Audrey’s eyes danced. “Sorry we’re early, but Griff finished up his errands already.”
No way. The little stinker had come early on purpose. “Errands on Sunday, huh?” I asked, calling her on her bullshit. The only businesses that were open in Vermont on Sunday were restaurants and hotels.
“Busy, busy!” she said, unrepentant. “Nice dress, girly. Now where should we unload these?” She jerked a thumb toward the tailgate, where the cider bottles would be stacked.
Griff got out of the truck, pocketing the keys. He gave me a wave, but his eyes were trained on Dave. And he wore one of his Grumpy Griff frowns. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was even ornerier than usual.
Lovely. Just what I needed in my life—one more oddly territorial man.
Wordlessly, Griff began pulling wooden wine crates out of the back of his truck. He carried the first two up onto the porch. When his hands were free, he came down to meet me. “Hey, Zara!” He kissed my cheek. “Thanks for taking care of this for us.”
“It’ll be my pleasure.” I’d assigned myself the task of handling their wedding favors because Audrey seemed a little strung out. The wedding was only six days away.
But first, I needed to rescue Dave. “Why don’t I lay her down, now? I’ll take her inside and put her in the Pack-n-Play.”
“The…?” He gave me a quizzical look.
“Portable crib. Here.” I reached for Nicole and took her warm, sleepy body from him. “Back in a jif.”
I was inside the house for all of sixty seconds. But that was long enough, apparently, for Audrey to do her damage. When I came back out onto the porch, Dave was holding a wedding invitation in his hand.
“We’re having barbecue and swing dancing!” she bubbled. “You should totally come!”
“Sounds amazing,” he said, because what else do you say to a bride who’s invited you to her wedding? He tucked the invitation into his pocket.
Meanwhile, Griff leaned against the truck, arms crossed, trying to kill Dave with Jedi mind tricks.
“So let’s unload some cider,” I said, shooing Audrey off the steps. The faster I could get rid of those two, the better.
“I’ll help,” Dave said lightly.
We all pulled crates off the truck, and when they were stacked onto my uncles’ porch, Audrey handed me a file folder full of labels and several spools of ribbon. “So, you’re basically going to…”
“Stick on the labels and tie a bow onto the neck of the bottle,” I said quickly. “Got it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to get rid of us?”
“Never,” I lied, and she grinned.
“Good. Because I thought we could get started on this project right now.”
“Right now?” I hedged.
“Great idea,” Griff said, slamming the tailgate of his truck back into place. “I’m ready to stick on a few labels. Let’s do this.” He came up the porch steps and thrust a hand out to Dave, the gesture as friendly as if he were brandishing a knife. “I’m Griffin Shipley. Nice to meet you.”
Dave shook his hand, looking amused. “Sure. I remember you.”
“From where?”
“The Mountain Goat.” Dave’s smile widened.
But Griff’s frown only deepened. He hadn’t been expecting that. And he didn’t seem to like it at all.
Awesome. Nothing better on a summer Sunday than watching your two ex-lovers stare each other down. And for what? I’d always assumed that men would save their macho bullshit for women they were actually interested in.
“Guys,” I said. “Who wants a glass of perry? I was just going to pour Dave his first taste.”
“He’s a perry virgin?” Griff yelped, and even Audrey rolled her eyes.
“Sit,” I ordered. I slapped the folder of labels against Griff’s chest. “Make yourself useful.”
* * *
Five minutes later, four so-called grownups were seated on the porch, sipping glasses of Uncle Otto’s perry.
“The taste is amazing,” Dave said. “It really reminds me of apple cider.”
Griffin made an exaggerated choking sound. “It does not taste like apples. Jesus. Perry has a much lighter mouthfeel and the color is completely different.”
Dave blinked. “Right. How could I have been so blind?”
Audrey smirked, and Griff scowled.
Poor Dave. The truth was that pear cider tasted shockingly like its apple cousin, having much of the same tang. But a snob like Griffin could go on until a week from Tuesday about subtle differences in tannins and acidity.
