by Marie Force
“Oh, damn,” Emma said. “This I’ve got to see.”
“He’s got four single brothers you need to see, too,” Lucy said with a wink for her sister.
“No!” Troy said, startling them with his vehemence. “No more with these Abbott guys! You say you aren’t moving, but you probably will. You’re just saying what we want to hear.”
“That is not true, and I resent the implication that I’m placating you. I have no plans to move, and he is well aware of that.”
“Seems I’ve heard that song once before.”
“You’re being kind of a jerk, Troy,” Emma said.
“So what if I am? I’m not supposed to care that my best friends are getting involved with guys who live six hours from me?”
“I’m going to cut you some slack.” Lucy rested her hand on Troy’s denim-covered leg. “But only because I’ve been where you are when Cameron was all gaga over Will and trying to pretend otherwise for our sakes. I know how that feels as a friend, and I don’t want to make you feel that way. I’m not Cameron. I’m not gaga or any other thing. I’m having fun with a nice guy. That’s all it is. All it’s ever going to be.”
“Sorry,” Troy muttered. “I didn’t mean to be a jerk.”
“Yeah, you did,” Lucy said with a grin for him. “But don’t worry. We’re used to it. We know how you can be.”
He scowled at her and then smiled, which set things right between them.
She truly did get how he felt, having just been through losing Cameron from her daily life at work and at play. It wasn’t easy, and she didn’t blame Troy for being concerned about it happening again.
“You haven’t said a word, Dad,” Lucy said when she’d pacified Troy. “That’s not like you.” Ray Mulvaney always had an opinion about what his girls were up to and wasn’t shy about sharing those opinions. His wiry hair was all gray now and his face weather-beaten from years of working in construction before he finally retired a few years ago.
“Not much to say. Yet. I’ll reserve judgment until I meet this Colton Abbott fellow.”
“You are in so much trouble,” Emma declared.
“I’m not afraid of him,” Lucy said, even though she was a tiny bit afraid of what her dad might think of Colton. He’d pushed both his daughters to go to college and put a lot of value on education. Colton hadn’t gone to college, but he was a hardworking guy like her father had been. Surely that would count for something, right?
“You’ll bring him home while he’s in town? I’ll make dinner.”
Even though he’d asked a question, they all knew it was a statement and not a question.
“Of course. He wants to meet you. All of you.”
She stayed to tuck in Simone, who had no interest in going to bed. “Do you have a boyfriend, Auntie Lu?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“You’ve been going away a lot on the weekends, and Mommy said it’s because you have a boyfriend.”
Lucy rubbed noses with Simone, which made her niece giggle. “Mommy has a big mouth, but don’t tell her I told you that.”
“So you don’t have a boyfriend?”
The word boyfriend reminded Lucy of how badly Colton had wanted her to refer to him as such. “Yes, I guess I do. His name is Colton, and he’s really handsome.”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
“I sure do.” She scrolled through the photos on her phone until she found a particular favorite from two weekends ago. “That’s him.”
“He’s really cute.”
“Yes, he is.” The sight of his face on her screen did crazy things to her insides and made her miss him fiercely.
“Are you going to move away like Cameron did?” Simone’s bottom lip fluttered and her big blue eyes filled with tears that broke Lucy’s heart.
“No, baby. I’m not going anywhere. How could I move away when you’re here?”
Simone sat up and wrapped her chubby arms around Lucy’s neck. “I don’t want you to move away.”
“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. I promise. I may go to visit Colton in Vermont, where Cam lives now, but I’m not leaving you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Lucy settled her in bed and kissed both cheeks as well as the end of her nose, finishing with a noisy kiss on Simone’s lips. “Love you.”
“Love you, too, Lulu.”
Hearing the nickname Simone had come up with when she couldn’t say Lucy as a baby set off a tidal wave of memories. Simone hadn’t called her that in years.
She closed Simone’s door and discovered Emma waiting in the hall for her.
“I hope you’re not making promises you can’t keep,” Emma said.
“I would never do that to her, and you should know better than to imply otherwise.”
“I do. I’m sorry. After Cameron moved, she’s worried that other people are going to leave, too.”
“Well, I’m not.” Lucy gathered up her purse and left two twenties on the table for the pizza she knew Emma couldn’t afford. “So you can both quit your fretting.”
“Luce . . .”
“What?”
“Don’t leave mad. As much as we’d both hate to see you go, we’d never get in the way of your happiness.”
“I know that.” Lucy hugged her sister. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Wound up after the intense conversations with Emma and Simone, Lucy took her time walking the ten blocks between their place and hers. Unlike most New Yorkers who fled the city in July and August, Lucy loved summer in the city. She loved the sidewalk cafés and the people out and about. She loved the flowers in window boxes and the leafy trees planted between concrete slabs. The frenetic city took on more of a languid pace in the summer. It was too hot to rush anywhere, so people tended to take their time in a way they didn’t the rest of the year.
