The peace of the town settles around us, and as I look back at my brother, I see the tension leave his shoulders as a crooked grin lifts his lips.
“Yeah, it is.” I hide my smile, knowing Robin won’t just see the expression there, but the feelings I’ve hidden deep inside.
“Come on, Uncle Robin, you have to meet Saffron.” Lark grabs his hand, dragging him inside the B&B. “Everyone will be here shortly! They can’t wait to meet you. Even Mom’s new boyfriend.”
I miss a step and go flying right into a puddle of mud. I face-plant into the soft ground where the remnants of the snow created the puddle. I push up, hearing Robin laughing so hard, I just know he’s got tears spilling from his eyes.
“Oh man, Wren.” His breath stutters as he tries to get the words out. “I’ve never heard of someone denying something so much they dive into a mud puddle.”
“Mom!” Lark gasps as I struggle to get out of the puddle, and directly to my right is that darn stone with the carving of a moose.
I swear that moose is haunting me. Freaking moose.
“Birdie?” Oh no, nerves flare in my stomach as Arlo calls out to me.
“Mom fell in the mud,” Lark announces, ratting me out.
“Birdie, are you okay?” Arlo asks.
I try to get up, I really do, but the mud is far slipperier than I expected.
“Mom fell because I called you her boyfriend.” Out of the mouths of babes.
I slip again, right into the mud.
Robin laughs even harder. “Hey, man, I’m Robin.”
“Hey,” Arlo says carefully. I can feel his eyes burning a hole through my head. “Do you need help?”
“No, no. I’ve got it.” I do not, in fact, have it, and I slip once more right into the mud. “This is my home now.”
“Anyone have rope we can pull her out with?” Robin tries to ask with a seriousness that is nothing but fake.
“Birdie.” Arlo’s boots squelch in the mud as he hovers over me, and with the strength of Aquaman, whom the ladies and I drooled over last night, he lifts me up and sets me on that stupid moose stone.
Covered in mud, I raise my chin and stare at Robin. His dimples deepen as he struggles not to laugh at me. “Robin. As you were.”
Bursting out laughing, he does what I should have expected any sibling to do. He whips out his phone and takes a picture—several in fact, if the sound of the shutter is any indication. And oh I believe it.
“You’ve got a little something.” He wipes under my eye. “Naw, you are just going to have to get washed.”
“Oh, no you don’t, Wren!” Saffron shouts from the steps. “Hose out back. Arlo, you got her?”
My headstone will read, “Died of mortification.” Luckily, all the mud keeps the blush hidden on my face.
“Hug me, brother.” I reach out to Robin, who hops backward, still snapping pictures. Lark runs inside, and he follows her in.
Traitors.
Saffron trails after them, and a moment later, the sound of the lock clicking home settles my fate.
Spinning, I find Arlo covered in mud from lifting me. Uncaring of the cold, he whips off his flannel, leaving his torso in nothing more than an undershirt. “Come on. We have to move fast, or you will catch hypothermia.”
“That’s the subtitle for my headstone,” I mutter as I carefully step around the mud, my shoes squelching in the grass. Why is there so much mud? This should be preventable.
With a chuckle, Arlo leads me around the side of the house to a little shed and a hose. “Would it be so bad?”
“Dying of hypothermia?” I question, kicking off my shoes to stand in the grass in my ruined socks. “No. I once read a storyabout a man falling through ice and his body just stopped. When he thawed, he lived.”
