“Right. Okay. When did you decide this?” He ran his fingers through his hair, working up more static that made more strands stick to his cheeks.
“This morning. Actually, like, just a few minutes ago, maybe? I’m not sure.” His mouth fell open. “Better close that before Mr. Chickadee builds a nest in there.” His jaw snapped shut, but his slate-toned eyes were wide. “To be honest, it was sometime today. Maybe when you bought me several kinds of pretzels with dipping sauces you had to run back to fetch. A few times.”
“No one really needs all fifteen varieties of dipping sauce.”
“Says you. Anyway, when you did that without complaint or even making that grumpy face that you think scares everyone but doesn’t, I knew I was falling in love with you. And that you were falling in love with me.”
“I what now?” His sleek eyebrows flew up his forehead.
“Who else but a man in love would be my personal pretzel purveyor?” I went to my toes again, this time to press a kiss to his cold lips before rolling back to my heels. His eyebrows knotted.
“Maybe a guy who wants to get into your pants?” He looked so smug. What a darling.
“But you’re already getting into my pants. No, I think it’s a case of love. What do they call it in the romance books?”
“Nonsense? I mean…no one falls in love in under a month.” He was saying it, but he didn’t appear to be one hundred percent behind his argument.
“Hush you. My grandma Lydia met her husband and fell madly in love with him the first time she laid eyes on him. They were married a week after they met. What is that called? Do not say it. Oh! Insta-love? I think that’s it. So cute, honestly. We insta-loved each other! OMG! Someone call Hallmark so they can make a movie of this!” I threw my arms wide. Mr. Chickadee took to wing. More snow fell, a brisk little wind blowing across the lake, picking up the flakes to twirl them around us like airborne diamond dust.
“But we’ve only known each other for a little over two weeks. You can’t fall in love with someone that quickly. Also, you’re a corporate raider and I’m a tree-hugging, beekeeping farmer. We do not get along.”
“You didn’t say that when I was tickling your prostate this morning. I think you cried out something about my dick being a gift from the gods.” I winked at him, and he blushed so deep red I could feel the heat from his cheeks a foot away. My heart fluttered. “See, you know I’m right. We do get along. I love your animals and they love me. Well, other than Millicent, who, I suspect, loves no one but herself. We like the same board games. We’re both children of Greek descendants. Do not say that you’re really not because I have never seen parents love a child more than your parents love you.”
“Yeah, they do. Fine, okay, so we do have some things that jibe.”
“We have lots of things that jibe.” I took a step closer, and the sounds of far-off cheering from another pretzel dunk in the pond floated past. I slipped my arms around his waist, burying my cold nose into his neck. Mm, the warmth of his skin and that rasp of whisker on whisker. Perfection. I let my eyes drift closed. His arms encircled my middle, his lips seeking out, then finding mine ready and willing. The kiss was everything. Soft, sweet, sexy. “See?” I whispered when we came up for air. “We jibe.”
His long lashes lifted slightly, giving him that sensual sleepy look that he wore so well in the morning.
“I’m going to need some time to process.” I lifted my hands to cradle his face. His gaze touched my face, moving slowly from eyes to lips to chin and back again. “I’m seriously confused about how I fell so fast and so deeply for someone who eats meat.”
“Well, I think I might be weaning myself off meat. I think I can live on pretzels, your mother’s vegan moussaka, and our love.”
That made him chuckle softly. He took a long, hot taste of my lips and then buried his face into my hair, his grip tightening as he drew in a shaky breath.
“I think you rescued me from a dark, dreary place where I’d been trapped for years,” he said, his words skimming over my cheek.
I pulled back to look at him. There was still pain in his gaze, but the ferocity of his loss now seemed to be less.
“And you rescued me from a life of trying to please someone who refuses to be pleased. Thank you for that. If I’d not come here, I’d still be carving bits of myself off on the daily. My father will never love me, not like he does Frank Jr. and that’s okay.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Okay, fine, it is not okay. It’s shitty and hateful. But that’s on him now. I’m breaking free and devoting my considerable skills to helping make Happy Laurel Farm thrive. First thing we need to do is revamp your website and then open up an adopt-a-farm-critter initiative. No, do not look at me like that. People in the big cities will give you so much money to virtually adopt a goat or pig or chicken.” I patted his chest. “Have faith. I know what I’m doing. Cassie would be so thrilled with what we do here. Oh! We can call it Cassie’s Critter Adoption Coalition. People love alliteration! I’ll get to work on the website as soon as I get back from Pittsburgh. I have so much to do! Is there a realtor in town? I’ll need a nice place. Oh, and lots of closet space, obviously. Something chic. I have to let the motel know that I’ll be back. I wonder if they do monthly rentals?”
“Or…you could stay with me. Until you find a place, that is. We get along okay. And Bitsy would miss you if you left now.”
“You sweet thing.” I squished his face between my hands. “I’d love to stay with you and Bitsy, and everyone else. And I promise I will not hog the bed and I will let you win atRiskthe next time we play it.”
“I’d love that.” He let his brow come to rest on mine. “I love you too.” The confession was softly whispered, quiet as a bird taking to wing or the gentle fall of snow from a pine bough. “Just give me time to adjust to all of this…Deckerness in my life. It’s been me alone for so long. And you’re…”
“A lot. I know. And you can have all the time in the world to adjust to me rooming with you. Can you kiss me again? Just a few dozen more times. For fortitude.” My phone rang, and I knew, I mean, I sensed on a cosmic level, that it was either Frank Jr. or my father. Both of whom I would face tomorrow. Or the day after. Or a week after. Sometime before summer. “Ugh, it’s them. They’re filling this amazing moment with bad vibes. Kiss me quick!”
He did. Gloriously so.
* * *
As I drovethrough the gates of my family estate two days later, I had this peculiar tickle in my belly. Not hunger. Gosh no. Mrs. Melios had stuffed me full during a family breakfast gathering at their restaurant in Miller’s Lake. So, the fizzy tingles in my stomach were not food related, unless it was reflux from eating so damn many Greek breakfast pitas. It was nerves. Some bad, of course, as I knew what awaited me inside the fortress of solitude and it was not Superman. Oh, how I wish it were.
While I was having bad nerves, there were also good nerves all tangled up with the worry. Acosta loved me. He did. As did his parents. They adored me. Mrs. Melios kissed me all over the face when we told them that we were an item and that I was going to move in with Acosta while I looked for a place in Miller’s Lake to call home. Mr. Melios wanted to give me a cigar. I declined politely right before his wife gave him the dickens for still having those things around when Dr. Sideris had told him to quit.
It had been tough leaving them all behind. But I had to. I had to face this as an adult and sever the poisonous cord that linked me to my family. Parking out front instead of inside the cavernous garage should have felt odd, but it didn’t. Guests parked out front. I’d always been an outsider. So sure, let’s keep the tradition going. Drawing in a long breath, I cut the engine, exited my car, and walked to the front door. Keys in hand, I slid the key into the lock. Or I tried. Several times. On the eighth go, it finally sank in that my father had changed the locks.