Summer in New York suited her. Life in New York suited her. It was where she belonged, and nothing—not even a sweet, sexy mountain man—would ever change that.
As he’d feared, his mountain looked very different to Colton post-Lucy. After spending the afternoon with Max and leaving his younger brother in slightly better spirits than he’d found him, Colton drove home from Burlington with his new toys still in their bags and boxes.
Normally, the sound of silence didn’t bother him. He usually relished it after growing up in the madness that was the Abbotts’ barn. But now the silence was deafening, and it only got worse when he arrived home to more coolers on his porch and no Lucy to keep him entertained. He saw her everywhere, from the bench outside the retail store to the tiny shower stall in the bathhouse to the bed that was still rumpled from their earlier lovemaking.
He never went back to bed during the day, but today he couldn’t resist the need to see if her scent still clung to his pillows. It did, and the memories it invoked hit him like a fist to the gut, making him moan from the misery of having to let her go.
Unnerved by his unusual behavior, Sarah and Elmer joined him on the bed, nuzzling him from either side and trying to draw him out to engage with them.
“I’m okay, guys.” Colton scratched their ears. “I miss Lucy.”
Sarah’s whimper let him know she missed Lucy, too.
In all the years he’d lived alone on the mountain, he’d never been lonely. Sure, he had a lot of visitors, and his family was close enough for company if and when he needed it, but this kind of loneliness was all new to him. The only one who could make it better was six hours away in a city he’d never even been to.
Sarah and Elmer finally persuaded him to get up and get on with storing the food that had arrived in his absence and getting some work done before darkness set in. He made himself wait until close to ten o’clock before he withdrew the new phone from its box and fired it up, trying to remember all the things Max had taught him about how to use it.
Max had programmed Lucy’s number into the list of favorites, but Colton did some fumbling before he found that list under the phone icon. His brother ha
d taken great delight in making fun of Colton’s ineptitude earlier. Nothing worse than a little brother who knew more about something than you did.
Colton finally figured out how to put through the call and then waited with far more anticipation than he should’ve been feeling to see if she would answer a call from a number she didn’t recognize. Max had warned him about that possibility. Hopefully, the 802 area code would tell her it was him.
By the fourth ring he was starting to worry she wasn’t going to take the call. And then she answered, sounding breathless and rushed. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Oh, hi. I didn’t recognize the number.”
“It’s a new number. My number.”
“You got a phone?”
“I did.”
“What brought this on?”
“You did. I wanted to be able to talk to you any time I wanted to—or any time you wanted to.”
“Wow. So how does it feel to join the twenty-first century?”
“Don’t start on me. I’ve already taken a year’s worth of abuse from Max today. He was my technology consultant.”
“I can’t believe you actually got a phone.”
“Believe it.”
“That’s really sweet of you.”
“I’m a sweet kind of guy.”
The comment made her laugh, and the sound of her laughter, even over the phone hundreds of miles away, made him hard. “How are things in the city?”
“Same as ever. Hot and smelly, but I love it. I got to see my dad, Emma and Simone tonight as well as my friend Troy, so it was a fun night.”
“Troy? Who is this guy?”
“A friend of mine and Cameron’s. One of our best friends.”
“So wait, you’re allowed to have friends but I’m not?”
“My friend is not a friend with benefits and never has been, so there you have the difference between my friend and yours.”
His smile stretched across his face. God, he loved to provoke her. What did that say about him? “I miss you. It sucks here without you. Even Sarah and Elmer are down in the dumps.”
“I miss you guys, too. It was really fun being on your mountain. I’m glad I got to see it.”
“I’m glad you did, too.”
“And the lake house was great. That’s an amazing spot.”
“It was much more amazing before Will and Cameron showed up and ruined everything.”
She laughed again, and he discovered he’d do just about anything to make her laugh. “I’m glad they know about us.”
“I am, too.”
“I told my family tonight. About you.”
Colton perked right up at that news. “Is that right? What’d they have to say?”
“My dad said I’m bringing you to Queens for dinner while you’re here.”
“He said that, did he?”
“Yeah, said versus asked. You get the difference.”
“Uh-huh. Is he scary?”
“No!” she said with a laugh. “Not at all. He’s just protective of his girls.”
“I think I’ll like him. Will I get to meet Emma and Simone, too?”
“Absolutely. Simone already told me she wants to meet my boyfriend.”
“So you’re throwing the B word around, huh?”
“My boyfriend told me I had to call him that.”
“Damn straight you do. What about Troy? Do I get to meet him, too?”
“Not if you’re going to act like a jealous ass around him.”
“I’ll do my best to behave.”
“I’ve seen your best efforts to behave, so you’ll pardon me if I’m skeptical.”
“That hurts me, Luce. Deeply.”
They chatted for more than an hour about nothing in particular until his phone began to beep with a low battery warning.
“So what’s your plan to charge that bad boy on your mountain?” she asked.
“I bought a small generator for just that purpose.”
After a brief pause, she said, “You brought electricity to your mountain for me?”
“I sure did.”
