“Five stars,” Lucas replied with a chuckle, some of the earlier tension easing from his expression.
“Only five? Did she mention I used to have two feet? Maybe you can tack on an extra star for all my troubles?” Britta made a face at me. “You didn’t bring me any breakfast, did ya now? What’s a girl gotta doto get some grub around here!” Britta shouted the last half of her sentence toward the door.
“I swear to all that is holy and good in this world, Britta, you are the worst patient I have ever had!” Even from two rooms away, Doc’s irritation rang through loud and clear.
“You’re driving her insane, aren’t you?” Shaking my head, I turned to leave. “I’ll go grab you something.”
“No, wait.” Lucas stayed me with his hand on my arm. “I’ll go. I need to get the lay of the land if I’m going to live here, right? You stay with your friend.”
“Are ya sure, sugar?” Britta purred, smiling coyly, and my gaze shot to hers, narrowing.
“Yeah, it’s no problem,” Lucas said, bending down to give my forehead a quick kiss. “See you in a few.”
Britta and I lapsed into silence, merely staring at one another until Lucas’s footsteps had faded, and the telltale click of the cabin door echoed, signaling his departure.
“Lord Almighty, Willow!” Britta gaped at me. “Two good lookin’ brothers—both of ‘em hotter than a two-dollar pistol! How much hot can there be in one family? Couldn’t ya have left one for the rest of us, ya goddang greedy little man hog?”
“Britta!” My laughter was sharp and abrupt as I clutched my stomach—laughter that quickly tapered into a sob. Sitting down hard in the chair beside the bed, I buried my face in my hands. “Oh my god, what am I going to do? Britta, I don’t know what the fuck to do.”
“Oh-no, nu-uh. No way, Jose. There’ll be no more cryin’ at my bedside, sugar. If anyone’s gonna be gettin’ misty-eyed, it’s gonna be the woman without the foot. Definitely not the woman with two hot brothers and all her limbs.”
My hands dropped from my face. “Did you really just say that to me?” I demanded. “I don’t have two of anything—I don’t even want two of anything! None of this was what I wanted!”
Britta tilted her head to one side, studying me. “So what do ya want? Or, better yet,whodo ya want… an’, more importantly, can I have the other one?”
“Britta.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll stop now. Time to be serious.”
“Thank you.”
A moment of silence passed before Britta cleared her throat and said, “But, seriously—sharin’ is carin’. Throw a girl a bone! Get it? A bone! Ya know, ‘cause I’m missin’ a few?”
I made a concerted effort to avoid being alone with Lucas for the rest of the day, worried that he might try to kiss me again—a task that was easy enough when there was no shortage of work to be done in camp.
We spent the first half of the morning at the store, helping Stuart sort through several boxes of books that had been recently scavenged from the Elkin’s Point library. The remainder of our morning was spent in the gardens, helping Cassie with the fall harvest, who was grateful to have Lucas’s help after Ella showed up for work several hours late and ended up falling asleep under an apple tree.
“I’m going to be speaking to Leisel about her,” Cassie muttered, stepping over Ella’s legs. “Poor thing is going to drink herself to death one of these days.”
By late afternoon, Cassie was shooing us from the potato beds, urging us to take showers before dinner. I showed Lucas to the bathhouse, introducing him to Jordy, and giving him a brief overview of the shower system.
“You’re not gonna join me?” Lucas asked, the corner of his mouth quirking into a shy smile. My heart began to hammer—this was my Lucas, the sweet and gentle boy I’d grown up with. And even as I ached for Logan… I found myself recalling how much I’d loved this side of Lucas.
A nervous smile trembled on my lips. “The water is really cold—you’ll see. I’m going to go home and get cleaned up—I’ll meet you at the dining hall, okay?”
Without waiting for his reply, I hurried from the building, feeling awful. Whatever this was—whatever we were doing—it couldn’t continue. I couldn’t live like this; I couldn’t keep another secret from Lucas, especially not one as monumental as this. If the three of us were going to move forward, Logan and I would have to come clean.
But first, I needed to summon the courage to do so.
Dinner was brief and quiet. Logan remained noticeably absent while Lucas and I sat alone, and I avoided looking directly at the others in the dining hall, afraid of what I might find reflected in their gazes. With every breath, I felt the fist of condemnation beating on my chest. I didn’t need to see it on the faces of my friends as well.
“It’s getting cold,” Lucas murmured, sliding his hand into mine. I gazed up at the dark sky, the days growing shorter as winter crept closer, and shivered inside my hoodie.
“Hopefully Logan will stay gone tonight,” Lucas continued, tugging me closer. “And we can warm each other up without having to deal withhis shit.” Lucas’s tone grew progressively sharper. “You’d think he’d be happy to see me, but he’s been a dick the whole time.”
“He is happy to see you, he’s just… Logan,” I replied helplessly. “You know how he is.”
“Yeah,” Lucas bit out. “And he’s even worse than he was before. And since when do you defendLogan?”
