There were a hundred things to do. But first, a shower.
Theo all but tore off his clothes as he entered the code into the cabin’s security system and entered the two-story foyer. He slid out of his shoes and his jacket as he moved up the stairs. As he entered the hallway he unbuttoned his top collar. The house was still on the cold side, the thermostat showing a slowly rising fifty-four degrees. Honestly, how had Skye’s mother known he was going to stay, and when in those twelve minutes he was at their house had she snuck away to turn on the heat? He went directly to the master bedroom.
Must. Get. Into. Shower. Immediately.
Theo dropped his dirt-encrusted cufflinks onto the porcelain trivet and flicked on the bathroom light. His feet were cold as he stepped onto the tile, but chilled feet were the last thing on his mind at the present moment. No, the most pressing matter was the spiderwebs. The dozens of spiderwebs he had encountered as he trod through Skye’s forested backyard to get here.
All for the sake of a conversation.
A tickle crept along his neck and he slapped at it before turning the shower knob.
So, he still had a little problem with spiders.
Any sane person aware of the three thousand species of spiders in the United States, most particularly the two fatal ones local to the area, would have a problem with spiders. He hastily worked the buttons on his shirt, and with increasingly concerning tickles covering at least five areas on his chest and back, he gave in and finally yanked it off. The two remaining fastened buttons made a distinct snap. They pinged as they bounced and then scattered across the tile floor.
He was not arachnophobic.
Everybody else in the world was just, in his mind, absolutely insane.
He stepped into the still-icy shower, well aware of all he’d been called since he was a child. Everything from a simple “scaredy-cat” and “chicken” to the diagnosis at one point given by the child psychologist: “entomophobic.”
But what befuddled him was that there was no name for those who voluntarily put their lives on the line by making sleeping outside a sport. Boy Scouts. Campers. Those absolutely out-of-their-minds hikers who walked through the town every year with their fiddles and tin cans in their six-month-long, 2,200-mile trek of the Appalachian Trail.
Insane.
Who would choose to cocoon themselves into sleeping bags like saucy enchiladas for every Lyme disease–bearing tick, leg-amputating brown recluse, rattlesnake, mountain lion, bear, or serial-killing maniac to discover?
Somebody needed to write that condition in the book of psychological disorders.
In truth, Skye had been right to question him when he volunteered to help out over the next few days. She was right to doubt his interest in turning tractors and clearing land and planting seedlings in a minefield of undesirable experiences. But she wasn’t right to doubt his interest in turning tractors and clearing land and planting seedlings with her. When you find yourself suddenly face-to-face with your life’s greatest regret, you don’t walk away. Even with the threat of spiders.
So yes, in a moment of bravado, he walked through those woods and hiked between rows of firs beneath a dewdrop sky.
Yes, he had regretted every moment since the first blind slap of the spiderweb hit his face.
Yes, every square inch of his body had begun to itch by the time he emerged from the woods.
Yes, he was very aware that after he dressed he was going to have to walk the length of the farm again, this time via the safe, wide berth of the long gravel driveway, to pick up his car from the Fullers’ driveway and make the forty-five-minute drive to Abingdon for some belongings.
But in exchange for real conversation, he had cracked Skye’s concrete demeanor with the topic of his own weakness. Was it worth it?
Absolutely.
Whatever it took.
* * *
Theo’s headlights followed the zigzagging road that clung to the side of Whitetop Mountain. The second he hit the halfway spot down the mountain and was back in service, his phone started beeping with notifications. Glancing at the screen, Theo caught one name repeated several times. He wasn’t surprised.
He took a breath, then pressed the Bluetooth button on his steering wheel. “Call Ashleigh.”
The phone made it through one full ring before she picked up. “Theo. I’m sorry—I know it’s late. You just had to leave so quickly—”
“No, I’m the one who needs to apologize. Believe me, that’s not customary for me. I’ve never walked out in the middle of a date.”
“Well, I’ve never had anyone walk out on me in the middle of a date, so we’re even.”
Theo heard the shy smile in her tone and felt the corners of his lips turn up.
But then he remembered where he was, and where he was about to return.
His headlights shone on another deep turn in the road, and Theo turned the wheel. “I would’ve called back sooner but I just got down the mountain enough to get service.”
“You’re still up there? With your employee?” The surprise in Ashleigh’s voice was understandable, but Theo frowned slightly at the almost imperceptible tone of disapproval. But then, when he’d explained the situation as he broke off their date and dashed out the door, the barrage of questions revealed she hadn’t quite understood then either. “You’re driving up to Whitetop to visit someone who takes care of the farm? At his home? Tonight? Now?”
“I was. It’s going to take longer than expected to deal with the situation up here. I need to gather some supplies back in town before heading back.”
“You’re staying?” This time the disapproval was clear as crystal. “Why?”
He recalled the image of Skye in her slouchy sweater opening the door. The millisecond of shock in her deep brown eyes. The emotions that swirled in her irises the moment before she blinked and the concrete mask dropped into place. He saw no hate or bitterness. Neither did he see blankness, as though she had removed him from her life and forgotten him.
Quite the opposite.
The look—a momentary, millisecond look—suggested she had seen someone she cared for in the deepest, most secret parts of her soul.
If he was wrong, if he had only seen the reflection of his own desire in her shining eyes, then, well, it didn’t change a thing.
“Theo? You still—there?”
“Sorry,” Theo said, “I’m about to hit another dead spot.”
“Why are you going to stay at the Christmas tree farm?” The threat of a lost connection heightened her urgency.
He knew his answer.
But here, now, with the voice of the woman who’d been a constant source of companionship these past few weeks filling the car, he found himself pushing the brakes on the words that had formed in his head. Felt himself turning in another direction to answer her question in another true, if indirect, way.
Theo grinned. “Why, to return to my heritage. To be a farmer,” he said, just as the line went dead.
Chapter 6
Skye
Someone was on her porch.
It was six fifteen in the morning, and someone was on her porch.
The sky was only just starting to break through the linen curtains over her window when she wrapped her robe around her and followed the sound of the creaking porch swing to her front door. When she opened it, there was Theo, clad in what appeared to be knockoff Carhartt pants, still crisply creased in that hadn’t-been-washed-yet way, holding two cups of steaming coffee. He wore an ill-fitting orange flannel as his shirt of choice, the crisscrossing plaid of blue and orange so bright it would no doubt glow in the dark.