Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
“It’s good,” Lucas assured her.
He remembered the sweet treat from when he was a kid, actually.
This would be his first time enjoying it at the maple camp with the Smiths, however. He liked how it felt appropriate that he would be able to share the experience with Delaney, as well.
“After we get it all made, of course,” Theresa added for her husband. “That’s the funniest part.”
“Not the liquor-spiked hot cocoa?” Delaney asked.
The other woman didn’t blink. “Oh, no. That’s the fun part, too. Give me a few minutes.”
Delaney grinned Lucas’ way, and he had all he could do to keep from pulling her in close for a kiss that he was sure would make the others in the shack a bit uncomfortable. Besides, if the last twenty-four hours had taught him nothing, he learned one important thing.
Lucas had little to no self control when it came to Delaney.
One touch wasn’t enough.
A taste wouldn’t satisfy him.
He couldn’t stop at a kiss.
Nor would she let him.
“Oh, is that—”
“Uno,” Lucas said, coming up behind Delaney as she spied an item on a shelf next to the only table in the whole shack. A circular table, with matching chairs made of oak, that had clearly seen better days if the scratches on top were any indication. “Jacob taught me how to play that—I lost every time.”
Now, Solitaire, on the other hand …
That was a card game Lucas preferred, and it had nothing to do with the fact he could play it alone. Mostly.
Delaney grinned back at him. “Wanna lose to me, too?”
Well, why not?
He reached over her shoulder to grab the tall stack of old cards from the shelf, replying, “I guess I could let you whip me for a round or two.”
Delaney beamed. “I really like this place—and there’s not even power or plumbing.”
“There’s an outhouse around the back, though,” Mack said where he had come to stand next to his wife at the stove. “If you don’t mind freezing your ass.”
The sprite of a woman at his side barely blinked a lash.
“Good to know,” Delaney said. Then, to Lucas, she whispered low so only he could hear, “I’m holding my pee until the end of time, if I have to.”
They all had to make choices.
She was certainly entitled to hers.
*
“She’s a real pretty one, Luke,” Mack told Lucas after Delaney had disappeared into the cabin. The ride back as the day had crawled closer to dinnertime had been as uneventful as the ride up to the maple cabin, but at least the temperatures leveled out a bit, and he still found it enjoyable. With the sweetness of Delaney close at his side, how could he not?
That made things better, anyhow.
The horses, anxious to get on their way home, stomped against the ground while Mack continued his conversation with Lucas in the driveway.
“Yeah, I like her,” Lucas replied, grinning to his old friend. “You never know, I might bring her back around in the spring. Get her out on a wheeler for a rip—she won’t have a choice but to take a leak in the woods, then, huh?”
Mack’s shoulders rolled with laughter. “Not sure she’s entirely cut out for the woods, but hey, neither were you for a while.”
That made him chuckle.
The man told no lies.
“Somebody had to toughen up these hands, eh?” Lucas asked.
“We got you there after a while even if it took a bit of work,” Mack confirmed. “Theresa said you’re both welcome to come down for supper tomorrow, if you’d like. You’re leaving Sunday morning, right?”
“That’s the plan. I can’t say yes or no to tomorrow, though. I’m trying to take this shit one day at a time, you know?”
He didn’t know what tomorrow looked like.
Or how he’d feel.
Mack nodded as if he understood, and reached down to clap Lucas on the shoulder. “You’re going to get through this, Luke. Right now it’s a big ball in your chest pushing on every nerve you have, but it’ll get smaller after a while. It won’t press on the sore spots as much. It just takes time.”
Right.
One step after another.
This day, and then tomorrow.
Grief was like that. Never-ending, but at the same time, a person could find ways to forget it was there for a while. He’d done that so far this week, but Lucas knew he was running from things that couldn’t be changed, too. The inevitable would still be waiting for him at the end when he came back home.
No matter how good he felt now.
“Thanks, Mack,” Lucas muttered, willing his rising emotions down.
“I’d say to send my condolences to your mother and father, but they probably wouldn’t care to hear from me, huh?”
“It matters to me,” he told the man.
More than Mack would ever know.
Heading the sleigh and horses, Mack straightened his shoulders and flicked the reins just enough to get the horses stirred up again. “Well, I better get on down the road, eh? Can’t let those boys be on their own for too long lest they get some bright fuckin’ idea.”