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“Yes!” Alexa tugs me toward the large apple-filled wooden crates and helps me select two tote bags of Gala apples.
Hope will kill me if I enter the house with all these donuts, but I know the guys will appreciate them, so I drop them off at the clubhouse, only wrapping up a few to bring home.
“How was your day?” Hope calls out when we come in the front door.
“Aun-tee!!” Alexa races over, plowing into Hope’s legs.
Hope picks up my daughter and kisses her cheeks. “It seemed so quiet without you today.”
My heart swells at the easy, loving way Hope treats my daughter. Maybe it was silly, but once Grace arrived, I didn’t think Hope would still have as much time or patience for Alexa. While Hope and Rock certainly dote on their baby daughter, they never exclude mine.
Grace is snoozing in her bassinet, and Alexa’s careful to tiptoe over but not wake her little cousin.
“I stopped for donuts.” I hold up the small brown bag.
“Ugh.” Hope laughs. “You’re evil.” She slides her hands over her hips.
“I only brought half a dozen home. The rest are at the clubhouse.” I hold up the small white totes. “Brought apples, too.”
“Thank you.” She gives me a quick hug, but I hang on, squeezing her tight. I love Hope with the ferocity of a child who’d been abandoned by her mother. Ferocious and visceral laced with appreciation. I’ve never explained this to her. It would make her feel awkward. Besides, she wasn’t really like a mom to me. More like a worldly older sister. One I want to please and whose approval I crave.
“Everything okay?” She rubs her hand over my back a few times, and I finally let go.
Should I tell her about my trip to the cemetery?
Not that I think she won’t understand or will cut me with, “Gee, Heidi you’re still hung up on that?” I just can’t talk about it right now.
“How is your project progressing?” she asks, while I slip a donut out of the bag and set it on a napkin.
Alexa returns, and I place her in my lap, handing her a quarter of the donut. Scratchy little sprinkles of cinnamon-sugar stick to my fingers, and I quickly lick them clean, savoring the burst of sweetness.
“A mess. Dawn went to our professor to tell her Bryce isn’t doing his share. She’s worried we’ll need an extension now.”
“Shoot. What a jerk.”
“Yeah.” I stare at the piece of donut in my hand I’m quietly shredding to pieces. “We split up the work, so hopefully, we can get it done.”
“That sucks. You’re so close.”
“Tell me about it.” I shove a piece of sweet, cakey goodness in my mouth, and Hope sets a glass of milk in front of us.
“Well, I’ll be here tonight if you need to go back to campus.” She runs her hand over the top of Alexa’s head. Alexa tips her head back and blows a cinnamon-sugar laced kiss Hope’s way.
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” Alexa wiggles out of my lap and returns to Grace’s side. “She napped in the car a little bit.”
The front door opens, and I peek around the corner, jumping out of my chair when I see Blake. “What are you doing here?” I rush over into his waiting arms, and he drops a kiss on my forehead.
“Your brother ran some errands with me, so I had to drop him off up here. Thought I’d try to catch you before I go into Furious.” He waves his phone in front of my face. “Do you ever check your texts?”
“Damn. Sorry.” I pat my back pocket, not even sure where my phone is at the moment.
“Daddy!” Alexa sprints over, and Blake kneels down to catch her.
“How’re my girls?” Blake hoists Alexa up and wraps his free arm around me, embracing both of us. “So happy to see you,” he murmurs against my hair. “How’s your day been, beautiful?”
Depressing. Saying that will only invite more questions. Instead, I point to the bag of cider donuts on the counter. “Stopped by Picking Ladder Farms for donuts.”
His eyes widen. “They make them this time of year?”
“Yup.”
“Go anywhere else interesting?”
I freeze, afraid he’s asking because he already knows, but he’s rubbing noses with Alexa, making her giggle.
“I picked flowers,” Alexa says.
“Yeah? Where’d you do that?”
Oh, shit. My own daughter’s about to rat me out. “Dandelions in front of Dawn’s place,” I answer quickly. “Then we stopped by the petting zoo.”
“Blue bird!” Alexa waves her arms in the air.
“She wants a peacock,” I explain.
Blake snorts and sets Alexa down. “You can talk to Uncle Teller about adding a peacock to his mini-zoo. They’re messy and mean.”
Alexa scrunches up her nose at him before running over to her Aunt Hope to confirm this malicious lie about her new favorite bird.
Blake grabs a donut and catches up with Hope for a minute before looping his arm around my shoulder. “Walk out to the house with me?”
