“Thank you,” she says as she climbs in the back. “I’m going to kill Cam.”
“Where’d she go?” Ford asks.
Sienna just rolls her eyes in response. “Thanks for coming to get me, Ellie,” she says. “It’s nice to officially meet you. Cam has said you’re a pretzel in the yoga studio.”
“Things I’d like to know,” Ford murmurs before Sienna shoots him a look.
Ignoring him, I pull back onto the road. “I’ve only practiced for a couple of years now. I’m not nearly as good as your sister.”
“I think she’s getting lots of practice in contortion these days,” Sienna laughs, watching Ford for a reaction. He glares at her.
I have no idea what I’m missing, but I laugh too. “Sounds like she’s getting a workout.”
“Trust me when I say if you saw the apparatus, you’d be wishing—”
Ford silences her with one pointed look.
“Sorry,” Sienna grins, slipping back into the seat. “Oh! Take a right here!”
I do as instructed, and in a few minutes, we are sitting outside a cute little white house with black shutters.
“Who lives here?” Ford asks.
“A friend of mine,” she says, leaning up and kissing him on the cheek. “No worries.”
“Should I accompany you to the door?”
This time it’s her that silences him with a look.
“Fine. Behave yourself,” he mutters. “And if you don’t hear from Cam, call me.”
“She’s fine. No, she’s more than fine,” Sienna laughs, ignoring the look from her brother. “Thanks again for coming to get me, Ellie. I really appreciate it.”
“It was nice meeting you,” I reply.
“Same here.”
With a final bright smile, she’s up the stairs of the little house. I pull away before Ford can try to catch a glimpse of the person inside. This frustrates him, but he doesn’t mention it.
“Did you hear that?” he groans, stretching his legs out in the small space in front of him.
“No. What are you talking about?”
“My stomach just rumbled.”
“Poor thing.” I swerve through traffic and hit my next turn-off.
“Definitely poor thing. You should feed me.”
Scoffing, I glance over my shoulder. “That’s no way to ask a girl on a date.”
“I wasn’t asking you on a date.”
“You weren’t?”
“Nope,” he says, the last consonant exaggerated. “You’d say no.”
“Probably,” I grin.
“So I was not asking you on a date,” he goes over again, “but I was suggesting we share a non-date meal with each other.”
“So you were breaking the date ice with a drive-thru meal?”
“Exactly,” he chuckles. “Let’s get a hamburger.”
Before I can respond, he’s digging in his pocket and pulling out his phone. “Fucking Graham.”
“What?”
He sticks out his bottom lip. “He’s on his way to get me.”
My giggle drifts through the car, a lightness in my soul that I want to grab on to and hold forever. “You sound like a child.”
“That’s what Graham said.”
“We both couldn’t be wrong.”
I turn left, heading back to Halcyon and away from the fast-food chains dotting the right side of the road.
“I guess we’re going to have to go on that date after all,” he says easily, like it’s the default answer.
“Or not.”
“Come on, Ellie,” he says in a faux-whine. “I’ve already had my fingers—”
“Stop!”
“Fine, fine,” he sighs. “Just go to dinner with me tonight. Let me have a moment to swoon you.”
“Swoon me?” My face is lit up with a smile so wide it makes my cheeks ache. “You want to swoon me?”
“I want to do more than that, but I’ll settle for a good swoon first.”
Pulling my car in behind a jet-black SUV, I flick off the ignition. “I can’t.”
“Don’t give me that.”
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I have plans tonight.”
“Come on!” A dark-headed version of Ford shouts from the window of the SUV.
“Fucker.” Ford climbs out the passenger’s side door. He sticks his head back in and makes one final attempt at winning me over. “I’ll take you anywhere you want. Fancy dinner? Picnic? Milkshakes and French fries? You name it and I’ll make it happen.”
“I really can’t, Ford.”
His face falls. “Okay. I’ll try harder.”
“Ford—”
“See ya later, beautiful.”
He jogs to the car in front of us, climbs in, and they take off down the road, leaving me swooning behind.
Ellie
THE EVENING AIR IS THICK and warm. Beads of sweat form along my forehead as soon as I exit the car. Scents of freshly hewn wood, oil, and the stench of cement permeate the air as I walk to the construction site.
“Hey, Ellie!” Bernie, the site superintendent, greets me with a wide smile. “I was wondering if you were coming tonight.”
“I had a few things creep up at Halcyon. Sorry I’m late.”
“Don’t apologize! We’re glad you came.” He walks by my side as we head into the little trailer they use for an office. “How’s the shop going? You about ready to open?”
“We’re getting there. It’s so much work.”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
“Thanks,” I grin. “Where do you need me tonight?”
“We’re actually clearing a little area on the north side of what is going to be the house pad.”
“Oh, Bernie. Don’t use words like north to give me directions. You know better than that.”
He laughs heartily. “I’m sorry. Head to the pad and walk around it. You’ll see some people dragging out the final trees and big stones, things like that.”
“Great. I’ll head that way.”
