Page 70 of Hand Picked
With one day to go until my mom’s visit, the work on the house was almost done, from the new slate roof, to the updated kitchen, to the sturdy new front door under the repainted portico. Even Mother Nature seemed to have gotten on board, with forsythia shrubs blooming yellow along one whole side of the long driveway and crocuses poking their fat, purple heads out of the soil.
Today was bright and sunny, warm enough to convince me maybe Little Pippin Hollow was actually going to come out of its winter shell one of these days. Regardless, it was a great day for a final push, and the town had turned out en masse to make it happen.
Jones Bell was here with a crew finishing the exterior painting on the house, several of my students and their parents were here painting the fence around the sheep enclosure, while younger children ran around the patchy grass or petted my very tolerant sheep under Em Sunday’s close supervision.
Mary Duarte and daughter-in-law Chrissy were busy directing a crew on cleaning up and staging furniture pulled out of the attics and one of the barns, while I helped Drew set up long folding tables to hold all of the potluck dishes that seemed to be multiplying before my very eyes, ready to feed the hungry crew. Someone—I strongly suspected Jack—had even brought a portable speaker, and eighties rock streamed through the air, giving the afternoon a party vibe.
I was so incredibly thankful that so many people had been genuinely happy to pitch in and help me and that I’d hardly had to dip into the home improvement loan Ellie Walcott had fast-tracked in order to make it happen.
But it had been alongthree weeks, and God I was ready for this all to be done.
I was ready to have a little bit of peace and quiet in my life again.
And, I thought with a sigh as I watched Webb disappear through the front door carrying a bedside table, I wasreallyready to see my gorgeous, sexy betrothed up close and personal for more than ten minutes at a stretch.
“Luke! Thanks so much for having us!” A Hooker named Estelle kissed me on my cheek. “This is my husband, Ralph. He brought his drill, and I’m ready to clean. Tell me where to put these pies, and we’ll get to work!”
“Oh, wow.” Had she actually just thankedme? “Nice to meet you, Ralph. Thankyouso much for coming. Pies go anywhere you can find a spot. Drew’s got an organization system, I think, but he went to grab some—”
“Cider!” Drew finished, dragging a cooler across the grass. “It’s the batch from last fall. Just bottled it up a few weeks ago, so I thought I’d use you all as guinea pigs before I send some over to the Bugle. I’m calling itPippin’ Good.”
“Always happy to try your cider.” Ralph set down his drills and rubbed his hands together eagerly.
But when Drew pulled out the first bottle and uncapped it, he handed it to me. “You look like a man who could use a cool drink, Luke.”
I sipped the cold cider gratefully. “Wow. This is delicious. Grown and brewed in the Hollow,” I read off the label.
He nodded. “Folks love the hometown connection. See the logo of the apple tree over the well? Emma drew that.”
“I love it. Did you—?”
“Luke, which room gets the iron bedstead from the attic?” Hawk called from the front door.
“Second-floor front room, please,” I called back. He nodded and disappeared.
“Luke!” Aiden rushed up, dressed in his Nature Scout uniform and brandishing a length of rope, breathless with excitement and panic. “Can you help me with my constrictor knots?Please? My mom was s’posed to be here half an hour ago so she could help me practice before Scouts and she didn’t come yet, and I asked my dad and he said he would, but then Mr. Avery—not the actual Mr. Avery, but Mr. Avery’s son, who’s also Mr. Avery, you know?—almost dropped a table going up the stairs, and Dad yelled, ‘Holysugar, Anders, be careful or you’ll kill yourself!’ and Mr. Avery said, ‘Holysugar, Webb, you sound like your boyfriend,’ and are you and Dadboyfriends, like Uncle Knox and Uncle Gage, because Dad said the handfasting was all a misunderstanding, but I think he meant to sayshitanddidn’t, and do you stop swearing when you have a boyfriend, I wanna know?” he spewed without pausing for air.
“Whoa! Deep breath. How much chocolate have you eaten, kiddo?” I ran my free hand over his head. “Yes, I can practice knots with you, but—” I began.
At the same time, a deep voice said from right behind me, “Aiden Sunday. Language.”
My stomach flipped giddily.
“Dad!” Aiden beamed. “You came!”
“Told you I’d only be a minute, then I’d help you with your knots.” Webb came to stand beside me, and as he always did these days, as soon as I was within touching distance, he pulled my front against his side and let his big hand caress my hip, erasing every square inch of space between us.
He rested his chin on the top of my head, sucked in a big lungful of air, and made a little noise in my ear halfway between a grumble and a sigh.
So asIalways did these days, I sank into the firmly muscled, pine-and-clean-flannel-scented warmth of him and tried very hard not to pop wood.
He took the drink from my hand and studied the label. “Drew’s new batch of cider?”
His familiar voice made me shiver for reasons completely unrelated to the temperature outside. It was freaking addictive.
I nodded, and he took a sip, putting his mouth right over the spot where I’d drunk earlier. I repressed a lustful groan.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
