He’d been surprised at how comfortable it all had been, how seemingly natural. As if the three childhood friends often met up and relived old times. When nothing could have been further from the truth. Wyatt hadn’t spent much time in the States in the past decade-plus, only what he’d had to do early on so he could keep traveling on a work visa, before finally getting dual citizenship with Britain. Being stateside had never felt comfortable. Even with his father no longer a shadowy specter to be feared or loathed, it had still felt like . . . purgatory. A place that was between the two other planes of his existence, necessary but only as a holding spot until he could get on a flight to where he needed to be. It had certainly long since ceased feeling like home. If it ever had.
So today had been revelation upon revelation. Time he’d most definitely think on, sort out, analyze too much, and ultimately find a place for. Somewhere. He just didn’t know what that place would be. At the moment, he couldn’t imagine thinking back on this evening, spent with these people, as anything less than a wonderful memory. A highlight, for so very many reasons.
“No,” he replied to Vivi. “I can’t say I have. As wonderful as that sounds, though, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a rain check.” He pushed his chair back and picked up his plate and napkin.
“You don’t have to clear,” Avery said, hopping up. “You’re company.”
“KP duty is my middle name,” Wyatt said with a grin, standing anyway. “You went to all this trouble—let me earn my keep.”
“Vivi, you are not going to let him—” Avery began, but Hannah cut her off.
“Wyatt, have you made arrangements for tonight? We should have asked.”
Wyatt glanced at Tory. “Tory said it was okay to bunk with her,” he said, then looked at Hannah. “If that’s okay with you.” Tory had offered him her couch—or Hannah’s couch, as it were—when they’d arrived. Over this delightful dinner he thought they’d gotten past Hannah’s initial reaction on first meeting him, so he was surprised by Hannah’s less than enthusiastic reaction to his request. He hurried to add, “I hadn’t planned on staying more than the night. I’ll find a place in town tomorrow.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Vivi said, stepping in. “I’m afraid between renovations and whatnot, we’re full up here—”
“Vivi, he can use—” Avery started, but Vivi talked over her, her smile becoming brighter and more determined as she continued.
“Chey, darling,” she said, as casually as you please, “you’ve got a fully furnished guest room. Surely you don’t mind—”
“Vivi, he and Tory sound like they’ve worked this out—”
“Oh, the loft really isn’t set up for guests,” Hannah explained, looking from Vivi to Wyatt, her smile now firmly back in place. “Chey’s place is much better.” She turned brightly to Tory, who had been seated to her right, with Wyatt on her left. “Speaking of which, why don’t we head out to the loft and go over everything since we didn’t have a chance earlier.” She looked at Avery. “Didn’t you say you wanted to show Vivi that new extraction process you came up with?” She smiled. “Chey, you can help with cleanup, right? Then get Wyatt settled?”
Vivi patted Wyatt’s hand and took his plate and napkin from him before he could get a grasp on the rapidly developing situation. “Avery and I will do this. And we’ll talk business in the morning. I’ve already invited Addie Pearl for tea and lavender scones in the morning. Seth and Pippa will be joining us as well. He owns the winery up the hill here, and Pippa—well, I think she’s going to be the perfect addition to our little quest.” Her eyes twinkled. “She’s got quite the following, too.”
Thirty seconds later, as if by magic, Wyatt and Chey found themselves alone on the enclosed veranda at the side of the farmhouse.
Wyatt laughed. “I wonder if they’d consider being on my next production crew. That was about the most well-orchestrated teamwork I’ve ever seen.”
“And so subtle, too,” Chey added wryly. “You know, you can bunk on Tory’s couch. Hannah was just being protective.”
His eyebrows lifted. “By shoving me into your bed? Protective of whom?” He chuckled. “Because I don’t think anyone in there assumed that I was actually going to bunk in your guest room.”
“I think Hannah was just making sure you didn’t end up bunking with Tory.” She made air quotes around the word “bunking.”
Wyatt frowned. “Why?”
“Apparently she thought you two were an item, and she was trying to protect me by not letting the two of you spend the night together.”
“First, why would she think that? And secondly, protect you from what?”
“Look, this is none of my business.” Chey sighed. “I don’t do gossip. And for what it’s worth, neither does Hannah. The only reason she told me was because she knows our backstory. She was the only one I told about you. And I only did that because she was getting involved with someone and about to make what looked to my experienced eyes like the biggest mistake of her life. She came to me for advice, and I told her about you, about how we parted ways. I wanted her to understand why I knew what regret felt like, that I was speaking from a place of knowledge.”
“You all seem so close,” he said. “You never talked about us with the others?”
“We are as close as family. We are family. Like sisters from different generations.” She looked out over the lavender fields for a moment, and he gave her the space and time to gather her thoughts, decide what to share. “We met at a grief counseling group a few years after Cody died. I worked a number of farms moving from the west to east, until I found a place on a farm in northern Virginia, just outside DC. I wasn’t handling my grief well. I knew that. I’d tried counseling but, frankly, it just pissed me off. Don’t tell me how to feel or what my grief is like.” She waved a hand, let it drop. “That was on me, not the counselors. They were trying to help me, but I honestly wasn’t receptive or trusting. I don’t even know what made me go to that group meeting that afternoon. Desperation, I guess. I thought maybe I’d do better in a crowd, where I could listen but not be expected to participate. I don’t know. A flyer at the post office was how I found out about it.”
“Fate,” Wyatt said quietly. “Or a fluke. I’m a firm believer in both.” His smile was fleeting. “Even when it pisses me off.”
The corner of her mouth lifted in a dry smile. She nodded. “I met Avery, Vivi, and Hannah there that day. We were complete strangers, but the thing we had in common was that we each instantly hated that group.” She let out a short laugh. “They were very much interested in holding hands and wallowing in their grief. Not finding a productive way to live with it. We all more or less snuck out at the same time. As we stood in front of the elevator Vivi was the one who made some comment that made us all laugh. Avery started in as we rode down together, and we laughed some more. I felt better in the five minutes it took us to get outside than I had in the past three years before. Vivi spontaneously suggested we grab coffee.”