I check-in on the clipboard, find my hardhat, and head back out onto the site. Out of all the charities I love, this is one of the closest to my heart.
When I was a little girl, our house burned down. I must’ve been five or six at the time. I remember watching orange and blue flames screaming out of our roof, windows, and where the front door used to be. I didn’t worry about my clothes or baby dolls or teddy bears. I remember being terrified about where we would live.
Shelters for Savannah is one of the reasons why my family wasn’t homeless. Through their generosity, we had a warm, safe place to regroup and because of their extraordinary kindness, we were able to rebuild. That house, constructed with so much love, sweat, and tears, is the home my father still lives in to this day.
Rounding the corner, I see the team of volunteers clearing an area just like Bernie said.
“Hey, everyone!” I say, pulling my gloves from my pocket. “Where do I start?”
They all say hello as Wendy comes forward and asks me to fill a wheelbarrow with debris and haul it to the waste bin.
I get to work, picking up rocks, trash, and debris and loading them into the cart. My boots sink a little in the soil. My heart, on the other hand, is lighter than air.
I haven’t felt this happy in such a long time. Although a part of me wishes I had gone to dinner with Ford, a bigger part of me feels so much joy being here. Giving back. Repaying the favor we were shown.
“You never fail to amaze me,” Wendy says.
“And why is that?”
“We don’t see a lot of girls your age out here getting dirty.”
“Ah, I guess it’s in my genes,” I shrug. “I was never much of a girly-girl.”
“That’s good for us, I guess.”
With a spring in my step, I take the full wheelbarrow and begin pushing it across the ground. The weight of it causes it to sink into the earth and it makes it super hard to get to the trash. Volunteers whiz by me like a beehive, every
one doing their part for the greater good.
I pull up to the garbage and begin transferring my haul. Twisting to grab a metal can that fell off the side, my hand pauses in the air.
A tall, lanky figure is on the other side of the site. He’s shoveling a pile of gravel into a trench.
Forgetting all about the can, I stand and watch him. He’s dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and has a purple t-shirt on with ARROWS emblazoned on the front. A white hat is pulled low on his head.
His body moves in long, graceful strokes. Even from afar, I can see his muscles under the sheen of sweat soaking through the back of his shirt.
It’s sexy as hell.
And it’s Ford.
I laugh in disbelief. He’s here. Here. At a Shelters site on a random day for a random family in a random neighborhood. Why?
“Hey, Wendy,” I call out as she pulls a tree beside me. “Is he here often?”
“Who, honey?”
“Him.” I point to Ford. “Is he here a lot? I haven’t seen him before.”
Her head cocks to the side as a smile takes over her full lips. “He’s never been to this one particularly, to my knowledge. I worked with him a couple of times on the south side of town over the last year or so.” She quirks a brow. “You know who that is, don’t you? He’s a Landry.”
“I know,” I whisper, watching him work.
“You don’t see that much—a man like that out here with the rest of us. Gives us some hope for humanity, huh?”
“It sure does.”
Wendy goes about her task and leaves me standing with my wheelbarrow.
A shovelful of rocks falls off the end of Ford’s tool, and as if he feels my eyes on him, his head slowly rises to mine. It takes no time at all for our gazes to lock. Like a band is pulling us together, we both walk towards one another.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as we meet in the middle.
“Same thing as you, I guess.” He takes his gloves off. One hand comes to the side of my face and he brushes it gently. “Every time I find you in the wild, you have something on your face. The first time I saw you, you had mud everywhere too. Remember that?”
“Yes. I almost feel into the lake that day.”
“If that shirt would’ve been wet when I found you . . .” He wiggles his brows. “We are both probably better off you just always have dirt on your face.”
“Maybe it’s always there so you have to touch me.”
“I don’t need a reason to touch you, sweetheart.”
We exchange a soft grin, like there’s a secret between us.
“If you would’ve told me you were coming here, I would’ve brought us a picnic,” he chuckles. “We could’ve done this and then had dinner. I’m easy, you know.”
“That’s what I hear,” I joke. “Do you do this often?”
“Yeah,” he confesses with a slight shrug. “Sometimes. A girl I knew once upon a time went on a rant about how you should get your hands dirty and all this nonsense.”
“Did she?”
“She did. She was a smart one.” His eyes darken. “And so fucking beautiful . . . even with dirt on her face and paint still stuck in her hair.”
“There is not,” I giggle.
“Oh, there is,” he laughs. “But it brings back such great memories I think you should just leave it there permanently.”
I kick a rock, watching it roll across the soil. Forcing a swallow, I try to untangle the thoughts twisting together in my mind before I do something stupid.
Unfortunately, it’s one of those moments when my libido works faster than logic and I hear the words from my lips before my brain knows what’s happening.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
“What?”
“That was my stomach rumbling.”
A cheek-to-cheek smile spreads across his handsome face. “I did hear that, actually. You should let me fix it after we’re done here.”
With a flutter in my chest, I return his smile. “I’d like that.”
Ford
MY FOOT IS HEAVY ON the accelerator, in part because I’m worried I fucked up.
