Much Ado About You

“Jesus,” I whispered, thinking of Milly and Dex and how worried they must have been.

“Aye. Well, I was at the hospital to support Milly and Dex. I didn’t want to leave them until I was sure Viola was going to be all right. When I came out of her room, I found Lucas skulking around, pale faced—a jittery bloody mess.” Roane shook his head, smirking. “When I approached him, he practically jumped me for information about Viola, and I knew then my suspicions were correct. Lucas doesn’t just fancy Viola, Evie, he cares about her. He might even love her.”

My chest ached at the thought. “But—”

“He knew I knew then, and he made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone he’d been there to see how she was. And I haven’t told anyone until now.”

“Why?”

“Because his name is Lucas Elliot. Do you think West, or even Kathy, would ever speak to that boy again if he told them he was getting together with Viola Tait?”

I threw my hands up in despair. “This is ridiculous, Roane! Why should two young people who obviously care about each other have to be at each other’s throats to keep the other at bay, because some dude can’t get over a lost love?”

My friend was quiet for a moment. And then, voice gentle, he asked, “Have you ever been in love, Evie?”

Surprised by the turn of conversation, I blinked a few times before admitting, “No.”

“Then how can you say West Elliot should just get over it? I’m not saying I agree with the shit he’s pulled, or that he shouldn’t have tried to move on . . . I absolutely don’t. I’m just saying that West must have loved Milly with everything he had for it to have twisted him up inside so badly. And that’s sad, Evie. That’s fucking tragic.”

It was. Terribly so. But . . . “Any good father wouldn’t wish the same on his son.”

“I know you mean well.” He gave me a gentle smile to soften the blow of what he said next. “But you need to stop playing matchmaker with those two.”

Feeling somewhat foolish and admonished, I turned away, watching the countryside pass us by. “I just . . . I don’t want them to end up like me. In their thirties and desperately searching their memory for where it was they took the wrong goddamn turn. It would be worse for them, knowing what was possible between them and they never took the chance on each other.”

“Who’s to say it would work out with them anyway?”

True.

I nodded, melancholy.

“Hey.” I felt a strong sensation squeeze my knee, and I looked down to see Roane’s big hand on me. There was a scar across his middle knuckle, and his fingernails were short and blunt. The skin of his hands and arms was just a shade darker than my tan legs. His palm was rough, leathery. A working hand. Masculine against my feminine, slender, soft-skinned knee. There was something visceral about the sight.

I shivered.

“They’ll be all right.” At his words I wrenched my eyes up. He shot me a quick, meaningful look before he said, “You’ll be all right too, angel.”

Something sweet and heady moved through me at the term of endearment. “Angel.” I liked that. I covered his hand with mine and gave him a grateful smile.

As we drove, I was aware of everything. That he hadn’t removed his hand, and every now and then he would flex it on my leg, his thumb brushing the bend in my knee. Between the heat and his touch, sweat gathered behind my knees. The only sound between us was the roll of the road beneath us and Shadow’s panting from the back seat.

A few minutes later, Roane lifted his hand off my knee as he hit the right turn signal, and we turned off the main road, crossing opposing traffic as soon as there was a break in it to venture down a dirt road that cut through open fields on either side. There were a lot of sheep in the field to my left.

“Is this your farm?” I asked.

“This is some of my farm. The sheep farm.”

I remembered Roane telling me he had land to the east for arable farming, and nodded. “About time,” I joked. “You kept avoiding taking me out here so much, I was starting to believe it wasn’t real.”

“It’s real. There’s just nothing much of excitement to see.”

As it turned out, he wasn’t wrong, but what I didn’t tell him was that just being with him made even the most mundane experiences exciting. Not that the farm was mundane. It was just . . . well, a farm. But it was Roane’s farm, and therein lay the difference.

The dirt road led to a small farmhouse with agriculture buildings situated on three sides of it.