“I’m deeply honored by the effort.”
“It’s no big deal,” he said, even though he was pleased by her reaction.
“It’s a very big deal, Colton, and don’t think I’m not seeing that.”
“This situation is tough enough without having a way to keep in touch between visits. It was a small price to pay to hear your voice at the end of every day.”
“Colton,” she said with a deep sigh. “You know just what to say to make a girl all fluttery inside.”
“Fluttery, huh? That sounds promising.”
“Mmm. Indeed.”
The extended M sound reminded him of her lips vibrating against his shaft, which got even harder. “Lucy . . .”
“Yes?”
“Don’t act all innocent with me, like you don’t know what you do to me even over the phone.”
“I can’t help that you have the self-control of a fifteen-year-old boy.”
“Damn it, the phone is about to die, but we’ll discuss my inner fifteen-year-old tomorrow.”
“Looking forward to it.”
“Me, too. Talk to you tomorrow. Night, Luce.”
“Night, Colton.”
He couldn’t bring himself to end the call or the connection.
“This is where you hit the End button.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“Your phone is going to die.”
“That’s okay.” He listened to her breathe until the phone went dead in his hand. Lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling as Sarah and Elmer slept on either side of him, Colton decided the purchase of the phone and generator was the best money he’d spent on anything. Ever.
CHAPTER 21
Any leftover thoughts of the best run of the year—yes, that’s what it was—dissipated by nine o’clock this morning when a torrent of ice like you read about belched out of the main lines. If anything indicates the end of the season, it is mucky pumps, tanks and lines.
—Colton Abbott’s sugaring journal, April 15
The next morning, Colton made an effort to get back to his routine on the mountain. He tended to some record keeping, hiked up the mountain to check on trees that had shown signs of a possible blight earlier in the summer and added another cord to the growing woodpile.
By noon, however, he was hungry and in bad need of someone to talk to about all the shit that was in his head. He gave careful consideration to several possible people, including both his parents, his sister Hannah and his brother Hunter, all of whom had opinions Colton normally trusted implicitly. However, Will had the best perspective on Colton’s situation, having recently been through it himself.
And since Colton needed perspective, he went looking for his second-oldest brother. He parked in front of the store and was halfway up the back stairs that led to the offices when he met Charley coming down.
“What brings you into town on a Wednesday?” his sister asked.
“I’m looking for Will, if you must know.”
“He’s across the street at the diner having lunch.”
When Colton heard the words diner and lunch, his stomach let out a huge grumble. “Okay, I’ll look for him over there.”
“So, you and Lucy, huh?”
“Yeah, what’s it to you?”
“Nothing.”
Charley could be such a pain in the ass when she wanted to be. “Great. See ya.” He turned to head back down the stairs.
“Are you going to move there?”
Colton stopped in his tracks and turned to look up at her. “No plans to move.”
“Then she’s coming here?”
“That’s not happening either.”
“So what’re you going to do, then?”
“Who knows? For now, we’re having fun and not worrying too much about the future.”
“Well, good luck with that.”
“What’s that supposed
to mean?”
“I’d hate to see you get hurt when she gets bored and moves on to someone more convenient, Colton.”
Her words sent an arrow of fear straight to all his insecurities where Lucy was concerned, especially since she’d told him herself that losing interest had been a problem for her in the past. “Thanks for that cheery thought. Appreciate it.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a downer. Just be careful, okay?”
“I will and thanks for the concern, but it’s all good. Nothing to worry about.”
“See you later.”
“See ya.” He trotted down the stairs, the weight of Charley’s worries accompanying him across Elm Street to the diner, where he found Will and Cameron having lunch with his grandfather. For a second he was torn about whether he wanted all three of them in his business, but then his gramps caught sight of him and waved him over.
Elmer slid over to make room for Colton on his side of the booth. “This is a nice surprise.”
Colton gave his grandfather a one-armed squeeze. Elmer Stillman was one of his all-time favorite people. “For me, too.”
“What brings you off the mountain on a Wednesday?” Will asked.
“Am I so regimented that I can’t deviate from the schedule without everyone wondering why?”
After a heartbeat of a pause, Elmer and Will both said, “Yes,” making Cameron giggle.
“I take it you’re kind of predictable,” she said with a kind smile.
“Clearly, I need to shake things up if everyone thinks they know me so well,” Colton said.
“What is that in your shirt pocket?” Cameron asked with a shriek that caught the attention of diners all around them.
Colton placed his hand over his chest and realized she meant the phone. He withdrew it from his pocket and placed it on the table.
“Oh. My. God,” Will said. “This is worse than I thought.”
Cameron picked up the phone and programmed her number into it before Colton had a chance to ask her what she was doing. “There.” She slid it across the table to him. “Now you have two numbers, interestingly, both of them New York numbers.”
Colton scowled at her, which only made her laugh.
Megan appeared at the table, casting a frosty glare at Cameron, who smiled sweetly at the waitress. “Something to drink?” she asked Colton.