I should have never let her out of my sight.
In my twenty-eight years of life, I’ve never once feared being stood up. Not even with Brittany Belview, the hottest girl in the tenth grade. But tonight? I’m kind of terrified.
My truck rolls to a stop in front of her house. It’s a small brick one-story with neatly trimmed hedges along the front. The steps leading to the porch need painted and I find myself calculating if I have time this weekend to accomplish that task.
“Slow down,” I mutter as I head to the front door.
Glancing down at my clothes before ringing the bell, I smooth out an imaginary wrinkle from my shirt. I had no idea whether to dress up or down because we really didn’t hash that out. In lieu of any direction, I threw on a pair of khakis and a blue button-down. Figuring it didn’t look like I expected too much, yet made an effort, I left the house with a bit of confidence I can’t quite find just now as I press the doorbell.
The door swings open and I let out a sigh of relief. She’s dressed in a pair of leggings and a red top that showcases every curve on her body. Her hair is still wet from the shower, her face free of any makeup.
I must be staring because her face flushes. “I know I look like a mess, but—”
“I was just standing here thinking you’ve never looked more beautiful.”
She looks at the floor. “Thank you, Ford.”
“You need to thank your mama.” I step over the threshold and take in her abode.
The walls are white, the floors a honey-colored hardwood. There are pictures everywhere and little accent pieces in blues and golds. It reminds me a lot of my own house, but with an Ellie flair.
“I like your place,” I comment as she shuts the door behind me.
“I looked around the city forever to find a place that I felt like I could call home. I thought my realtor was going to quit. Luckily this came on the market and I fell in love.”
“It took me forever to find mine too. I had this list of things I wanted and my realtor said I was too picky,” I chuckle.
“What did you want in a home?”
We sit on a sofa covered in pillows beneath a window. She tucks her legs up beneath her like she did when we were kids. It makes me smile.
“I wanted to be out of city limits. That was the first thing,” I tell her.
“That doesn’t surprise me. You’ve always been a country boy.”
“I couldn’t stand living with neighbors this close. I need my privacy. I also wanted a big space for a yard, not just trees and shrubs. I want a place to run and let Trigger out to play.”
“Who is Trigger?”
“My baby,” I tease. “She’s my yellow lab and she’s insanely jealous of you.”
Her eyes grow wide. “Of me?”
“She knows her place as the love of my life is being threatened.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “Well-played. For the record, I don’t particularly love being in town either. But this place is close to Dad and close to Halcyon and close to Violet. So it makes sense.”
“It’s not close to me.”
“I don’t know where you live,” she says sweetly.
“We’ll have to fix that soon.”
We share a quiet pause, something moving between us that neither of us wants to break. I reach for her hand and she lets me take it. Our fingers laced together, her delicate palm nestled in mine, I set them on my thigh.
“Was coming back to Savannah an easy choice for you?” she asks.
“At the end of the day, yes,” I say. “My family is here and I like living close to them and working with them on a daily basis. I can appreciate that now. There’s something really organic and fulfilling about that.”
“It’s amazing how well you all get along. I mean, out of six of you, no one hates anyone. That’s impressive.”
Nodding, I
think through all my siblings and realize she’s right. “None of us feels any bad way about anyone else, I don’t think. Whatever one of us does, we know the others have their back. Actually,” I say, giving her hand a squeeze, “Barrett called me today. His party has been talking about him running for the Presidency in a few years.”
“That’s amazing,” she grins.
“It is. It feels like the last election just ended, but I guess things work fast in politics.”
“That’s what they say,” she shrugs.
“But to your point earlier, he was asking if he were to run, would I join his security team.”
Something about that catches her off guard. “Really? What would that entail?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I guess that’s something we’ll have to wait and see if it comes to fruition.”
There’s a slightly awkward silence that’s capped off by her slipping her hand away from mine.
“What about you?” I ask. “What’s the future hold for you?”
“I don’t know either,” she contends. “I want to get Halcyon off the ground. Maybe go for my Master’s degree at some point after I pay off this round of student loans.”
I start to say something, but close my mouth.
“I feel like I’m coming into my life right now, you know?” she asks. “Things are starting to work out for me. I’m back home. I can help Dad out. I can give back to this community that I love so much.”
“I understand. I feel that way too. I feel like this is the precipice to the next part of my life. I’ve done the nomadic, roam-the-world part. Now I’m ready to settle down, have some kids, do that whole thing.”
“I’m not ready for that.”
It’s more the tone than the words that catches my attention. She looks me in the eye, her resolve undeniable.
Although it’s not what I want to hear, not by a long shot, I try to remain as passive about her declaration as possible. “I was driving by where the old drive-in theater used to be. Do you remember that?”
“You took me there to see Jaws on the Fourth of July. Remember that?” she laughs. “We took a kiddie pool and filled it up with buckets from the bathroom.”
“I’d have done anything to see you in that bikini,” I wink. “Man, I was desperate.”
“You were. But it was kinda hot.”
Swear (Landry Family #4) Page 9
