by Liz Isaacson
“Yeah.”
“No.” She slipped away from him, adding, “Let me grab my toast, and we can go.” She hurried into the kitchen, where she not only grabbed her stack of toast, but her oversized bag too. She’d put sunscreen in it, along with bottled water, a bag of black licorice, several miniature American flags, a blanket, a jacket in case she got cold, and a visor. Oh, and her purse.
“Well, I’m not dead yet,” Gray said. “Buy the farm means you’ve died.”
She looked at him, trying to decide if he was kidding or not. He didn’t seem to be. “Huh,” she said. “I didn’t know that. So, did you purchase your father’s farm?”
Gray grinned at her from the doorway of the kitchen, and she handed him a piece of toast. “I can’t eat this,” he said.
“Oh, that’s right. How many miles did you run this morning?”
“It’s eight o’clock,” he said.
“And that matters how?”
“Fine,” he said. “I went six miles.”
“Before dawn.” She loved teasing him about the running. “Now, you better pat Hutch before he goes ballistic.” The dog had run around the side of the couch to find a ball just for Gray. He held the bright orange orb in his mouth, and he was so darn proud of himself for it.
Gray bent down and started scratching behind Hutch’s ears. “Look at you, bud. You’re huge.” He grinned at the dog, who smiled right on back. Elise decided she could keep him, even if he did get jealous while she kissed her boyfriend.
“You’re staying here,” she told the dog. She’d taken him to lots of things before, but he really was huge, and the parade and festival would be much easier without him. His tail wagged and wagged, and Elise felt a little bad leaving him behind.
But they headed outside, where Hunter had been waiting in the truck Gray had rented. “Yes,” he said. “I did purchase the farm.”
“Oh, that’s great,” she said. “And your parents?”
“It was hard on my father for some reason. It’s like he doesn’t understand that he’s almost eighty years old.” Gray opened her door and took her bag. “Oof. What is in this thing?”
“Everything we need for a great morning at the parade and a great day at the park.” Elise climbed into the truck. “Hey, Hunter.”
“Hello, Elise,” he said, so proper and so sober.
Gray closed the door and put her bag in the back. “Been working on the farm?”
“Yes.” He looked down at his lap again, and Elise realized he had a cell phone there.
“Oh, my heck, Hunter.” She grabbed the phone. “Is this yours?” She looked up, her eyes searching his. “Your father got you a phone?” She couldn’t believe it. Gray was anti-technology for teens, though Elise had tried to explain to him why Hunter had been asking him for a phone.
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “Dad finally gave in.”
“I did what?” Gray asked as he got behind the wheel.
Elise held up the phone, questions streaming through her.
“Yes, yes,” Gray said quite huffily. “I got him a phone.” He buckled his seat belt, and Elise did the same, a giggle coming out of her mouth. She handed the phone back to Hunter. “It’s the only thing he’s ever begged me for, and I just figured it would work out.”
“The only thing he’s ever begged you for?”
“Yeah.” Gray backed down the long road and onto the asphalt. He got them moving down the canyon. “Usually, he just asks me, and I say yes or no and that’s that.”
“How amazing,” Elise said.
“But he kept coming back to this.”
“Maybe you buy him everything he wants,” Elise said. “So he doesn’t have to ask twice.”
Hunter looked back and forth between Gray and Elise, but she was rather enjoying herself.
“Maybe,” Gray conceded, and they laughed together. “How’s the lawn care business?”
“Doing great things,” she said. They’d talked about her business several times since the last time they’d seen each other in person. Gray had confessed that he didn’t like the long-distance relationship, and Elise could admit it wasn’t working that great for her either. They’d agreed that she’d go through this one last summer and fall season in Coral Canyon, and then she’d be moving to Colorado.
After all, Gray had two homes now—three, if she counted the granny house—and he’d offered for her to live in his home in the suburbs of Denver. He and Hunter, of course, would live on the farm. That way, they could continue building and deepening their relationship without the complication of the five hundred miles between them.
“All right,” Elise said. “Give me your number, Hunter. Then we can text secret things about your father.” She gave him a teasing look, and Gray just shook his head.
Hunter rattled off his number, and Elise put it in her phone. She couldn’t think of a single thing she’d ever text the boy, but it was important for a teen to give out their phone number to people, she knew.
They arrived in downtown Coral Canyon, and Gray found somewhere to park that was only a couple of blocks from the parade route. Elise led the way toward the spot the Whittakers staked out every year for the Fourth of July parade, and she found the section filling with people.
Patsy and Sophia were already there, and Elise naturally gravitated toward them. “Hey, guys,” she said.
“Morning, Elise,” Patsy said with a smile. “Oh, Gray’s here.” She stood up and gave him a quick hug. One of the triplets started to wander out into the street, and Patsy swooped Collin into her arms. “Can’t go out there yet, baby.”
He smiled at her and started saying something in his three-year-old voice.
“That’s right,” Patsy said. “There will be cop cars and floats and horses.”
How she’d understood the little boy, Elise didn’t know. She stood to the side while Gray set up the camp chairs, and then she sat down, reaching for Collin. “Come here, sweetheart.”
