She’d had a million questions about the family business and how it worked and how the Abbotts managed to keep business and personal separate. Though Lucas didn’t actually work in the store, it had always been part of his life, and he could answer her questions about the family dynamics as well as any of the others who worked in the office. He sold most of his woodworking products in the store, including hand-carved bed frames, dressers and hope chests as well as smaller items such as carved moose that sold like wildfire, so he was definitely involved.
Lucas put down the window and stuck his head out. “Come on, Fred. Be a sport. It’s my freaking birthday, and it’s already been a bitch of a day. Have a heart and move your ass, will you?”
Fred eyed him as if he was considering the request.
“Please?”
With another loud moo, Fred took one step forward and then another.
“Was he honestly waiting for me to say please?” Lucas asked the universe as he put up the window, put the truck in Drive and headed over the bridge toward home. He hadn’t lived in the barn in years, but it would always be home to him and his siblings. As he pulled into the driveway that was already full of pickup trucks and SUVs built to withstand brutal Vermont winters, his grandfather, Elmer, was getting out of his truck.
Lucas parked and went to greet his grandfather, who was waiting for him.
“Oh, hey, Luc.” Elmer said his name after giving him a close look to make sure he got it right. Elmer was one of the few people in their lives who almost always got it right. “I couldn’t tell what color your truck was in the dark.”
His was navy. Landon’s was black. Same model. Shocker, right?
Lucas gave his grandfather a hug. “How you doing, Gramps?”
“I’m good.” He patted Lucas on the back. “Happy birthday, buddy.”
“Thanks.”
“I can’t believe you guys are twenty-seven. Where does the time go?”
“And still such nitwits.”
“You said that, not me.”
Lucas laughed as he held the door to the mudroom for Elmer. “Saved you the trouble.”
“You boys like to have fun. Nothing wrong with that.”
A few days ago, he would’ve agreed with Elmer’s statement. Now he had reason to wonder how a guy transitioned from acting the fool to being an actual adult. That was his goal for the next year. He would be mocked ruthlessly by his siblings and others who had come to expect certain behavior from him, but he wouldn’t be deterred in his goal to take his game up a few notches.
Having a plan for himself helped as he hung his coat on the hook with his name on it, which was to the left of Landon’s. He’d been born ten minutes before Landon. Since Landon’s hook was empty, Lucas realized he’d gotten there first. Taking a quick glance at the hooks, he noted that everyone else was there.
Lucas took off his hat, tucked it into the pocket of his coat and ran his fingers through dirty-blond hair to bring some order to it. This time of year, everyone in Vermont suffered from a terminal case of hat head. He stepped into the kitchen and received a warm, welcoming smile from his mother.
“There’s one of my guests of honor.”
Lucas wondered what it might be like to have a birthday all to himself and then immediately felt guilty for having the thought. “Hi, Mom.”
Molly Abbott, her gray hair in a long braid down her back as usual and her pretty face bright with pleasure over an evening with her family, hugged him. “Happy birthday, Luc. Twenty-seven looks good on you.”
He stuck out his chin. “Better than twenty-six did?”
“Much better.”
“He had nowhere to go but up,” their youngest brother, Max, said when he joined them in the kitchen with his baby son, Caden, in his arms.
Molly tried to hide her smile but failed miserably.
Lucas scowled at his brother and reached for the baby, noting the cacophonous noise coming from the family room where the rest of the family was probably watching the Bruins game.
Max handed the baby over to his uncle. “Don’t listen to a word he says, buddy, and don’t do anything he does.”
In light of his recent revelations, Lucas couldn’t help being slightly wounded by Max’s teasing comments. Not that he hadn’t earned the jibes. He certainly had, but that was going to change, effective immediately. He snuggled Caden into his chest and kissed the top of his silky head. The little guy always smelled so damned good. His little fist grasped ahold of Lucas’s flannel shirt, catching a bit of chest hair that made his uncle wince from the tug of pain. “Easy, pal. Uncle Luc doesn’t need any bald spots. Not yet anyway.”
“Hey!” His oldest sister, Hannah, let out a happy squeak when she came around the corner from the dining room and nearly crashed into Lucas. “Happy birthday!”
“Thank you.” He leaned down so she could kiss his cheek. “Where’s my niece?”
“With her daddy. She’s all about him these days, except for when she’s hungry. Then Mommy is number one.”
Lucas smiled at the face Hannah made to express her displeasure while knowing full well she was madly in love with the daughter she’d waited forever to have—and the husband who’d made her so damned happy. “Fred was being Fred again on the way over here. Blocking the road to the covered bridge.”
“He’s been ornery lately.” Hannah acted as if she had a direct bead on Fred’s moods, which she sort of did, not that anyone wanted to admit that out of fear of encouraging her moose-whispering activities. The best part was that she didn’t even think her unique bond with a full-grown bull moose was weird. Everyone else did, though, especially Nolan, who was continuously freaked out by her close encounters of the moose kind. “Ever since I took Baby Dexter home with me, he’s been out of sorts.”
“Has it occurred to you that Fred liked having Baby Dexter around and maybe he didn’t want you messing with him?” Lucas asked.
“Of course it has, but he has no business raising a baby moose.”
Bouncing Caden, who seemed to have dozed off, Lucas raised his brows in disbelief. “And you do?”
“I’m better at it than Fred is. At least with me, the poor baby is getting regular meals and lots of love.”
“Which is critical to moose development.”
“Every baby needs lots of love. Moose are no different.”
It took effort on Lucas’s part not to roll his eyes. Knowing she was dead serious kept him from mocking her—that and his newfound intention to act more like an adult than a buffoon. The sound of a baby crying in the next room had Hannah spinning around to go to her daughter. “Speaking of babies…”
When they were alone, Lucas gazed down at Caden’s sleeping face. “Auntie Hannah may be nuts, buddy, but she’s the best kind of nuts.” Lucas admired his older sister more than just about anyone he knew. After enduring the devastating loss of her first husband, Caleb, in Iraq, watching her find new love with Nolan had been inspirational. And now they had baby Caleb, whom they called Callie, and Hannah smiled all the time. If taking care of a baby moose made her happy, so be it. If anyone had earned the right to be happy, it was Hannah.
“Was she going on about the baby moose again?” Nolan asked, his mouth full of cheese and cracker.