“I’m going to check on the chickens,” he says firmly. “And Summer here is coming with me to the coop.”
My stomach does a flip in my belly at the mention of the chicken coop. “I am?”
“Sure are.” He points his thumb toward the door. “Get a move on. We’ve got eggs to collect.”
“Since when do they produce eggs in the winter?” Logan asks, his voice suspicious.
“They can do anything if you keep ’em warm and happy.” Grandpa Al pulls a scratchy-looking wool coat off the rack and shoves his arms into it. “Just like me. C’mon, Summer, let’s go.”
Not one to argue, I lace up my boots and follow him outside.
It’s a short walk to the chicken coop, where Grandpa Al shows me how to shift the straw in the nest box to locate the eggs, then swap out the old straw for fresh bedding.
I’m all too happy that our conversation is strictly business. Any mention of Logan right now while at the scene of last night’s crime would probably turn me redder than the currants in the muffin I had this morning.
Then out of nowhere, Grandpa Al asks a question I couldn’t have seen coming. “You ever been hunting, Summer?”
Staring at one of the hens pecking at the feed in the corner of the coop, I bite my lower lip with worry. “We’re not going to hunt these poor chickens, are we?”
He wheezes out a laugh. “Oh, heavens no. I’m talking about deer.”
Whew. Thank God. I already have too many feelings tied to this chicken coop. I don’t need to throw devastating sadness into the mix.
“I grew up in the city. There’s not really a lot of opportunities for hunting deer there.”
Grandpa Al runs a hand over his beard. “Well, you’ll have plenty of opportunities if you stick around here.”
My chest tightens. What gave this family the idea that I would be a lasting fixture in Lost Haven?
“I’m not going to be sticking around,” I remind him. “Like I was telling Jillian, I think I’ll go back to—”
“Last year was an especially good deer season,” he says, disregarding what I just said. “But there was this one time, I thought I’d lined up my shot just right.”
He sets down the basket of eggs and mimics holding a rifle, his whole body jerking back as he lets the imaginary bullet fly.
“Boom. Should’ve been a clean shot. But he must’ve been a fast bugger, because I just got him in the leg. Injured the poor guy. I had to put the animal down. End his suffering.”
“I don’t think I need any more details,” I say with a wince. I’m not a vegetarian, but much more of this kind of conversation may turn me into one.
“The point is, I set out to kill a deer that day, and I did. It didn’t happen the way I planned when I first lined up that shot, but I got it done, and I got a good story out of it. Do you understand?” He offers me the slightest smile, but I’m totally lost.
“I can’t say I do.”
“Sometimes, you think you have a plan and everything goes sideways. But you can still do what you set out to do if you stick to your goal. And you might even get a good story or two out of it.”
There’s that flip-flopping feeling in my stomach again.
Does Grandpa Al know what happened last night too? Or maybe he just senses something is up between Logan and me. Either way, I wish I could click my heels together and magically transport out of this conversation.
“I don’t think you should leave just yet,” he says finally. “Give it a day to really decide. I don’t think your work is finished here, even if it’s not going according to plan.”
I want to tell him that I didn’t come out here with a plan. That my only plan was to get Logan to agree to meet with me, to get his anger issues under control and get him back on the ice.
But Grandpa Al is right about one thing. I think I have some unfinished business here in Lost Haven.
“Fine.” I sigh, reaching down to grab the basket of eggs. “One more day. Just one.” I hold up my pointer finger to further drive my point home. “Okay?”
Grandpa Al’s satisfied smile is as wide as a country mile. “Deal.”
Well, if I accomplish nothing else today, at least I made an old man smile.
We bring the eggs back to the house, where Logan has disappeared and Jillian has already moved on from breakfast and brought out her stand mixer to start baking bread.
“Want to lend me a hand, Summer? If you’re not in too much of a rush to get to the airport, that is.” She gives Grandpa Al a wink, and it’s never been clearer that there’s a full-family effort taking place to keep me here.
But for some reason, I don’t mind. It feels good to be wanted, to be part of a family, even if it’s not mine. I feel at home here. And that thought is as troubling as it is comforting.
“I’ve never made bread before,” I say, swapping out my coat for an apron. “But I’m ready to learn, if you’ll teach me.”
“Oh, sugar.” Jillian squeezes my arm, her rosy cheeks lifting as she smiles. “I’ll teach you anything if it means keeping you around another day.”
My heart gives a little squeeze at her kind words. To feel needed, wanted . . . well, it’s a very powerful thing. Back in Boston, I’ll be alone much of the time in my little apartment. And while that’s never bothered me before, the idea of it now doesn’t sit well.
While Grandpa Al settles back into his chair, Jillian flips on the radio. Before long, I’m up to my elbows in flour, learning to knead bread the right way, as Jillian keeps saying. I can’t help but laugh at the idea that there’s a wrong way to knead bread that would end with the oven exploding or something worse.
As we work, Jillian treats me to plenty of family gossip about her sons.
According to her, Austen hasn’t been on a date since last year; meanwhile, Matt hasn’t brought the same girl home twice since he moved back to Lost Haven. When she tells me about her secret tally of Matt’s one-night stands that she keeps on the side of the fridge, I have to stop kneading dough just to laugh. And sure enough, there are a whole bunch of tick marks on a scrap of paper.
By the time the bread is in the oven and I’m ready to wash up, I’m wishing I promised Grandpa Al two days instead of just one to mull over my next move.
Yes, being here has brought many awkward moments, but it’s also brought some of the sweetest memories I’ve made in forever. I’ve been so busy with work the past year that I can’t remember when I last had this much time to just be. To bake, to laugh, to spend time around a bonfire, sipping whiskey and swapping stories. It’s a life so unlike anything I’ve ever known, and it’s given me nothing but a whirlwind of confusing emotions that I shouldn’t be feeling.
“The oil leak in the mower’s all fixed!” a familiar voice shouts from the door to the garage.
Moments later, Logan is standing in the kitchen, his jeans and hands smeared with sooty oil. When he spots me, there’s a twinkle in his blue eyes that makes my heart pound a little faster.
“You’re still here.”
“Of course I’m still here. I wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye.”
The slightest hint of a smile twitches at the corner of his mouth. God, this man. He shouldn’t make me feel this way, but he does.