Lavender Blue

by Donna Kauffman

  Jake grinned. “That’s cool.” He paused. “And thanks. For saying that stuff.”

  “I mean that stuff,” Hannah told him, her smile affectionate and sincere.

  “Well, I hope that’s what I am,” Jake said. “And yeah, maybe we’d have been buds.” His smile was so endearing and sweet just then, it made Hannah’s eyes well up all over again.

  I wish you two could have met each other, she thought. She caught Jake looking and laughed as she sniffled. “Sometimes talking about him does this, too,” she said, pointing to her eyes. “But that’s okay. I’m not sad, not really. Just . . . missing him. And I think that’s normal. Like, it would be weird if I didn’t, right?”

  “Right,” Jake said, seeming relieved, and kind of surprised, as if that was a new way of looking at it, one he could work with.

  “I should probably let you paint,” Jake said, rubbing his palms on the legs of his shorts, perhaps belying just how nervous he’d truly been.

  Hannah uncurled herself and pushed to a stand. “I’m glad we talked,” she told him. “I’d wanted to. I just . . . didn’t know how.”

  “Me either,” he said, letting her see the relief on his face, “and I am, too.” He reached down and grabbed the jars. “I’ll go fill these up for you.”

  “Great, thanks.”

  Hannah happened to glance through the window set in the wall between the porch and the kitchen, and caught Will framed by it. She didn’t have to wonder how long he’d been standing there, or what he’d heard. The tear silently tracking down one cheek said it all. He brushed it away as Jake walked into the kitchen and she watched as Jake quickly did exactly the same thing. Father and son had a very manly exchange about nothing in particular; then Will left him to fill the jars and came out on the porch.

  Will didn’t say anything. He just walked up and pulled her into his arms for a long, solid hug. “Thank you,” he whispered roughly in her ear, and there was a world of emotion in those two words.

  “Thank your son,” she whispered back. “That’s one great kid you’ve got there.”

  She thought he’d been about to say more, but he let her go and stepped back as Jake left the kitchen juggling half a dozen half full baby jars pinned together with his fingers. Will slid open the porch door so Jake could carry them in, then he announced that the two of them were making a run to the hardware store in town, and would leave her to paint in peace.

  Hannah laughed and waved them off. But the moment she heard Will’s truck pull out of the driveway, she sank down on her stool, let out a long, tension-releasing, shuddering breath, then covered her face with her hands and indulged in a good, cleansing cry.

  Chapter Twenty

  Will had to yank the handle a bit because the wood had warped over the years, but eventually he dragged the thing open. He pulled on the string attached to the overhead bulb, not surprised when it snapped off in his hands, but a little surprised that when he reached up and grabbed the end of the pull chain, the dusty old workshop was instantly bathed in a pool of soft yellow light.

  He’d braced himself before walking out to the old building down at the bottom of their property. He wasn’t sure what its original intended purpose had been. It was bigger than a shed, smaller than a barn. A boathouse maybe. His grandfather had refurbished the ramshackle old thing and turned it into a really nice workshop long before Will had been born. Will had worked out there with him for many a summer, honing his own skills, until he could make an instrument as beautiful as his grandfather did. Will had gone on to set up makeshift workshops in every base housing location he and Zoey had called home, but none anywhere near so perfectly designed for making instruments as this old place.

  Will hadn’t been inside the workshop once in all the time since he’d come back to the Falls to live full time. He’d thought about clearing out the place and turning the old building into something more useful for his current life. He certainly didn’t plan on ever making another fiddle. But he’d never been able to bring himself to do it.

  He took in the musty interior, pleasantly surprised to find that rather than causing a stab of sadness and guilt, looking at the familiar bits and pieces instantly filled him with some of the best memories of his childhood. His smile grew as he ran his gaze over the special workbench his grandfather had designed and made specifically for building a fiddle from the ground up. Mack’s array of tools were neatly stored in wooden boxes with the labels that had been carved directly into the wood by his grandpa’s own hand. A few dozen of Mack’s favorites hung from hooks on the peg board that lined the wall above the shelves.

  “Will?”

  “In here,” he called out.

  Hannah stepped inside a moment later. “Wow,” she said. “This is amazing.” She stepped closer and he draped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her near.

  “Thanks for being willing to do this with me,” Will said. “I ended up deciding it was maybe better to come in on my own first.”

  “No, that’s fine. Whatever works for you.” She slid her arm around his waist and leaned into him as she took a slow look at the place.

  He liked that, the way she instinctively tucked herself in and relaxed against him. Zoey hadn’t been much of a snuggler, which had been fine with Will, too. This was just new to him. He wouldn’t have guessed that he’d like it; he’d never been much of a PDA kind of guy. Although, come to think of it, he’d been pretty much unable to stay out of Hannah’s personal space since he’d met her, no matter where they happened to be. Maybe that was just how he was with her. Whatever the case, feeling her soft curves pressed against him made him happy.

  “Your Grandpa Mack built all of this?”

  Will nodded. “Not all at once. He kept refining things as new design ideas came to him, but this is pretty much how it’s looked for as long as I can remember. I think his father had a hand in the original remodel, if I remember correctly. My great-grandfather was a carpenter and a wood-carver, so that would stand to reason.”

