’s up?”
“Care to take a little walk?” Addie pointed toward one of the walking paths that led from the music venue to the mill. She handed Hannah an extra walking stick Hannah hadn’t realized she’d been carrying. “This is for you. A little present from me.”
Hannah took the stick and her mouth dropped open on a delighted gasp. Her gaze flew from the hand-carved stick to Addie. “This is stunning.” The stick was a stripped and polished tree branch—Hannah couldn’t have said from what kind of tree—and the end had been carved into intricate lavender stalks and blooms, each bloom beautifully hand painted. “One of the mill artists? I haven’t had the chance to meet them all yet.” She turned the stick around and looked at all the detail. “It’s gorgeous.”
“I saw it and thought of you.” She smiled. “You’d mentioned wanting to paint the view behind my place. I thought you’d like having your own walking stick for making the trip up and down the mountain.”
“This is so very thoughtful,” Hannah said. “I will treasure it. I do still want to come out and paint. I’m not sure when that will be, though. Things at the farm seemed to have picked up speed overnight with our renovations, and we’re starting in on making our inventory of products, but I would let you know first no matter.”
Addie Pearl shook her head. “No need. Just come on out and head on down. The only precaution I’d give you is that if it looks like rain, you might want to give it a pass. Getting back up that trail is a bear when it’s muddy.”
Hannah laughed. “Like it’s otherwise easy? I thought I was going to collapse pretty much every ten or twenty yards.”
“You get used to it,” was all Addie Pearl said. She nodded toward Hannah’s painting gear. “If you have extra supplies, please feel free to store them in the shed down by the sheep paddock, so you don’t have to haul them up and down.”
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