Aggravated with himself for overthinking, he headed back up the footpath to the deck. Felicity had left her glass on the rail. He grabbed it, and his, and headed inside. He thought he’d wash them, but he left them in the sink.
He walked down the hall and raised his hand to knock on her door, but she opened it before he could make contact. She was in her nightgown, hair down, face washed of makeup, eyes wide and soft as they connected with his. “Gabe, what are we doing?”
“I have a feeling you know.”
“I have a feeling I do, too.”
There would be no Red Clover Inn tonight. No guest room across the hall from Felicity, and no couch.
Twenty-One
Felicity slipped out of bed early, without waking Gabe—or maybe he was pretending to be asleep, giving her a moment to process last night. He lay on his side, facing the window. They’d kicked off the covers hours ago, but sometime during the night he’d pulled the top sheet over them. It was now just over his hips, leaving his torso exposed in the milky light. She inhaled at the sight of the muscles in his arms and shoulders, his smooth skin, his tawny hair. Her own skin tingled, and her fingers twitched at the memory of touching him, holding him, feeling him inside her.
With no neighbors to worry about hearing them, they’d both cried out, more than once.
“Oh, Gabe,” she whispered now, still loose and warm from their lovemaking.
She grabbed a robe and slipped into it as she tiptoed down the hall to the kitchen. She put on coffee, standing by the counter while she waited for it to drip through the filter. Her entire body felt raw, exposed, satiated, as if he’d touched every inch her. Of course, he pretty much had. And she’d done the same with him. Neither of them had held back, as if they’d been building up to this moment for the past thirteen years and all the pent-up longing and need had burst, and they’d known exactly what they wanted. He’d pulled off her nightgown without a hint of tentativeness. She’d reached for him, pulled him to her with the same abandon, the same urgency.
“I want you inside me,” she’d whispered. “Now, Gabe.”
Even as she’d spoken those words, he’d thrust into her. She’d been ready. So ready.
They’d exploded in seconds, clawing at each other, crying out shamelessly.
Later, when they made love again, they’d taken time to explore each other’s bodies, to kiss, to nip, to lick, to tantalize. She still could feel his tongue between her legs. Her tongue on him. The way he’d parted her legs, entering her again, slowly, as if to make sure she felt every inch of him and would never forget that moment.
“No chance of that,” she whispered to herself, grabbing a mug and pouring coffee.
She took her coffee and a notepad and pen out to the deck and jotted a note for him:
Help yourself to breakfast. I’m off to pick wild blueberries. Taking today off (sort of).
Felicity
She didn’t specify where she’d be picking blueberries. Would he remember their favorite spot? Maybe, maybe not, but it wasn’t a test. She could very well be back before he got up. They could make blueberry pancakes together. That thought—the images that came with it—made her throat feel tight with emotions she didn’t want to explore, or didn’t dare to.
She finished her coffee, took her mug inside, left it in the sink and tiptoed back down the hall. She grabbed clothes, making as little noise as possible, and got dressed in the guest bathroom. Gabe hadn’t stirred by the time she emerged. She returned to the kitchen for insect repellent, a water bottle and a container with a cover. She left the note on the table where he couldn’t miss it and headed outside.
It was a gorgeous morning, the sort she’d be thinking about in a few months, on a cold winter day. In a few minutes, she parked at the Quabbin gate at the end of Carriage Hill Road. She took an old pre-reservoir road, or what was left of it, into the woods. She hadn’t been out this way since moving back to Knights Bridge, but she knew this part of the protected wilderness well. After about a hundred yards, she veered off the road onto a footpath that cut back toward the McCaffreys’ land. She could have parked at Dylan and Olivia’s new place or at the Farm at Carriage Hill, but it was so early—she didn’t want to disturb them.
She took in the early-morning sights and sounds. Birds, dew-soaked leaves, ferns and grasses, a cool breeze in the trees.
“I do love it here,” she said aloud.
Finally she came to the field behind Olivia’s antique house and made her way to a section by a stone wall where low wild blueberry bushes spread out before her, laden with their ripe and ripening fruit. She’d have no trouble filling her container. All she had to do was stay at it.
She started with the bushes in the sunlight, figuring she could switch to shade as the morning progressed and the sun grew hotter. She stepped past an anthill in the sandy soil and relished the sound of the first tiny berries plopping into the bottom of her container. As a kid, she’d use a coffee can, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d bought coffee in a can.
After a while, she heard a rustling sound behind her. Not a squirrel. Bigger. A deer?
“The best spot in Knights Bridge for blueberry picking,” Gabe said, his shadow falling across her.
Felicity stood, feeling a pull in her lower back from her crouching. “I’ve been at it forever, and I only have half my container filled. Did it always take this long?”
“Wild blueberries are small.”
She laughed. “Thanks for that tidbit.”
“Goes faster with help.”
“Another useful tidbit.”
He grinned at her, the sun on his face now. He’d obviously showered. He wore shorts and