“Go on. We’re good,” Hope assures us, waving her hand toward the door.
“I’m almost worried Alexa’s going to be upset when we finally move out,” I say, once I close the door behind us.
“Nah. Not like she won’t be over here all the time.” Blake captures my hand, and we stroll over the familiar path to our almost-finished house.
I lean into him. “How has your day been?”
“Better now.”
“You and my brother didn’t have fun?”
He shrugs and leads me to the back of the house where we built a large wrap-around deck with a beautiful view of the mountains. He sits on the top step and pulls me down next to him. I close my eyes and take in a deep breath of forest mingled with new-construction air. “I can’t wait to move in.”
Blake’s quiet, and I slide my gaze his way. “Is everything all right?”
“Z nominated me for VP at church this morning.”
I blink and stare at him for a few seconds before throwing my arms around his neck. “Congratulations!”
He hugs me back but doesn’t seem as enthusiastic.
I pull away. “Wait. This means Z’s staying downstate, doesn’t it?”
Everyone pretty much knew that’s the way it would shake out. Even though I hadn’t voiced my opinion on the matter, I’d been hopeful Uncle Z would return upstate. Especially now that he was married to Lilly and they had a son. I hated thinking of Chance downstate with no other kids his age to play with. I need to call Lilly and set up a playdate for the kids.
“Looks that way.”
“Do you want to give up being Road Captain?” Blake’s good at his position in the club. As far as I’ve been told, he was the youngest road captain the club ever had, and it’s a job he takes pride in.
One corner of his mouth lifts. “Rock made it clear he expects me to say yes.”
“Really?” From my vantage point, Uncle Rock seems hands-off. He allows every brother to make his own decisions—even stupid ones sometimes. Then again, I’m not privy to what goes on when the brothers sit down for church behind the war room doors. “What about Marcel?”
“Your asshole brother seconded the motion,” he says with a wry twist to his lips.
Well, at least they weren’t in competition for the job. Nothing would upset me more. “Wow.”
“Yeah, he gave me a very passionate speech about why he thinks I’ll be good at it.”
Thank God my brother used his mouth for good for a change. “Rock needs someone smart and even-tempered who he can trust,” I say quietly, not sure Murphy’s really looking for my opinion or advice on club matters. “That’s probably why he wants you.”
He grunts and nods. “It’s a lot of responsibility. More…public mingling on behalf of the club.”
“Well, you’re good at that.” I chuckle. “You’re pretty much the face of Furious now.”
“
That point was brought up, too.”
“By Wrath?”
“Who else?”
“What’s really bothering you?”
“It’s stupid since he’s the one who nominated me,” he pauses, staring straight ahead, “but Z’s lost a lot because of this move downstate.” He vaguely gestures in the direction of the plot of land where Z had begun building his own home. “Taking his VP patch on top of everything else he’s lost feels like betraying him.”
Few people ever see this sensitive, thoughtful side of Blake. It’s one of many reasons I love him so much. Still, I choose my words carefully. “You’ve all been in the same roles for years. The shake-up came as a surprise. You’re loyal to your brother. Nothing stupid about that at all.”
“Yeah.” He flicks one of his boot laces back and forth for a few seconds. “Oh, I got you something.”
“Really?” Pleasure lights me up. It doesn’t matter what Blake hands me; I’ll love it because it’s a gift from him, and it means even with the bombshell nomination, he was thinking of me today.
He unzips one of his cargo pockets and pulls out a small hammer with a purple and green rubber grip.
“Oh, it’s so cute!” I take it, surprised by its weight, and give it a few experimental swings. “Feels well-balanced in my hand.”
“I thought so.” He bumps me with his shoulder. “My little hellcat always has my back.”
I lean into him and rest my head on his shoulder. “You know it.”
And simple as that, the ickiness of my day fades.
Six
Murphy
“You like it?” I jerk my chin at the hammer Heidi’s still bouncing against her palm.
“Yup.” She reaches out and taps the air in front of her. “Can’t wait to bop someone on the head with it.”
I rumble with laughter, loving the way Heidi always lights up everything around us. There isn’t a bad mood she can’t shake me out of. Building a fucking castle wouldn’t be enough to express how much I love her. “Excited our house is almost finished?”
“You have no idea. It seems like it’s taken forever.”
“Well, we had the setback with the foundation.” I point to the panels of glass above us. “And the window guys who took their sweet-ass time.”
