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Early autumn rolled in practically overnight, and with it came chillier mornings and nights. Nothing severe. Nothing that a nice hoodie wouldn’t fix. By far, it was Gracen’s favorite time of year to watch the trees around her change colors. Their vibrancy made for a beautiful landscape no matter if she was jogging the boardwalk in town or just taking a drive.
“It’s almost the day,” Delaney said from the driver’s seat of her Jeep.
Gracen, only a little distracted by the fact she currently stood in the driveway of her own home, could only mumble, “Mmhmm, it is.”
Delaney laughed, but not unkindly. “I didn’t mean your party.”
At that comment, her gaze swung her friend’s way where Delaney stared back from her rolled down window. “I know that—I didn’t mean you were talking about me, either.”
Not everything was about her, after all.
Delaney drummed her fingers to the steering wheel and eyed the side of the two-storey farmhouse with light blue siding and dark colored stonework along the bottom. “We didn’t forget anything, right?”
Nope.
Everything she packed to move fit between their two vehicles, and only took a couple of trips. Delaney would keep most of the furniture the two had purchased together for their rental house, but Gracen had already put in an order at her favorite furnishing store to fill the many rooms in the farmhouse. Or at least to get a decent start on it. The delivery for her furniture was set for the middle of the next week as long as everything came in on time.
Fingers crossed.
Until then, she could make do with the fact she didn’t have a table and chairs for her dining room, or the sectional couches to lounge around on and not even her flatscreen TV had a proper place to sit.
The worst had been dismantling Gracen’s big bed frame and finding someone to haul it and the mattress and box spring, so they didn’t have to tie it down to the top of Delaney’s Jeep. The Jeep could do it, sure, but neither of the women wanted to do the heavy lifting.
Things worked out, eventually.
Sometimes, the universe did look out for her.
“Everything’s great,” Gracen said. “You can head out. I know you’re probably tired.”
It was like her reminder of how exhausting their Friday had been made Delaney yawn on cue. She looked sheepish about it but shrugged in the end.
“Yeah, I better get going, huh? I need a nap.”
“Call me later?” Gracen offered. “If you want.”
Delaney turned the key over in the Jeep, starting the engine. “I will.”
Despite her cheery tone, Gracen could still hear the lingering worry that Delaney tried to hide.
“Things are going to be okay,” Gracen said.
Delaney glanced her way again. “You think?”
“It’ll work out. It always does.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Leaning in the driver’s side window, Gracen wrapped her arms tight around Delaney’s neck and hugged. All their surroundings disappeared, and for a second, it was just Delaney and Gracen again. Best friends until the end. Them against the world. Well, it had certainly felt like that for a long time. Things were changing a bit now.
For the best.
Her friend grabbed back, squeezing just as hard and mumbling to Gracen, “Thanks. I love you, huh?”
Gracen pulled away with a sniffle and held onto the edge of the door for a second longer. “I love you, too. If you get the chance to talk to Bexley before the wedding on Sunday, tell her I said good luck.”
While everyone was distracted and enjoying the reception after the big wedding for Alora and Sonny, someone else would take their chance at starting a new life, as well. Bexley had the plan—as simple as it was—and she just needed to follow through. She wouldn’t take much, already had the two duffels of possessions and clothes packed that she planned to take, and if everything went right for her, no one would notice she was gone until it was too late.
Which was the point.
Bexley worried how her father and older brothers would react once they realized she was gone—so much so that she’d sworn Delaney and Gracen to secrecy about everything. Even her new apartment’s address in the city. Of course, they agreed.
“And remind her to fill her car with gas tonight,” Gracen added. “She shouldn’t even bother with that tomorrow, and certainly not on Sunday. You know?”
Delaney wiped at the new wetness under her eyes. “I will. I hope you know she wouldn’t have been as confident to do this had you not helped out as much as you did. It wouldn’t have been possible without—”
“You did it, too. Before her, I mean. You did it for yourself. She can do it, too. It’s got little to nothing to do with me.”
Shaking her head, Delaney replied, “I wouldn’t have done it without you, either.”
“Yeah, well ...” To her, it didn’t change the fact that it took a lot of courage. Something no amount of money could buy. That shit came from the heart and soul. “Get going—you’ve still got to make taco dip and cheesecake for tomorrow.”
Delaney snickered. “All those calories.”
“The best kind of calories, though.”
And she refused to feel any guilt about the damn good food she would eat tomorrow at her housewarming. What could be better than great food and friends, anyway?
