Hawthorne Harbor Box Set

by Elana Johnson

  “Uh….” Trent opened the second bag and pulled out the sandwiches for his men. “I got all of you food. Are Gene and…who else is with you?”

  “Kam,” she said.

  “Are they going to come eat?”

  “They’re talking to Mitch real quick,” she said.

  “I guess they didn’t give us any forks,” Trent said.

  “At least I know you’re not perfect,” she joked with a quick giggle, and Trent smiled at her.

  “I’ll go find you one.” The minutes he had to spend alone with her were already tiny, and now he had to run out and find a fork. He cursed himself for not checking the bag and hurried into the hall. Thankfully, he’d been to the community center many times when they served dinner, and he knew where the kitchen was. When he returned to the command room, Lauren had found her soda and drained half of it and started picking at the lettuce in her salad. All the eggs were gone, and he handed her the fork so she could eat the rest.

  “Thanks, sweetheart,” she said, freezing immediately afterward.

  Their eyes met, and Trent felt like someone had hollowed him out. He managed to sit down, never looking away from her, and said, “You’re welcome.”

  She broke the connection between them, her face flaming red, and reached for her dressing. As she poured it over the salad, she said, “I get you want to go slow. I do.”

  Do I? he thought. He’d been thinking about kissing Lauren for weeks, since that first night at the unveiling. But he hadn’t done it. The time had never felt right, with Porter there, or him half asleep or her working on the deck in the back yard.

  “But I have to admit something.” She glanced up at him, and he appreciated that she didn’t play too many games with his heart. “I’m tired of telling Aunt Mabel we haven’t kissed yet. At this point, I’m not even sure she believes me.”

  He had no idea what to say. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Maybe if you told me more about your wife,” she said. “Maybe you’d feel more comfortable—”

  “I’m comfortable with you,” he said.

  “Yeah,” she said, stirring and stirring. “I know you are.” Her voice strayed up into a higher pitch as she tried to be more casual than she probably felt. “But I don’t think you’re comfortable with us. At least not enough to do more than hold my hand and cuddle with me on your couch.” She blinked and added in a rush, “Which is fine. I’m fine with it. I am.”

  But she obviously wasn’t. “Maybe we should go out,” he said. “Just the two of us, where you’re not eating frozen pizza I made for my son, or my son isn’t helping you build my deck.”

  A smile spread across her face. “Really?”

  And Trent realized that he’d been stalling them all this time by letting her work in his back yard until quitting time and then hanging out with her there. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m going to visit my parents tonight. I’ll ask them when they can take Porter.”

  Lauren pushed her hair out of her eyes. “I’d like that.” She took her ponytail out and let all of her hair down, running her fingers through it. Trent wanted to do the same, dreamt of doing it, but he kept his hands stubbornly in front of him.

  “And we’re still good to go to Mabel’s on Thanksgiving?”

  “Yes,” he said, finally reaching for his sandwich so he had something to do with his hands. “You’re sure I can’t bring anything?”

  “I’m not even bringing anything,” she said. “Mabel insisted she’d cook for us.” She forked up a bite of salad and put it in her mouth. A moment later, Gene and Kam came through the door, following closely by Lou. Trent made room for them at the table, being careful to keep himself next to Lauren.

  After all, he wanted her close to him, especially now that he knew he’d messed up by not kissing her sooner.

  * * *

  “Hey, Mom,” he said when he opened the door. “It’s okay if I let the dogs in the back?” They hadn’t been worked much today, and they needed a wide open space to run.

  “Of course, of course.” His mom scooted to the edge of the couch and got up. “Where’s Porty?”

  “He’s comin’,” Trent said, holding the door open for his son, who was balancing two boxes in his child-sized arms.

  “I brought puzzles,” he announced, and Trent followed his son inside, deciding the dogs could wait a minute.

  “Where is Dad?”

  “He ran to store for whipped cream. I forgot to get it for the pie.” She took the puzzles from Porter and said, “Come help me with the turkey, okay, bud?”

