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My brothers and Emma can’t see what I’m doing. Which means I’m doing it for me. Us. Stevie and me. It’s an admission. A breach of contract.
A way of assuaging this awful tug in my gut.
Her lips part and for half a heartbeat I think she’s going to silently admit something too.
And she does, by shifting her body so my hand falls from her leg.
My heart falls too, and I find myself struggling to keep my expression from doing the same.
Chapter Fourteen
Stevie
Closing my eyes, I take in a lungful of air.
It’s cold, and it makes my chest burn. The clean, Christmas-y scent of pine fills my head as my feet crunch on the dead needles that litter the trail.
After Emma and Samuel shook my hand and informed me they’d be placing a “sizable order in the very near future,” I should’ve stayed at Stag Pavilion to celebrate.
I should’ve taken Beau up on his offer of coffee at The Barn Door Restaurant at the very least.
But I felt short of breath—like the organs inside my torso were too big to fit in there anymore, squeezing my airways—and so I excused myself, claiming I had a call with a distributor, and hightailed it out of there. I changed into some leggings and sneakers, and now here I am, alone on one of Blue Mountain Farm’s hiking trails. I had to get out, I guess. Get away from Hank and his house and his intensity.
My pulse pounds as I remember the vulnerable look in his eyes when he told me about his dad.
It pounds harder at the memory of his enthusiastic, uninhibited support during the tasting.
Pounds hardest when I think about how uninhibited that made me. I want to cringe. Did I really have to go into so much detail about my personal life? It was completely unnecessary, but I did it anyway, instigated by the warmth of Hank and his people.
They are really, really great people.
I stop beside an enormous pine and put my hand on the trunk, trying to catch my breath. I’m in good shape—best shape of my life, actually—so it’s not that.
This is something different.
Something that is truly scaring the shit out of me. An ache I can’t shake. Hank wants to set down roots. I want to grow wings. We’re after totally different things, which means it should be easy to keep my distance.
Only, it’s not. I don’t understand it. So I do what I always do when I can’t tell which way is up.
“Kate,” I breathe into the phone when she picks up. “Hey.”
“Don’t tell me you’re calling from bed. Because it sounds like you and that loverboy just went to pound town—”
“No. I mean, yes, we did that this morning, but right now I’m on a hike. Alone.” I glance at the flat trail in front of me. “A very steep, strenuous hike.”
“Uh-oh,” Kate says.
Pressing my palm into the tree’s scaly park, I drop my head. “Yeah. Kate, I think I’m in trouble.”
“Tell me everything. No, wait, give me a second so I can lock myself in the bathroom. Teddy!” She’s yelling. “Teddy, if that’s dog food, I swear to God—here, y’all watch some Cocomelon. Yes, Hannah, I’ll put on the frog song. Just give me a minute . . . hey, get your finger out of your sister’s nose. Did someone poop? I think I smell poop.” A few seconds later I hear a door close. Kate lets out a breath. “There. Sorry, my life is a nightmare and the only place I can be alone is on the toilet. Talk to me, honey.”
My heart dips. Honey. Am I going to think of Hank’s sexy, rumbly voice every time I hear that word now?
“He’s so great,” I begin. “Unexpectedly great.”
“Like, dick-wise? Personality-wise? Obscene wealth-wise?”
“All of the above.”
“Oh, jeez, you really are in trouble. But, like, the good kind of trouble.”
“No. Not good at all. You know how I feel about this stuff, Kate.” I dig my toe into the dirt. “I came up here to have fun.”
“And now you’re having great sex with a great guy at an incredible resort, which is making you catch a feeling or two.”
“Did I mention he’s wild for my beer and incredibly supportive of my career? He thinks what I do is the coolest thing.”
I hear the smile in her voice when she replies. “What a jerk.”
“He helps. Really, truly helps with stuff. Cooking. Coffee. Kids. He does it all without being asked.”
“Listen, Stevie, if you don’t want him, I’ll take him. Even though he is one hundred percent still a jerk.”
“I know, right? It’s the rudest thing ever, being so fucking excellent. He’s throwing me for a loop.”
“And that’s a bad thing because . . .?”
“Because.” I scoff. “Boo-hoo for me. Look, I get it. I’m not complaining. I’m just—”
