Page 125 of Keepsake
The truck was black and looked to me like every other truck on the road. Even so, I made all the right sounds of admiration. Zach had taken this risk because he wanted to be able to see me, and that was the sexiest thing in the world.
I opened the passenger-side door and climbed in, putting my box up on the dash. “Do you have to do a lot of work on it?” I asked after Zach climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Some. I got a great deal because it failed its emissions test, and the elderly man who drove it just didn’t want to bother with fixing it up. But if I do the repairs myself, it won’t be very expensive. I just can’t drive it until I can fix the hoses and tune up the engine. Are you cold?” he asked, rubbing his hands together. “It’s freezing in here.”
“A little.” I moved closer to him on the seat. “Let’s snuggle.”
“Twist my arm.” He pulled me closer to his body. “I love the idea of you being in Hanover. That’s about…thirty miles?”
“At least. But I could live in Norwich or somewhere on the Vermont side of the river. Lots of people commute into Hanover.”
Zach put a tender kiss on my temple. “Doesn’t matter. I’d drive all night to see you.”
Those words sent a happy little shimmy through me. “If we’re lucky, it won’t come to that. I’m going to write a really good application to this program. And the dean said they had a couple of part-time jobs opening up—organizing research data—stuff like that. I told him I’d love to consider that job even before they made their application decisions. I was an eager little beaver. Now open my present. I want to see if you like it.”
“Of course I’ll like it.” He took the box I handed him and loosened the ribbon. After unwrapping it, I watched him smile when he lifted the lid. “This is nice.” His fingers stroked the fabric of the shirt I’d bought him—it was flannel, but insulated with fleece. “And warm.”
“That was the point. Every morning when I wake up, I think of you out in the dairy barn in the cold. And I wonder if you are wearing the right clothes.”
Zach lifted the box and the shirt back onto the dash, then hugged me, burying his face in my hair. “Thank you.”
“I hope it fits.”
“It will,” he whispered, kissing my neck. “Thank you for thinking of me when you wake up in the morning.”
“Of course I’m thinking about you! I’m wishing you were there so I could rip off your clothes.”
He chuckled, his lips teasing my ear. “It’s more than that. I’m not used to anyone looking after me. I like it.”
I drew back and forced him to look me in the eye. “Somany people look after you. You have a big fan club, Zachariah Holtz. And I’m the president.”
“Sometimes I forget, though,” he mumbled. “People treat you like garbage for nineteen years, it takes a while to get past it.”
“I think you’re almost there.”
He kissed me. “Now open my present.” He fished something out of his coat pocket—a small box. “I went with Daphne and Ruth to a craft fair in Hanover, and I found something there that made me think of you.”
The little box was made of wood, with a single gold ribbon around it. I tugged the ribbon off gleefully. When it fell away, I lifted the lid.
Inside, a silver pendant and chain lay on a felted cushion. The pendant was an artist’s representation of an apple. In pure silver, the jeweler had captured the unmistakable curve of the fruit’s shape. But the form wasn’t symmetrical. Like a real apple—and God knows we’d both handled thousands of those—it was uneven, its stem bowed. Yet the metal had been burnished to a beautiful bright texture, and it glowed with an uncanny likeness to the real thing.
“An apple,” I whispered. “It’s perfect.”
“Itisn’tperfect,” Zach argued. “But I like that. The first day you were here, Griffin gave you his long speech about how the most bitter apples make the best cider. When I saw this, it reminded me of falling in love with you. A lot of bitter things happened to you this year, but without them we wouldn’t be sitting right here.”
I swallowed hard. “I get that now. Will you put it on me?”
He took the delicate chain from her fingers, but then hesitated. “There’s one more thing. I was chatting with the woman who made this, and she told me an interesting fact.”
“I’ll bet she did. That’s probably because you were the most interesting thing she saw all day.”
Zach teased open the tiny silver clasp. “Unfortunately, much of the world’s silver comes from Central and South America.”
“Ah,” I said, tilting my head to make his job easier. “I’ll always be dragging a big piece of Guatemala around with me, so what’s one more ounce?” When he was done fastening the chain, I lifted my head and kissed him. A real kiss—right on the mouth.
“Mmm,” he said with a growl. “Guess we can’t wait for midnight.”
“Nope,” I agreed, throwing a leg over his and leaning in. Even though it was cold out here in the truck, Zach and I had enough chemistry to heat the eastern seaboard. Tasting him slowly and thoroughly, I forgot about Christmas presents and New Year’s wishes. Kissing was suddenly all I cared to do.