The little boy curled right into her lap, and Elise sure did love him. Gray sat next to her, with Hunter on the other side.
Collin only stayed on Elise’s lap for a few minutes, and then Rose called him over to get a drink and a cookie. Elise reached for her licorice, because there was nothing better to pass the time before a parade started than black licorice.
“I’d offer you some of this, but I know you won’t take it.”
Gray looked at the licorice as if it were a poisonous snake. “I wouldn’t eat that even if I wasn’t training for Boston. I’d eat red licorice. Oh, I forgot to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” She bit off a big piece of licorice and chewed it, really enjoying the waxy feel of it in her mouth.
“I got third in my age group at Colfax.”
“Out of everyone?”
“Out of males age forty to forty-four, yes,” he said. “Third, Elise.”
“That must be really good,” she said.
“There were four hundred of us, so yes,” he said. “It’s really good. I won a little money.”
“Just what you need,” she said.
He snorted and then laughed, reaching over to take her hand in his. She slid down in her chair a little and turned to look at him. His eyes met hers, and though they were surrounded by people, and crying toddlers, and laugher—and then the motorcycle cop sirens—in that moment, it was just Gray and Elise.
She felt herself fall all the way in love with him, and she hoped she could survive the next three months here in Coral Canyon without him.
Soon, she told herself as the crowd started to rise. The American flag was coming. You’ll be in Colorado soon.
Hours later, Elise had eaten way too much fried food. She’d listened to Gray nag at Hunter about his phone for far too long. And her feet hurt from the sixteen thousand steps she’d taken as they went all over the park, where they had food trucks and a few carnival rides, to the fairgrounds to see the animals, and back to Colton’s for a barbecue.
“Hunt, you
’ll be okay here while I drive Elise back to her cabin?”
“Yep.” Hunter looked up from the crossword puzzle he’d been working on. He smiled at Gray, and Gray leaned down and kissed the top of his son’s head.
Then he reached for Elise’s hand and said to Colton, “I’m taking Elise home. Hunter’s staying here.”
“All right.” Colton met Elise’s eye, not Gray’s, and so much was said between them. She’d told him more than she probably should’ve about her relationship with Gray. She could admit that.
But she was lonely at night, and she often came down from the lodge to either Colton’s or Bree’s. One of them would have food, and they all seemed to gather every night. She was the fifth wheel, but now that she was dating Gray openly, she didn’t feel like it.
Annie had been busy with helping Eden to plan her wedding, and Bree was starting to collect things she needed for when the baby would be born. Furniture and clothes, diapers and ointments and accessories. Elise had gone shopping with her when she’d bought the swing, and all of Elise’s maternal instincts had cried out to her that day.
She did want to have children someday. A lot of children.
Now that it was summer, she didn’t have a ton of time for shopping trips and hangouts with her friends during the day. A lot of her evenings were dedicated to lawn care as well, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
She worried that Two Green Thumbs would suffer from a move, but she’d already committed to it. Right now, it didn’t matter if the landscaping and yard care business didn’t turn a profit. She had a job at the lodge that paid her bills. The landscaping was bonus money on top of that.
“When I move to Colorado, what should I do?” she asked as Gray pointed the truck toward the canyon. She’d stayed past dark, but somehow the summer night sky wasn’t nearly as menacing as the winter one. “Just run my business? It’ll be winter. I’ll need to find a job.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said as if he’d never thought of it. He probably hadn’t. Gray and his brothers didn’t worry about money—they never had. He looked at her. “Well, your rent will be free, at least.”
“I don’t need to live in your house for free,” she said. “I can pay rent.”
“Okay,” he said, but Elise knew she hadn’t won anything. He wouldn’t make her pay rent, and she’d simply have to revisit the topic when it was at-hand. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.” Nerves doused her, but she refused to assume the worst. He wasn’t going to break up with her…she hoped.
He cleared his throat. “I kind of lied to you today.”
“You did?”
“I mean, kind of. We are staying at Colton’s for a few nights. But we’re not going to Wes’s after that.”
“Oh.” She tried to see through the darkness in the truck. The lights from the dashboard illuminated Gray’s face a little bit, but not enough to see the emotion in his eyes. “Where are you going? Do you have to go home so soon?”
They’d planned on him being there for a week, and “a few nights” at Colton’s didn’t feel like enough. Maybe she should just move to Colorado now. She’d have to get a job either way. Her clients could find someone else to mow their lawn.
“No,” he said. “Hunter and I are staying here.”
Elise turned fully toward him now. “I’m sorry. You’re staying here?”
“Yes,” Gray said, finally facing her and giving her that cocky smile. “I rented a house here. We’re going to stay here until your mother’s wedding at the end of August. Then we’ll head back to Colorado so Hunter can start school.”
A new kind of happiness bloomed in Elise’s soul. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.” He laughed and took her hand in his, lifting to his lips. “I want to be closer to you.”
“What about the farm?” she asked. “You literally just bought it because your dad can’t take care of it. Summer is the busiest time.”
“I hired a manager,” Gray said, putting both hands on the wheel again.
“You just shut down.”