Audrey met my gaze. She was obviously restraining a giggle.
“Pears have distinct tannins and a higher sugar content than apples,” Griff went on. “The fermentation process happens at a completely different rate.”
“Okay. Just going out on a limb here,” Dave said drily. “But are you involved in cider-making?”
I couldn’t hold in my laughter anymore, and Audrey joined me.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Griff grumbled.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dave
Sipping perry with the bearded farmer, I helped Zara and Audrey stick labels on a couple hundred miniature wine bottles.
“What’s in here, anyway?” I asked, smoothing down another label. The label read only “Audrey,” with last year’s vintage.
“The best hard cider Griff ever made,” Zara said. “It won a big award. The Stanley Cup of cider tastings.”
I knocked my knee into hers. “Look at you, with the hockey terminology.”
“You run a bar, you learn a few things. Business was always crap during the finals.”
“Ah.” I conjured up an image of The Mountain Goat in my mind, which wasn’t hard, because I loved the place. “There was no television in your bar. It’s like the last bar on earth without a TV.”
“I know. I liked it that way. I don’t want to live in a world where everyone is pasted to a screen.”
“I hear you.” I stuck on another label. “But I have to run, now. Literally. I have to get a workout in to pay for that big piece of lasagna I ate.”
“And the pie,” Zara pointed out.
“That, too.”
“I’d give you a bottle of Audrey,” said Audrey. “But you have to attend my wedding if you want one. Saturday. Five o’clock.”
“Got it.” I chuckled. “Nice seeing you again, Audrey.”
Zara walked me inside, where I thanked her mother for lunch. Mama Rossi had softened up just a little towards me, I decided. Because she said, “Goodbye, honey. Come again anytime.” Or maybe she was just looking forward to grilling me some more.
I was spared from having a final discussion with Zara’s grumpiest uncle, because he was busy arguing with Griffin Shipley. As best I could tell, Griffin wanted Otto to sell him part of his pear harvest. “I can’t get cider pears anywhere else,” he argued. “And you aren’t monetizing them at all.”
But Otto didn’t sound too keen on the idea of selling part of his harvest, and for some reason it made me happy to see Zara’s ex fail to get his way.
I shouldn’t have cared, though. It had nothing to do with me.
On the porch, I gave Zara a hug and kissed her forehead. “Thank you for lunch, beautiful. Text me if you want to get together.”
“I will,” she said. “But it’s going to be a busy week.”
“That’s my fault!” Audrey said cheerfully. “Last-minute wedding prep is brutal.”
“Maybe I’ll see you at yoga, then?”
“Maybe?” Zara said, giving me a wave as I walked off the porch.
I could feel her friend Audrey’s eyes on me as I got into my rental car. The minute I pulled away, I knew they’d be talking about me. And I wished I were a fly on the wall. Zara was hard to read. I shouldn’t care how she felt about me, but I did anyway.
While the engine warmed up, I found four missed calls on my phone, all from Bess. And when it rang again through the car’s Bluetooth
as I drove along the hilltop, I answered it.
“How’d it go?” Bess asked at once.
“Just a flesh wound,” I said in my best Monty Python accent.
“No, really.”
“Fine. Of course it went fine. I got all the standard questions. Zara’s uncle is a tool. But I don’t mind being grilled about my career. And after lunch I spent some time with Zara, and that was nice.”
“What about the baby? Did you play with her?”
“Wait, is that something you’re supposed to do?” I’d meant it as a joke, but playing with babies wasn’t really part of my repertoire.
“Dave!”
“Just kidding. We went for a walk, and when she fell asleep on Zara I carried her home.”
“Yeah?” The sound of optimism in my sister’s voice was pretty hard to miss. “I wish I could have seen it. Did anyone take a picture?”
