Willa:
We’re not living together in your apartment. And I’m staying in the converted silo right now. There’s no space for you and your ego.
Lincoln:
Don’t worry, wife. We’ll make it fit.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LINCOLN
Findingout my wife wasn’t residing at the home I’d only ever known as the Jameson farmhouse had been a real kick in the balls. Thankfully, getting fawned over by two women old enough to be my grandmother helped soothe my battered ego a bit.
Expecting Willa to answer the door, I’d just about fallen on my ass when Pearl—an older Black woman with silver braids piled high and a mischievous smile—and Bernice—a white woman around the same age with zero filter and the kind of side-eye that could knock down a lesser man—had actually greeted me. Apparently, they were Mabel’s self-appointed watchdogs, just visiting Starlight Cove for the summer.
After five seconds in their presence, I knew they were the kind of women who didn’t just gossip—they deployed it like a tactical weapon. Thank fuck I could think on my feet and bullshit with the best of them, so neither had been privy to my epic what-the-fuck moment.
If they’d caught even a whiff of confusion on my face about why theywere staying in my wife’s home and she wasn’t, I knew they would’ve called in the troops and launched a three-part investigation before midnight.
So, I’d done what I did best and distracted them with sweet talk and my dimples—not to mention all the shirtless flexing while rearranging the living room.
After promising Bernice and Pearl I’d stop by next week to help them move around the patio furniture for their seniors-only speed dating event, I made my way over to the converted silo on the other side of the farm to find my wife.
With its matte black siding contrasting the old corrugated metal of the silo, the building looked different now than it had while we were kids. But the vines trailing up the trellis and the perfectly tended flower beds had Willa’s fingerprints all over them. The two red rocking chairs on the porch didn’t match her usual scowl, but they made sense in a way.
Stubborn. Bold. Refusing to blend in. Willa in a nutshell.
This place used to be rusted out and ugly. Purely functional grain storage for the dairy cows, back when the Jameson farm was a bigger operation than it was currently.
Willa had started restoring the silo about a year after her dad passed away—when it had become clear that running a dairy farm on top of everything else was too much. And as with everything she did, she hadn’t half-assed the renovation. She’d sanded, stained, and sweated her stubborn ass through the entire process, accepting little assistance from others.
Fortunately, I hadn’t let that stop me.
She’d kept saying she didn’t need help. I’d kept showing up with tools and snacks. Eventually, she’d stopped threatening to bury me in the compost pile. That was basically a proposal in Willa-speak.
After pulling up the gravel driveway, I parked between Willa’s beat-up old truck and the ATV she used to get around on the property. With the number of times we’d stolen that thing as kids and gotten up to absolutely no good, I was surprised one of us hadn’t ended up dismembered or dead.
I grabbed my bags and guitar case from the back seat and strolled up the walkway toward the door, glancing around. The last rays of the sun cast the treetops in burnished gold, and their shadows stretched tall across the fields surrounding the silo. The trellis-framed porch was secluded enough where I could definitely get into some trouble with my wife.
If only she didn’t hate me…
I knocked twice before the front door swung open, and there stood Willa. Arms crossed, scowl firmly in place as she glowered at me while I dared to breathe.
“Honey, I’m home,” I said, voice far too chipper for the death glare she was giving me.
She narrowed her gaze at the duffel in one hand, my guitar case in the other, and the backpack slung over my shoulder. “I told you not to come here with your entire life.”
I smiled like I hadn’t caught her sharp tone. “Actually, you invited me with the whole,hey, do you want to get marriedthing. I’m just following through.”
“I invited you into alegalarrangement. Not into my very limited square footage.”
“’Fraid they go hand in hand, buttercup. And you knew I came with baggage. All the hot guys do.”
Her gaze snapped to mine, her lips pursed. “That’s not funny.”
“Oh, come on. The truth is always funny.”
Stepping inside the entryway that was smaller than my wingspan, I brushed her shoulder with mine because there wasn’t space to do anything else.