  He happily went, and Trent returned to the truck to let the dogs out. He got them in the back yard and went inside where his mother had Porter buttering the tops of the rolls that looked like they’d just come out.

  “Can you run down to the basement and get a jar of grape juice?” she asked him, and Porter hopped off the chair he’d been standing on.

  As soon as he was gone, Trent’s mother rounded on him. “You’ve seen the same woman for weeks. How’s it going?”

  “I don’t know, Mom,” Trent said, a sigh leaking out of his lips. He knew his time was limited before Porter returned, and he did want to get some advice. “I haven’t even kissed her yet,” he said in a low voice.

  “Well, what’s holding you back?” She stirred the creamed corn and turned back to him. “And it better not be Savannah.”

  “Yeah, no, I don’t know,” Trent said, wiping his hands up his face and back down. “At first, I felt a little disloyal to her. But now, it’s…I think I’m scared of starting something serious and not being able to finish it.”

  “And kissing her makes it serious.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “And you don’t want to finish it?” She took the pot of corn off the stove and set it on the hot pad on the counter beside the mashed potatoes and turkey, stuffing and gravy.

  Trent reached for a roll and pinched off a hot corner. “I…like her. I like her a lot. Porter likes her. She seems to like us.”

  “That’s good.” His mother pierced him with her deep brown eyes that were a couple of shades darker than his. “You better let her know you want to keep her around.”

  “I know,” he said. “We talked about it today. I need your help with Porter. I need to go out with Lauren alone.”

  “You haven’t been going out alone?” Her eyebrows went up and she moved toward him, softening with each step. “Son, we’ll gladly take Porter anytime. You and Lauren, this could be something wonderful. Don’t worry so much about it.” She ran her fingers down the side of his face and cradled his jaw in her palm. “Remember with Savannah how you just knew she should be your wife? This can be like that if you’d get out of your own way.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and the rumble of the garage door said his dad had returned from the grocery store. Porter’s puffing breaths said he was almost back to the top of the stairs with the juice.

  So Trent let the conversation die there, but it went on in his head. He didn’t want to argue with his mother, but no, this relationship with Lauren could never be like the one with Savannah. They were two totally different people, and he had more than himself to consider these days.

  So maybe it was okay that he’d gone a little slower than he otherwise might have. Than he’d ever gone in the past. After all, Lauren hadn’t left him.

  Yet.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lauren saw Gillian shake her bangs out of her eyes and lift her phone to eye-level. She had a thing about not looking down at her phone, because she’d read an article about neck strain and cell phones.

  Lauren waved when her best friend glanced up after reading the text. She smiled and cut a glance toward her boss, who was arranging flowers in a vase. Then she walked over to the woman and had a brief conversation before escaping out the front door to the sidewalk where Lauren waited.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I have to bring back the seafood bisque,” she said. “It’s so dead right now anywa
y. No one is interested in buying a house during the holidays.” Gillian stuck her hands in her jacket pockets and picked up the pace. “It’s freezing out here.”

  With Thanksgiving only two days away and still no private date with Trent on the horizon, Lauren needed a girls’ lunch to figure out what to do about him. She’d already briefed Gillian on the topic, and she expected a hundred questions.

  Gillian waited until they had soups and salads and had found a booth in the corner of Soupers, the most popular place for female lunch dates during the week. “So,” she said once she’d filled her soda and mixed the cheese into her chili. “No kissing yet?”

  “No date yet,” she said. “I don’t want to pressure him.”

  “Maybe he’s waiting for Thanksgiving. You know, make the holiday memorable.”

  “His son and all of his friends will be there,” Lauren said. “So I don’t think so.”

  “How does your great aunt know all of his friends?” Gillian asked, totally a question Lauren hadn’t been expecting.

  “Everyone knows Aunt Mabel,” she said dismissively. “Everyone who gets married at the Mansion, at least.”

  “Hm.” Gillian tossed her head, but her bangs stayed in her eyes. Why she wouldn’t cut them, Lauren didn’t know. “Okay, here’s what you have to do, and I know you don’t want to. But you like this man, right?”