“No.” It hadn’t occurred to me. Carrying Nicole wasn’t a photo op. It was just something I’d done for Zara, who had “carried” her in one way or another for two years. Though I hadn’t minded the feel of her warm weight on my injured shoulder. Babies smelled like strawberries, apparently.
Bess let out a deep, wistful sigh, which I found mildly alarming. My sister’s sudden attack of baby fever was freaking me out a little. So I changed the subject. “Zara’s mom cooked a feast. I’m gonna have to run an extra three miles to work it all off.”
“Were her uncles hard on you?”
“Nah. They were just letting me know they were paying attention.” Though I’d never be the guy they wanted for Zara. Maybe nobody was. No man alive would ever be good enough to impregnate my sister, so I didn’t expect Zara’s family to like me, either.
But I’d wanted to make Zara more comfortable, especially after our fight. And I’d done that. She’d hugged me goodbye with a secret smile.
I’d take it.
“Can I come back next week?” my sister asked suddenly.
“To Vermont?” The request surprised me.
“Of course to Vermont. I’m trying to clear a couple of days so I can visit again. You invited me, remember?”
“You’re always welcome,” I said quickly. “When you pick a flight, text me.” I loved my sister, but a couple of hours’ notice would be nice. “Hey—Bess? I had a weird memory today. You wore cloth diapers with safety pins on each side. And this plastic thing that went over them.”
She was so quiet for a second that I thought maybe the call had cut out. “There’s no way I could remember that, Davey.”
“I suppose not.” And I didn’t really want her to. Our mother’s death had been awful. But it hadn’t been the most awful part of our childhood. Our widowed father’s punches had been worse. And I knew for sure that Bess remembered those.
“What’s next with the lawyer?” she asked.
“Um…” I tried to bring my brain back to the present. “I’ll do my paternity-test kit and send it back. He’ll draft a child-support agreement. Then I’ll have to have an awkward conversation with Zara about how she wants to be paid. She’ll get a lump sum up front, of course. For back payment. But I could advance her more money if she wants to move into an apartment with a yard.”
“Or,” my sister said. “You could just buy a house with a yard. A house in that town can’t cost much.”
I thought about that for a second. “You’re right. Then she wouldn’t have to spend the child-support money on rent.”
“And you’d have an investment.”
“You’re pretty smart for a girl.”
“Davey!” she shrieked at the insult, while I cackled. There were things I said only to rile up my sister. It was painfully clear that all the women in my life were smarter than the men.
Just spend five minutes in our locker room, and you’d be convinced.
“Gotta go,” I told her. “There’s no cell service when I get close to the cabins.”
“Later, turd.”
“Later.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zara
When I’d told Dave I was going to have a busy week, it wasn’t stretching the truth.
There were last-minute preparations for Audrey’s wedding. And I needed to line up extra childcare for the week following the wedding. Griff and Audrey were taking a honeymoon in San Francisco, which meant that I’d be working twelve-hour days.
Meanwhile, Audrey wasn’t fully present at work. She was focused on wedding details and relatives who were arriving in town.
Also puking. Poor Audrey spent part of her coffee-shop hours ducking into our bathroom to dry heave. We weren’t discussing her pregnancy yet. She hadn’t come clean. But when she wasn’t puking, she was shoving bread in her mouth. Oh, and she’d given up coffee. Either the Apocalypse was upon us or the girl was preggers.
I was excited for her. But needless to say, this week I did all the heavy lifting in the shop.
So it wasn’t exactly a good moment to get a call from Dave, asking me to meet him at an address in town. “Can I have just a half hour of your time?” he asked. “I need your opinion about something.”
“Today?” I cringed when the question came out bitchier than I’d meant it to.
“Well…I could probably schedule a different time. But today would really be best.”
“What is it, anyway?” I couldn’t imagine Dave needing my opinion on anything important.
“I’d rather show you than tell you.”
Right.
Sigh.
Even if I hadn’t been so busy, the vague answer would have been irritating. But Dave was my Kryptonite. “Okay,” I caved. “I’ll meet you at eleven. Before the lunch rush, I guess.”
