AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her gaze drifted to my lips before she captured them with hers. Her lips were soft, warm, and tasted of spicy rum. I moaned quietly in the back of my throat. She felt so good against me, and I wanted to stay on the couch all night kissing her. She was a siren and I had fallen for her song—hook, line, and sinker. I slipped my hand up her cheek and rubbed my thumb across her temple, until the kiss ended naturally, and her lips fell away from mine.
“Why do your lips call to mine every time we’re together?” she asked, her forehead resting on mine. “I’d say it’s because I’m drunk, but the truth is, it happens just as often when I’m sober. What is this pull between us, Lance?”
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully, “but you’re not imagining it. I feel it too. Other people see it and wonder the same.”
“Other people?”
“Ivy. Mason. Mel. Mrs. Violet.”
She giggled and it was by far the greatest sound I’d heard today. “Mrs. Violet? I bet I’ll get a talking to tomorrow.”
“I’m sure you will. If you hear, ‘why, hello, dear,’” I said in my almost perfected Mrs. Violet voice, “you’d better divert.”
This time she giggled until she was leaning back on the couch, her hand to her belly while her shoulders shook. “You’re so right! She always says that right before she launches into her matchmaking ways.” Indie was still giggling and the smile I wore was probably dopey and extremely uncool, but I didn’t care. She was everything right now. When her giggles ended, she stood. “I don’t think I’ll divert, though. Maybe, just maybe, Mrs. Violet can clear a few things up for me. In the meantime, let’s do something else.”
She took my hand and dragged me toward the kitchen.
“Something else? You may have had too much to drink to do something else,” I said with air quotes.
“I’m not too drunk to bake, Lance Garland, so chip chop. It’s time to decide what the annual Michelle Garland cookie is going to be this year for Heather’s cookie walk.”
“Gumdrop,” I said, drawing out her name slowly. “I think it’s time we let that tradition die with Mom.”
Her finger was in my chest before I finished the word, and her eyes filled with fury. “We’ll do no such thing! Since you said that, not only will we be deciding on a cookie, but we’ll be making it for the cookie walkandfor the annual hospital bazaar.”
I glanced down at her finger before I met her gaze and lifted a brow. “Gumdrop has plans.”
“Damn skippy,” she said, turning on her heel and nearly toppling over until I grabbed her arm and set her straight again. She toddled to the fridge and started pulling out baking supplies.
Part of me wanted to turn around and forget about the annual Michelle Garland Christmas cookie, but I stayed because the biggest part of me wanted to spend every second it could with Indigo before she left me.
I absently spun the scrubber around in the pot a few times and then rinsed it under the hot water. Some of the pots were too big to go in the dishwasher, and this was one of them. It was big enough for a small child to take a bath in. Mason and Lance had to lift it together to move it to the plating station. The annual Bells Pass Thanksgiving dinner had gone off without a hitch and all the kids were currently listening to a story, getting their haircut by Addie or Heather, or asleep in their parents’ arms after eating all the fabulous food served up this afternoon. I was so busy I didn’t even have time to eat, which was a bummer, but it was still worth all the work to see the happiness on the faces of all my friends.
“Well, hello, dear,” Mrs. Violet said from behind me, and I bit my lip to keep from laughing. I’d never hear her say that again without thinking about Lance’s imitation of her last night. I set the giant pot I was washing in the dish drainer, and dried my hands on my apron as I turned to face her.
“Hi, Mrs. Violet,” I said with a smile. “You put on a lovely dinner as always.”
She brushed her hand at me and huffed. “Please. At this point, all I do is organize the donations and show up here. I’m getting too old to do much more.”
My hand went to my hip, and I raised a brow. “Nice try, Mrs. Violet. I saw you with an apron on and a ladle in hand at the gravy station.”
She patted her hair and straightened her shirt over her ample hips. “Well, sure, I still help out a bit here and there, but not like you did this year. You baked all the pies, served the dinner, and did all the dishes. Come on over and visit with me. I saved you a plate.”
I put my hand to my heart and smiled. “Thank you. I was just lamenting how I didn’t even grab a plate today.”
“I see more than you think, little girl,” she said with a wink, leading me to the giant baker’s bench in the middle of the kitchen. She moved over a stool and motioned for me to sit, then pulled a plate from the oven and set it in front of me.
The scents wafting from the plate were delightful and I grabbed a fork and dug into the turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes. Ivy showed up with a piece of pie and a cup of coffee while Mel brought over a plate with dinner rolls and butter. They all sat around the bench with a cup of coffee and chatted about the dinner, the kids, and the plans for tomorrow’s tree lighting. I ignored them all while I ate, my gaze drifting to Lance who was helping Mason with the turkey carcasses. Every year they stripped the leftover meat off the bones and boiled all the carcasses down for broth. Then Mason made homemade turkey soup for the soup kitchen. He enlisted help from the schools Family and Consumer Education kids, and they served a wonderful dinner to anyone who needed a hot meal. Very few people know Mason does it, which he likes, but I think it’s great not to let anything go to waste.
Lance smiled and winked at me as he lifted another turkey onto the table. He never took his eyes off me the entire time he worked and while it should have been disconcerting, it wasn’t. His smile warmed me more than the hot food in my belly, and the way his gaze raked me made me feel like a queen rather than the hot mess that I was. My hair was in a messy bun at the top of my head and was covered with a hairnet, and I wore a gravy-stained apron and jeans. I discreetly pulled the hairnet from my head and stuck it in the apron pocket.
“Your mom came around looking for you at the diner yesterday,” Ivy said nonchalantly. “I told her you weren’t working.”
“I appreciate it,” I said, stabbing a piece of turkey and jamming it in my mouth. I couldn’t talk if my mouth was full of food.
“She’s going to find out that you work at the bakery eventually. You know that, right?” Mel asked as she shifted Noel to her hip so she could sit down. He was getting so big now that he was over a year old. It was fun to watch the babies grow up and to see their personalities developing into sweet little people.
“When she does, she does,” I answered, pushing the plate away and taking a drink of the coffee. It was strong and hot. The two things I needed to get through this conversation.