“My parents aren’t thrilled with my decision. I told them it was mine to make, and it’ll be fine.” He threw a glance at her. “It’s not permanent. I’m going back.”
“Of course,” she said. “I guess they probably just wanted it to be kept in the family?”
“It is,” he said. “I bought it. It’s okay if someone else runs it and takes care of the horses for a couple of months.”
She agreed with him, but she could also see his parents’ side. “I’m so glad you’re staying,” she said. “And we had an amazing day, and you came in third in your age group, and Hunter got a cell phone.”
She smiled, feeling drunk on happiness.
“And we’re together,” Gray said quietly.
“Yes,” Elise said. “We’re together.” And he wasn’t leaving in a weekend, or even a week. He wasn’t leaving in a month. She’d be able to see Gray, live and in-person, every day for the next two months, and Elise couldn’t wait to show him around to all of the amazing shops and restaurants in Coral Canyon.
She couldn’t wait to kiss him every night. She couldn’t wait to deepen her friendship and relationship with Hunter. She couldn’t wait to show up at Colton’s or Bree’s with a boyfriend of her own.
What a great surprise, she thought. Thank you, Lord, for merging our paths, even if it’s only for a couple of months.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gray ran according to his marathon training schedule, often driving up the canyon to get Hutch from Elise. The dog became a good running partner after only a few days, and he had far less energy to annoy Elise with too.
On mornings where he went less than ten miles, he and Hunter would go fishing on Prospect Lake. Gray loved the area, with homes curving around the lake but not crowding it.
No boats with a motor were allowed on the lake, and he enjoyed a quiet, peaceful experience with his son.
“Hunter?”
“Yeah.” He pulled his attention from the still water surrounding their fishing boat. It was still fairly chilly in the morning, especially because the first rays of sun didn’t touch this lake until at least ten o’clock, nestled as it was beneath all these pine trees.
“How do you like Elise?” Gray sometimes used his fishing expeditions to talk about difficult things with Hunter. Neither one of them could get out of the boat, and sometimes hard things needed to be said.
“I really like her, Dad,” he said. “She sends me funny memes, and she sent me a link to the New York Times crossword puzzle a few days ago. They put it online for free last year, and she thought I’d like it.”
Gray smiled, first at his son’s love of crossword puzzles. Secondly, at Elise’s kindness to his son. “That’s great,” he said.
“Dad?”
“Yeah.” He looked up from the new fly he wanted to try. The one on his line wasn’t doing anything.
“How do you like Elise?”
Gray blinked at Hunter, who simply gazed back at him with those big, brown eyes. He cleared his throat and focused back on the fly. “I like her a lot, son.”
“Are you going to marry her?”
“Maybe,” Gray said, and that was one giant step further than he’d ever been. “We’re going to see how things go now that we don’t live five hundred miles apart.” He smiled at his son. “Do you text Molly still?”
“Yeah, sometimes,” Hunter said, looking out over the water again. “She’s babysitting a lot this summer. She’s saving for Space Camp.”
“Good for her,” he said.
“Dad?”
“Yep.”
“We have a lot of money, right?”
Once again, Hunter had surprised him with a question. Gray hated being surprised with questions, because he always knew what the defense was going to present, and he had an answer for everything.
But for this, he didn’t. Not really.
“Yes,” he said slowly. His
father had sat him down when he’d turned thirteen and told him he’d inherit two billion dollars the day he turned twenty-one. The expectations in the Hammond family were intense, but Gray had risen to the challenge. In fact, he loved a good challenge.
“Why?”
“Someone said something to me about it,” he said. “That’s all.”
“What did they say?” Gray worked to tamp down the sharp edges in his voice. He didn’t want Hunter to think he cared at all, even though he did.
“It was Joey Jacobs. He said it must be nice to be able to leave town for two months.”
“Mm.” Gray wasn’t even looking at the flies anymore.
“It was in a group text, and everyone started saying how rich I was.” Hunter didn’t sound happy about that, and Gray glanced at him. He wore a dissatisfied look on his face as he watched his line. Gray saw so much of himself in his son’s face, it was almost freaky.
“What did you say?”
“I said we were staying with my uncle,” Hunter said. “And helping my dad’s girlfriend with her lawn care business. It wasn’t a vacation.”
“It kind of is, though,” Gray said. “Right? We get to go fishing, and there’s no farm to take care of.”
Hunter smiled then. “I guess it’s definitely more relaxed than last summer.”
“We take Sparky to the park all the time,” Gray added.
“Yeah.”
They did help Elise finish up her work for the day, almost every day. Any of them could push a lawn mower and edge grass, and that was what they’d been doing. That way, the three of them could spend quality time together. They’d gone to concerts in the park, on hikes around the mountains here, and she’d taken them up to another small town called Dog Valley, where they’d eaten at an amazing barbecue house and visited a rescue shelter for dogs and cats.
“I guess I just didn’t realize we were rich,” Hunter said.
“When I was about your age,” Gray said, looking up and out over the peaceful water too. “My dad sat me down and told me I was going to get two billion dollars when I turned twenty-one.”
Hunter looked at Gray, eyes wide. “Wow.”