“Thanks, gorgeous.” He repeated the address and we hung up. And an hour later I drove up the hill toward town. If I hadn’t been in a hurry, it would have made a lovely ten-minute walk.
The address he’d sent me belonged to a single family house on the hill situated between the river and the tiny downtown area. It was only a mile from my coffee shop. When I pulled my aging car into the driveway, Dave stood beside his rental car, talking to two people. One was Mrs. Godfrey, a real estate agent friend of my mother’s. The other was a man wearing a tool belt. A van was parked at the curb. Karl’s Construction it read on the side.
It was all very odd.
“Hi,” I said warily as I stepped out. “What are we, uh, doing here?”
Dave beckoned me over. “I need you to take a quick peek inside this house.” He pointed at the white one with a long porch on the front. “And also that one.” He pointed at its neighbor—a brick Tudor with a peaky roofline.
“Why, exactly?” I wondered aloud. Mrs. Godfrey beamed and the contractor just looked bored.
“You have to pick one, so I can let the contractor know,” Dave said. “Both houses need work.”
“The colonial needs a new kitchen,” Mrs. Godfrey put in, as if her opinion was useful right now. “New counter tops and appliances, at least.”
“And I don’t like the electrical in there.” The contractor jerked a thumb at the white house. “Gonna need an upgrade if you want a dual fuel range.” He looked at me as if I knew what he was talking about.
I really didn’t enjoy being confused, and my natural response was to get snippy. “David,” I barked. “Come here a second.” I marched out of earshot of his new friends and over to a nice lilac bush in front of the Tudor.
He followed me, and when I stopped, he put his hands on my shoulders. “Sorry, Z. I didn’t know everyone would show up at once. But I need you to take a look at these two houses and pick one.”
“Why?” My pulse fluttered, because it sounded like Dave was planning to buy a house in Vermont. Although that couldn’t be right. The man got paid a lot of money to play hockey in Brooklyn. But my foolish heart wished for it anyway.
He didn’t help matters by stepping closer to me and giving my shoulder muscles a squeeze. I looked up into his green eyes at close range and held my br
eath.
“For you,” he said, in a low voice. “And Nicole. You said you were looking for a house on the way into town. With a yard. There are only two houses for sale that fit that description. These two.”
Wait.
“For me?” I squeaked. “I’m not in the market to buy a house right now.” Maybe five years from now I could afford to think about it. Not now.
Dave stood back, and I lost his broad palms on my shoulders. “You know I have to go back to New York in a few weeks. So we need to do this sooner rather than later.”
“Do what now?” I said, losing my battle with patience. “I can’t just buy a house today because you got the urge to think over my real estate issues.”
“I’m buying the house,” he said.
“Why? For who?”
“For you and Nicole!” He squinted at me as if maybe I’d lost a few brain cells this morning.
I hadn’t, but I might if he didn’t start making more sense. He couldn’t just buy someone a house. “When you asked me what I needed from you, I don’t remember mentioning a house.”
“But you did mention it. You said you were looking for a new place, just like these. And it’s a simple decision, okay? Because there are only two. Personally, I think Number 12 has the better yard. But if you have a thing for fireplaces, Number 14 has three of them. You’ll have to make up your mind in the next week, so the contractor can get the place ready for you. He had a cancellation.”
“He had a cancellation,” I repeated in a brittle voice.
“Right.” He crossed his big arms and stared down at me. “Would you please look at the houses? Silly me, I thought you might enjoy it.”
Bitch mode kicked into a higher gear. Because I would enjoy looking at houses, if it didn’t mean owing him. My heart thumped speedily against my rib cage, and I fought to downshift from bitch to grump. And didn’t quite manage it. “Fine,” I snapped. “Show me, already.”
* * *
“The previous owner opened up the kitchen to the dining room, converting this to a lovely family floorplan,” Mrs. Godfrey gushed as I walked around the pretty space once again.