  Hannah slipped out from under Will’s arm and explored the room. “I can’t even imagine the set of skills you’d need to make something as intricate as a fiddle.” She glanced at him and grinned. “I had a hard time making Popsicle stick houses with Liam when he was in kindergarten.”

  “It’s maybe a little more complicated than that,” Will said with a laugh. “But it’s still one step at a time. Once you learn the procedure, it’s time-consuming, but not particularly hard. With experience you can put in new design ideas that are more challenging, that you’d need experience and a real feel for, but the basics stay the same.”

  She looked at the antique fiddles and several other stringed instruments, an old banjo, a mandolin, a few others, all mounted in various spots around the shop. “He was a collector?” she asked. “Or did he make these, too? They look too old for that, but I guess depending on his age—”

  “He never saw an instrument with strings he could keep his hands off,” Will said, sincere affection in his tone. “Especially in old antique shops and flea markets. I think half the reason my grandmother agreed to him choosing this house was so he could turn this old building into a workshop and keep his junk, as she called it, out of her nice, pretty house.”

  Hannah laughed. “I can understand that. Steve was pretty fastidious. He loved having my art hanging on the walls, and was properly appreciative of my skills, but he dreaded coming into my studio or getting a speck of paint on his clothes. He hated the old clothes I wore when I painted.” She grinned at Will. “I will admit to being small enough that I kept several of his best shirts after I found out he’d been cheating on me. I used them as painting smocks for years.”

  Will nodded. “Sounds more than fair to me. I’d have probably doused them in turpentine and set his whole wardrobe on fire.”

  Hannah laughed. “I might have considered that, too,” she said, then continued her exploration, careful not to touch anything, but taking her time as she looked in all the nooks and crannies, o
f which there were many.

  Will turned the other way to look around the room so Hannah wouldn’t see his expression. It was ridiculous to feel so protective of her. She could certainly take care of herself and had, through some incredibly daunting times. In fact, he should probably be thanking the asshole ex for not realizing what a treasure he had, so she’d wound up right here, right now, with him. But he’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t have enjoyed taking good old Steve out to the shed, and not to show him his antiques. Will couldn’t even wrap his head around what it would have felt like to find out Zoey had been unfaithful to him.

  All that said, he was grateful she felt comfortable enough to talk about her life with him now. He’d overheard her comments to Jake about her family, her parents, her upbringing. They’d both shared numerous stories now of their childhood and formative years. She’d encouraged him to share stories of his time in the military, his life with Zoey, having Jacob, and in turn, she’d shared stories of her life, too. Some were hard, some were easy, many of them had them both laughing. Above all, those stories were all part and parcel of who they were now, and the more he knew, the more he appreciated her. She’d often said the same.

  Will had been the one to bring up the fiddle. Hannah knew it was a tough subject for him, and he knew Addie had told her why. She never poked, never prodded—neither of them did. But as they revealed more of themselves to each other, he’d found he wanted to talk about it. So many other barriers were crumbling, and he’d found the process freeing rather than inhibiting, or worse, guilt producing. The example Hannah had set of how she’d handled her loss, her grief, had shown him the path out of his own muddled thinking.

  Hannah came to the harp in the corner and let out a little gasp. “Oh, Will, look at this.” She walked around it. It was pretty banged up and the strings were mostly broken, but the grand scope of the design was undeniably beautiful. “She’s seen some hard times but look how magnificent she is. I can see why your grandfather had to have her, despite her condition.”

  Will nodded, but chuckled. “All of the antiques in here looked like that or worse. Mack had something of a hobby restoring old instruments. He always claimed he’d sell them and use the money to buy supplies for his fiddle making, but it was rare that he parted with one.” Will laughed and gestured at the walls. “Clearly.”

  Hannah’s mouth dropped open and she looked once more around the room. “So they looked as bad as this once upon a time?” she asked, gesturing at the harp. “Wow.”

  “That bad and worse. He said restoring them taught him almost everything he needed to know about making his own instruments. Craftsmanship skills that had otherwise been lost over time, and I think he definitely had a point.”

  She walked around the space again, looking at the instruments. “That’s amazing. They’re all beautiful.” She turned to him. “You were so fortunate that he took the time to pass all those skills down to you.” She looked back at the walls, at the instruments hung there. “They might have been lost forever, otherwise.”

  Will nodded even as guilt plinked at him. He’d earned it. “He took care to restore them but not refurbish them, so what you see is exactly how they looked when they were made, with original materials only. It would take him years sometimes, to find the right pieces or parts to finish them. He spent most of his spare time prowling antique shops, auctions.” Will grinned. “My grandmother wasn’t much for any of that. She abhorred dust. But my mom, she loved it. Like a fish to water. So my grandpa would take her off with him on big adventures on the weekends, give my grandmother a break.”

  Hannah turned to look at him, delight on her face. “How lovely. Did your mother play? Or join him restoring or building the instruments?”

  Will chuckled again and shook his head. “No, she just became a champion shopper.”

