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Smoke grinned at him. “You should come up and see the place. I think you’ll like it. Summer Lake’s a good place to settle.”
Xander gave him a puzzled look, but Smoke just shrugged. “I’m just putting two and two together and maybe I’m coming up with seven, but the way I see it, you’re in no hurry to go back to Napa. From what I know of her, Tori won’t be either, and you guys are going to be looking for a place to settle, right?”
“Yeah, but…”
Smoke chuckled. “Give Alexandria some time before you write this place off, huh?”
Xander had to laugh with him. He glanced over at Tori. “I’d be prepared to do that, but it’ll be up to Tori.”
Smoke looked more serious. “Yeah, I get that. And I know it’s none of my business, but I might just have a chat with her.”
Xander didn’t say anything; he didn’t need to. If anyone knew about coming back from a strained relationship with their parents, Smoke did.
~ ~ ~
After Smoke and Laura had left, Tori wandered over to stand in front of the huge windows in the great room.
“I can see why Piper fell in love with this house,” she said. “I bet the view of the lake from here is amazing in the daylight.”
Xander came to stand behind her, slipping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on top of her head.
“It seems that everyone who comes here ends up falling in love with the place.”
She looked up at him over her shoulder. “It does, doesn’t it? I hope we’ll find somewhere as cool as this.”
“There’s no way that you’d want to stay here?”
She tensed. “Why?”
“I dunno. I was just wondering.”
She turned around to face him. “Would you like that? I know you and Smoke used to be close. I can see how it’d be nice for you to live in the same town he does.”
He shrugged. “I don’t even know the place. I couldn’t say. I guess all I was really doing was checking how you feel. There’s no point in me even considering it if you hate the idea.”
She bit down on her bottom lip. “I don’t know, Xander. I just can’t imagine it, you know? This is where my mom lives. I …” She shook her head slowly.
“Hey, come on. I didn’t mean to put a downer on things,” said Xander. “I was just wondering.” He pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “There’s no point even thinking about it yet. Let’s just treat this as another stop on our road trip. This is the stop where we get to visit your mom, deliver the truck to Clay – we should really call him in the morning – and we can explore, just like we have in the other places that we’ve been. We’ll probably find that we’re ready to move on in a couple of days.”
“Yeah. And we’re going to need to do something about getting a vehicle. We can call Clay about the truck tomorrow, but when we drop it off to him, we’re going to need to have something else to drive away in.”
“True. I said that I’d call Smoke tomorrow; I’ll ask him if we can rent a car from the airport until we find something to buy.”
She leaned her head back against his shoulder. “Do you think that you might like to stay here?”
He tightened his arms around her. “I told you, sprite. There’s no way I could know that yet, and it’s only a secondary consideration. There’s no point in me thinking about it if you can’t see yourself living in the same small town as your mom.”
She blew out a sigh. “Sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? All we can do is take things one step at a time like you said. The first step is meeting up with Mom and Russ tomorrow.”
“Are you looking forward to seeing her?”
She smiled. “I am. The last couple of times that I’ve spoken with her things have been different – she’s different. I mean, I knew that. At least, I’d heard it – everyone else says how much she’s changed. I’ve seen glimpses of it myself when we’ve been out here to visit her, but… I don’t know. She’s different. I’m different. I am looking forward to seeing her. I should keep an open mind. Maybe things will be different.” She let out a short laugh. “I’ve always felt like the odd one out – it always seemed like Bentley and Willow were closer to her because of the company, because their lives are all caught up in the wine world just like hers used to be. It’d be kind of funny if I ended up being the one who’s closest to her in the physical sense.”
“I think it’d be kind of cool. Not because I care about staying here in Summer Lake,” he added quickly. “I think it’d be cool for you if you felt that close to her that you wanted to live in the same place.”
“Yeah.” She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around that one. She’d always loved her mom but… She shook her head to clear it. “Like I said, I’ll keep an open mind. Right now, I’m starving. Let’s go and see what Smoke and Laura brought for us.”
After they’d eaten, they settled on the sofa, and Xander found a movie for them to watch. He wrapped his arm around her, and she snuggled against him with a happy sigh.