  Lauren could only nod, her garden chowder not nearly as delicious as she remembered. In fact, not much of anything tasted good these days. She was consumed with thoughts of Trent, and she barely ate as it was because she forgot. Because she was thinking about Trent.

  “Then you have to kiss him,” Gillian said. “No more waiting for him. No more hoping he plans this perfect romantic getaway. Just go over there tonight, and kiss him.”

  “Tonight?”

  Gillian stared at Lauren until she felt uncomfortable. “Yes, tonight,” she said slowly. “I mean, Lauren, what are you waiting for?”

  She’d told Aunt Mabel she was waiting for him, but maybe Gillian was right.

  “You sound like you don’t want to kiss him,” Gillian said, taking a big bite of her chili.

  “I do.”

  “Your tone with tonight? was a bit freaked out. When else would be a better time?”

  “I don’t know,” Lauren said, looking away. “Maybe that’s why he hasn’t kissed me. There’s never been a good time.” Or, and something she didn’t want to admit or even think about, “Maybe there’s no spark there anymore.”

  She looked at Gillian again, sadness seeping through her.

  “Of course there is,” she said with a wave of her spoon. “You guys are plenty sparky. Spark-tastic. Live wires. Just do it.”

  Lauren nodded and went back to her food, Gillian’s words reverberating through her mind for the rest of lunch, the rest of the day.

  When Trent got home with Porter, Lauren was on her hands and knees on his deck, nailing boards in place.

  “Be right back!” Porter yelled as he ran up the steps and across the finished part of the structure. “I have to go to the bathroom so bad!”

  Lauren laughed and got up, her heartbeat flailing around inside her chest. Trent usually came into the back yard with the dogs a minute or two after Porter, but she wasn’t sure she had that long for them to be Porter-free.

  So she hopped off the deck and unstrapped her knee pads, striding toward the gate, where she almost collided with Trent and his four canines.

  “Oh, hey,” he said, stopping short so he wouldn’t plow into her.

  “Hey.” She dropped her gaze to his mouth, put her hands on his shoulders, and lifted up on her toes. Her eyes drifted closed a mere moment before her mouth touched his, and fire licked its way through her core, her stomach, and up into her head.

  Oh, yeah. There were definitely sparks flying. Infernos, actually.

  Trent made a sound halfway between surprise and a moan, and Lauren pulled back. Before she could settle flat on her feet, he cradled her face and brought her lips back to his, this time kissing her like he meant to. Like he hadn’t been taken by surprise. Like he wasn’t standing in the shadows just around the corner from the back yard. Like he wanted to keep her in his life for a lot longer.

  Everything inside Lauren melted, and she ran her fingers through his hair and down his shoulders before finally just holding onto him while he continued to kiss her.

  “Hey,” Porter said from around the corner. “Where’d you go?”

  Lauren broke the kiss, but Trent didn’t release her. “Go on,” he said to the dogs, his voice throaty and low. The four dogs tore around the corner, and Lauren looked into Trent’s dark, dreamy eyes. “That should buy us a few more seconds.”

  She felt giddy inside, and a giggle came out of her mouth just before he kissed her again.

  * * *

  “I really didn’t mean for you to have to get a babysitter tonight,” Lauren said a couple of hours later. Trent had his phone to his ear while he waited for his mother to talk. He shook his head and waved away her statement.

  She’d spent an hour with Porter on the back deck, showing him how to nail boards and make sure the heads were flush in the wood. Then they’d cleaned up and Trent had said he and Lauren were going to go to dinner.

  But finding a babysitter hadn’t been as easy as he’d thought. His sister wasn’t available, and his neighbor really wanted to, but her husband wasn’t doing well that night. Lauren had suggested they just take Porter with them, but Trent wasn’t having it.

  “Great,” he said, turning back to her with his smile on full wattage. “We’ll be over in a few.” He hung up and leaned his hip into the kitchen counter. “They’ll take him.”