  Hannah laughed. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “She did learn to have a good eye for antiques. She hunted antique shops in every state, every country we lived in. We never had much room, so she shopped a lot more than she bought, but the hunt made her happy. Every once in a while, she’d discover a piece she just couldn’t pass up and she’d have it shipped home. Most of the furniture in the house were pieces she found on our many travels. Some of them in good condition, others my grandfather restored for her. I think it was one way they stayed close to each other, sharing that, despite her living the vagabond military life.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Hannah said, then turned to look again at the various pieces. “I love everything about that.”

  And I love everything about you.

  Will turned away and walked over to the workbench before she could see that expression, either. It was too soon. Way too soon. They were still all hopped up on pheromones and spent half their time with their hands all over each other like teenagers discovering sex for the first time. Only with a very adult knowledge about how things actually worked and happy to put it into practice again. It was lust, more than love. It had to be.

  But every time she smiled, every time she laughed, the words were right there. Slow your roll, he schooled himself. There will be plenty of time for declarations.

  He tried to push off his other niggling worry, certain he was making something out of nothing. He wanted to talk to her about it, as they did about everything else under the sun, but he hadn’t been able to find the right time, or the right words. She’d been so wonderful with Jake, the day he’d first asked Hannah about her son. She’d said all the right things, straight from the heart, leaving him no doubt she’d meant every word. Any last reservations he might have had about this giant step forward he’d taken had vanished that day. He was all in. And he was pretty sure he’d look back later and know for certain that was the moment he realized he loved her. Pheromones and lust be damned.

  But, since that day, they hadn’t spent much time together as a trio. When he’d come back that afternoon, she’d already packed up and gone, leaving a note that she’d been needed at the farm. They’d talked several times about her coming back to paint, but it had never been the right time. She had only been out to his place once since then, for dinner, but Jake had been staying up at Seth and Pippa’s that night, because they were in a crucial stage with Jake’s latest batch of grape juice. Will had been hoping, now that they had Jake’s blessing, to start moving toward doing things together, the three of them. Not always, of course, but some of the time, at least. Will wasn’t sure how else things were going to work.

  Hannah truly liked Jake—that he knew. She still spent time with him. Happily, so it would appear. Her affection was honest and pure and right out there on display, clear for anyone to see. Will knew, and was sure Jake did, too, that Hannah would never do or say anything to hurt him, or challenge his rightful place as Will’s number one concern. She’d even said as much, to Jake and to him. Will couldn’t ask for more than that.

  If she hadn’t been so obviously okay with spending time with Jake, Will would have immediately assumed that as the three of them grew closer, she’d found it harder than she’d anticipated to be around a child who was the same age as her son would have been. But that definitely didn’t seem to be it.

  He’d started to think that maybe it wasn’t Jake, per se, but the whole vibe of their doing things as a threesome, like a family would, that was hard for her. That would be understandable, but he sincerely hoped that wasn’t the problem, either, since he came to their relationship as a family unit.

  But if not that, then what? And where did that leave them?

  He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around. She slid into his arms and right up against him as if she’d been doing it for years. And to use one of her favorite phrases, he loved everything about it. She tipped up on her toes to kiss him, smiled, then kissed him again, her gray eyes shining. And he loved everything about that, too.

  Surely there had to be a way to make all the pieces of his life fit with all the remaining pieces of hers.

  Chapter Twenty-
One

  “I cannot believe you let Bailey talk you into boarding goats out here.” Hannah scattered another pitchfork full of hay around the cleaned out, previously unused stall, then laughed. “What am I saying? Of course I can believe it. Bailey Sutton could talk a shepherd out of his sheep.”

  Chey grinned. “She’s a girl after my own heart. Sees what she wants, gets it done. I like her.”

  “I know. It’s impossible not to. But will those little guys really be able to get through that brush? It’s acres of thick, twisted vines with thorns the size of ice picks.”

  “I’ve done some reading on it and it sure seems to be the case. I’ve never worked with the wee beasties myself, but there are whole businesses now dedicated to using goats to clear overgrown property. If it’s green and it grows, they can eat their way through it.”

  Hannah shook her head. “Amazing.”

  “Beats paying someone to bush hog it, then someone else to come back and reseed it.” She shrugged. “I’ve got the time and I’m willing to give it a go.”

  Hannah shook her head. “The things I’m learning, living in the mountains.”

  “Me too,” Chey said with a laugh.

  They worked in silence for a bit, with Hannah prepping the unused stalls they were dedicating to the goat crew, while Chey cleaned out the tack room and reorganized the gear she’d never gotten around to unpacking.

  “So, you and Mr. Stonemason seemed to have gotten pretty tight pretty quickly.” Chey laid a saddle pad over the stall door, then walked back over to the tack she was getting ready to clean. “How’s that working out?”

  Hannah had come out to get another forkful of straw but propped the pitchfork against the bale instead and leaned on the handle. Chey didn’t often pry, so Hannah was admittedly curious where this was coming from. “Well,” she said, “it’s funny, because in some ways I can’t quite believe I’m truly in a relationship with someone. But then when I’m with him, honestly, it feels like we’ve been friends a very long time. It’s . . . comforting.”