“Truth.” Delaney glanced her way again, but this time, her smile felt true. “You’re right. About my cousin, I mean. Everything is ... well, it’s going to be great.”
“That’s the only way you need to look at things.”
No one needed to manifest trouble when it hadn’t even darkened their doorstep, yet. Negative thoughts could do just that before someone even realized it.
Delaney yanked the Jeep into reverse, but the vehicle didn’t begin to move as she must have kept her foot on the brake. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” Gracen agreed.
Her friend smiled in the direction of the side of the house, and her gaze followed the path of the driveway that continued winding around to the rear. “Does it feel like home, yet?”
Gracen didn’t even have to think about it.
Even empty ...
“From the moment I walked through the door.”
*
Gracen trekked the long driveway with a black garbage bag in each hand. It was hard to believe how much garbage could come from just unpacking and wiping things down. The short walk for garbage trips might be the one thing she would miss from living right in town. Rural living wouldn’t be quite the same in that aspect.
Situated on ten acres of property and hugged for as far as the eye could see by rolling wheat fields, Gracen’s three-bedroom farmhouse sat at the bottom of a hill off the main road. Driving by, if someone didn’t pay attention, they might miss the private access leading down to the house. The tall gray barn was typically the first thing a person saw if they did look beyond the crest of the gully as it reached tall toward the sky. The house and detached garage sat off to the corner of the property, a good fifty meters from the barn, behind a line of white birch trees that Gracen had remembered being a lot smaller when she was a girl.
In fact, her girlhood bedroom had looked through the tips of the birches, and in the spring of the year, she watched the swallows come back to their nests tucked into the elbows of the thicker limbs. The chirps of baby birds had awakened her from dreams most mornings. It shouldn’t be a surprise that most of her childhood had been spent in a princess-like fantasy.
At the very end of the driveway, Gracen dropped the black bags into the wooden garbage bin with her house’s number painted in a bright white.
4255.
The SOLD sign still stood proudly on the other side of the drive facing the road overtop the standard realty posting. They wouldn’t be able to take it down for another week or so—according to the realtor, anyhow.
Gracen didn’t really understand why it had to remain up after she already had the keys, but those were the rules. The sign wasn’t a bother. It gave her butterflies every time it came into view because it was one more reminder that this place was hers.
All ten acres.
Every single inch.
Hers.
Somehow, she’d found her way back home.
Gracen had made it halfway back to the house when a truck turned off the road and pulled into her driveway. She didn’t immediately recognize the dark blue Ford F150, and despite the daylight, she had to squint to make out who sat behind the wheel.
It didn’t become clear until the truck was a lot closer.
Barely ten feet away, in fact.
Perhaps she’d recognized him faster, but the shock kept Gracen from accepting the realty in front of her. Not because it made her unhappy.
Quite the opposite.
Her heart was ready to explode.
There was no mistaking that strong jaw or those stormy blue eyes piercing into her from behind the windshield. One of his hands lifted from the steering wheel to wave her way making Gracen’s smile bloom instantly. His widened as well.
Malachi, who had already put the truck into park, pushed open the driver’s door after unbuckling his seat belt. Gracen made her way around to his side of the truck before he’d even gotten out, but his arms were opened wide as soon as he did. She practically jumped into his embrace, their chests slamming together from the force of her propelling forward.
“Surprise,” was all he whispered as he hugged her tight and picked her up from the ground.
His one warm wrapped her back around her baggy hoodie while his other palmed her ass overtop of her cut off jean shorts.
Malachi put a lot into that hug.
Gracen felt every ounce of it.
How long it lasted.
The way he squeezed her impossibly tight.
After her first call to close the distance between them, not much had changed. She kept busy because of her move and, while he didn’t explicitly say so, Gracen could tell Malachi had things going on in his life, too. Texts here and there and short phone calls were all the two could manage until this weekend.
“You weren’t supposed to get here until tomorrow,” she mumbled against his neck.
His chuckles rocked them both, but his arms didn’t loosen for a second. Even when she straightened up in his hold to look down at him. Malachi smiled big.
“I thought ... what’s a day, right?”
She laughed, nodding. “Right.”
Then, she took another glance at the idling truck jacked up on big tires with FORD stamped in the middle of the chrome grill.
He didn’t miss it.
“That’s new,” she noted.
Malachi shrugged as he slowly let Gracen back down to the ground. Neither of the two could keep from touching one another, though. If it wasn’t his hand traveling underneath the back of her hoodie, then hers was playing in the pockets of his leather jacket.
“Not brand new,” he said, “but new to me.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Where’s the bike?”