  “Great.” Lauren thought she should feel more relieved than she did. “He won’t feel bad, will he?” She glanced over her shoulder to the hallway that led to Porter’s room, but she didn’t see him.

  “Nah, he’ll be fine. He’ll have more fun at my mom’s anyway.” He came a few steps closer. “They’d like to meet you.”

  A chill struck Lauren right between the ribs. “Of course,” she said evenly. “We’re…that far along?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s no manual for when to take a woman home, is there?” He ran one hand up her arm and into her hair. Lauren fought back a shiver and smiled up at him. “Because if there is, I’d really like a copy.” He grinned at her, and she felt like a schoolgirl with her first boyfriend.

  “Are we going to talk about what happened in the yard?” she asked.

  “Do we need to?” he asked.

  She normally disliked it when someone answered a question with a question, but this time, her annoyance stayed dormant. “I mean, I just sort of lunged at you. I just….” She let her voice trail off, not wanting to admit her complete obsession with kissing the man.

  He chuckled as he planted his lips right against her forehead. “I don’t think it was quite a lunge,” he said. “And besides, I liked it.” He ran his mouth down the side of her face, placing a kiss on her cheek, then beside her ear.

  Lauren leaned into his touch, the feeling of electricity and lightning and tingling fire running through her whole body. When he kissed her, right there in his living room, Lauren was so glad she’d taken Gillian’s advice.

  “So we’ll take Porter to my parents’,” he whispered, bringing her close to his chest and swaying with her. “And you’ll meet them. They’re really fine people, Lauren. They’ll like you.”

  “I hope so,” she murmured.

  “And then we’ll go to dinner. Just us.”

  Lauren really liked the sound of this Tuesday night, and she nodded against his body. “All right. You’ll get Porter?”

  He stepped back and said, “Yep. And I’ll come get you at your place.”

  She nodded and headed for the front door. For some reason, she felt like she was stealing him from his son, and she didn’t like it. The drive from his house to hers took ten minutes, and she hoped Porter would
be a little slower getting his shoes on or finding a jacket so she could run inside and change.

  After all, she’d kissed the man wearing her work jeans and a T-shirt with a hole in the hem. Terribly unromantic. But this dinner would include something with a swishy skirt and shoes that didn’t have any steel in them.

  Twenty minutes later, Lauren pulled herself up and into Trent’s pick-up truck with a, “Hey guys,”

  “Hi, Lauren,” Porter said, his hair combed and a blue windbreaker on.

  “Heya,” Trent said, flipping the truck into reverse. “Porter wants to know…well, you ask her, bud.”

  “Ask me what?” Lauren looked at Porter, and he seemed fine. Normal. Not upset that his dad was leaving him that night.

  “I don’t have school tomorrow,” he said. “So I’m staying at my grandma’s, and she said she’d help me make place cards for Thanksgiving dinner. Do you think Aunt Mabel will like that?”

  Lauren looked over his head to Trent, who shrugged. “Let me call her and find out.” She dug her phone out of her purse and called Aunt Mabel. She put in Porter’s request, and smiled when her great aunt said sure.

  “She says yes, bud. Do you have all the names of everyone who’s coming?”

  Porter looked stricken. “No.” He glanced at his dad. “Dad?”

  “Lauren will write them down for you,” he said as easily as if he’d said the sky was blue.

  “Oh, yes.” Lauren once again dove for her purse, hoping she had something that wasn’t stained or torn that she could write on. She found a receipt from the lumberyard from just yesterday and said, “Okay, there’s me and your dad, obviously.”

  She put their names on the back of the receipt. “And Aunt Mabel. And Adam Herrin, and his wife, Janey. And their son, Jess.” She wrote as she spoke.

  “And Andrew,” Trent said. “Remember you met him a couple of years ago at the Safety Fair?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Porter said. “He drives the ambulance.”

  “Well, he used to,” Trent said. “He runs a lavender farm now. But he’s coming. And his wife, Gretchen, and their daughter, Daisy.”