“Technically, you’re looking at it. I traded the bike for the truck—and added a few thousand on top of it to settle the score.”
Gracen blinked. “Why?”
Laughing, he pulled her in for another quick hug and a kiss he dropped to the top of her head. She closed her eyes with a sigh the longer his lips lingered there. “Why do you sound sad about a bike you wouldn’t even ride?”
“Because you liked it. It was your bike.”
Malachi’s head bobbed with a nod while his gaze turned distant even though it remained on the truck in front of them. Eventually, he said, “Yeah, but I didn’t love the bike.” Before she could consider what that statement might mean, he asked her, “At least, you’ll ride shotgun in this with me, yeah?”
High off the ground in a vehicle that looked like others would move for? Absolutely.
She still had to ask, “You didn’t trade the bike because of me, did you?”
Malachi didn’t miss a beat. “Do you want me to lie?”
Damn this man.
Why did he have to be perfect?
Her heart was already his.
“Come here,” she told him, grabbing the sides of his jacket to pull him into her.
The kiss on her head just wasn’t enough.
Gracen pressed her lips to his, clutching him tight to her while his hands framed her face. The seconds flew by—one after another—but the plushness of his mouth didn’t move against hers. He lingered, and the way his lips curved told her that he reveled in those moments of stillness with her.
But then he pecked her on the mouth, too. Another sweep of his lips urged on her own. She found the taste of mint on his breath when her mouth opened for him. His gaze never left hers while their arms tangled around one another, and they swayed on the spot.
Like the breeze rolling over the hill.
Pulling at the wheat not yet harvested.
He broke the kiss first. Only to hug her hard again.
“I hope you know how much I fucking missed you,” he told her.
She clung back.
For dear life.
“Me, too.”
She felt his head lift over her shoulder.
“This place is beautiful. I’ve driven past here so many times,” Malachi said. “That’s gonna be a hell of a driveway in the winter for your car, though.”
Gracen groaned. “Don’t remind me. I’ve already been warned.”
Keeping her hugged close to his side, Malachi turned back to the truck slightly. “So hey, I’ve got something for you in the truck. I know you didn’t want any—”
“You didn’t bring gifts, right?” Gracen asked.
The way he squinted one eye made Gracen swat him gently on the stomach. “Malachi.”
“I didn’t get you, like ... house stuff,” he muttered. “Better?”
She eyed him through narrowed lids. “Barely.”
He barked out a laugh. “Just get in the truck.”
“What?”
Malachi gestured at the passenger side, and even pushed his hand at the small of her back to start her walk forward. “Go on, open the door.”
Keeping close watch on him over her shoulder, and the way his sly grin continued to grow like he was so pleased with himself, Gracen headed for the side of the F150. She didn’t even think to look through the glass to see what waited inside before she opened the front passenger door.
Her loud gasp made the fluffy kitten sitting in the middle of the passenger seat on a knitted blue blanket lift his head. Snuggled into a tight little ball, the black and white tuxedo kitten had hair that stuck up from one end of his body to the other. She only assumed he was a boy because of the color of the blanket and the matching collar with a dangling bell around his neck.
Small enough to fit in her hands, she was too scared to pick him up as his hazy blue eyes blinked out of sync up at her. He even yawed—tiny, sharp teeth stretching wide—and a pink tongue lolled out of his mouth.
“Oh, my God!”
Her shriek echoed over the little valley she now called home.
Malachi’s laughter soon followed. “He meowed almost the whole way here. He only fell asleep like twenty minutes ago.”
Gracen finally picked up the kitten when he stood up on his blanket with a shudder as he stretched out his spine and tail. He meowed softly, his soft wiggly body settling into her arms as she hugged him to her chest and turned to the man responsible for delivering her such a cruelly cute creature.
“Why is there litter and a box, all those toys, and whatever else is on the floor of the truck?” she asked.
Malachi winked. “He needed stuff, didn’t he?”
Bags of it, though?
It didn’t even matter.
Malachi’s plan landed flawlessly.
The last of Gracen’s air rushed out of her chest. “You really got me a kitten?”
“I would have gone for the puppy,” Malachi admitted with a shrug, “but I didn’t know what kind of breed to even start with.” Moving close enough that the tip of his finger could softly flick the kitten’s ear, he added, “This guy was a lot simpler. And kind of perfect, too. He just looked meant for you.”
She couldn’t breathe.
Her heart hurt from being so full.
Malachi leaned in for another kiss that she happily provided with a huge smile that couldn’t be dimmed. “Welcome home, babe.”
