She’s had a lot of practice being okay.
And if she gets to stay at Gilded Creek, she’ll still lose Charlie, but at least she’ll have Everett. And Lori, whom she could see herself growing closer with over time (especially once she tells the older woman that she can actually talk to the farm’s resident spirit). There’s even Hannah at the Leesburg farmers market, who Gretchen thinks could maybe turn into a friend, once the jealousy she feels isn’t quite as sharp. And there are the goats she’s learned to enjoy caring for, and the barn cats she likes to pet, and the dogsshe’s still nervous around but appreciates, and the birds in the trees, and the tadpoles in the creek, and who-knows-what-else come summer when this place will surely explode with color and sound. She looks toward the bright, overgrown woods bordering the north of the property that the goats will probably have cleared by mid-spring, and the low, rolling mountains farther in the distance. She imagines it all crimson and amber and copper in the autumn. Snow-dusted in the winter. That first year here would be spectacular and surprising, discovering the landscape in all of the seasons. Then it would become a comfort—reliable in a way she’s never truly known before. She tells herself that staying here will be enough. It will be enough to ease this ache in her chest. To quiet the whispering voice that tells her the yearning she has isn’t for a place, but a person.
She finishes up her daily chores as the sun begins to set. Everything’s turned golden—gilded, even—and ethereal. She decides not to head to the farmhouse just yet. Besides, Charlie’s due to deliver his verdict soon; avoiding him for a little while longer might be cowardly, but she’s never claimed to be particularly brave, so whatever.
“I think I’m going to go for a walk. Do you want to come along?” she asks Everett. He’s been hanging around for the last hour, attempting to rank his favoriteNight Courtcharacters (Harry first, of course, but he can’t settle on the rest of the order). His chatter is even more incessant, more frantic than usual, as if he too is nervous about what Charlie will decide.
The ghost glances back at the house, where a light shines in the living room window. “Nah, Charlie’s home. Maybe he’ll putJeopardy!on.”
“I don’t know why you like watching that when you know almost none of the answers.”
“Ilearn things, Gretchen, gosh. Don’t ridicule me for trying to better myself.”
She rolls her eyes, then blows him a kiss. He blows her one back and heads for the farmhouse, two of the barn cats following close behind, sensing if not seeing him.
Gretchen considers going down to the creek, beneath the willow tree, but her heart can’t handle it right now. Instead, she walks up the driveway until she reaches the old seed drill. Its flowers sway slightly in the light evening breeze. It’s tempting to get stuck thinking about Charlie here too, to get philosophical about how their relationship is like this—an apparent blight that turned into something beautiful practically overnight. But Gretchen knows that if she’s going to live here for the rest of her life, she needs to break herself of the habit of thinking that way, and quickly, or she’ll lose herself in missing him. So she pulls out her phone and takes a few photos until she gets one she’s happy with. She posts it on the farm’s Instagram account, which she’s pleased to see has gained more followers since Saturday’s goat yoga event, and writes a caption about how beautiful sunsets are a farmer’s reward for hard work and long days that she knows will go over well with city people who romanticize living in the country.
She ambles back to the house, but again hesitates. Instead of entering, she sits on the stairs leading up to the porch.Like I did with Charlie after Everett pushed me.So much for not connecting everything back to Charlie.
Gretchen isn’t sure how long she sits there on the steps, but it must be a while because it’s now fully dark, stars spread thick overthe clear night sky like spilled powder. Considering how late it likely is, she isn’t surprised when she hears the front door open behind her.
“You planning on coming in soon? It’s getting cold.”
“Yeah. Soon,” she answers.
There’s a soft grunt as Charlie lowers himself to the ground behind her, scooting forward until he’s pressed against her back and the insides of his legs hug the outside of hers. His warmth surrounds her, and she can’t resist—she leans against him, gives in to his gravitational pull.
And Charlie allows it. At least at first. Then something changes, his body going tense in all of the places Gretchen feels the contact. She thinks he’ll stand, put distance between them. Instead, he slowly draws his right index finger from her wrist up her forearm until he reaches the slightly too-long sleeve of her T-shirt. He hesitates there for a moment before reaching for the buckle of her overalls and disconnecting the strap from the bib. His hand slides inside and cups her breast.
“Yes,” Gretchen finds herself whispering, although he hasn’t actually asked a question.
In response, Charlie unfastens the other side of the overalls, allowing him access to her entire chest. After teasing her through the cotton of her T-shirt and the light padding of her bra, he untucks her shirt and reaches under it for more direct contact. She twists her head, desperate to find his lips, to kiss him, but he turns his face away.
Is he... angry with me?
“Charlie?”
He doesn’t respond, only undoes the two side buttons at her hip and drifts one hand lower until it’s inside her overalls, playingover the front of the ridiculously unsexy but comfortable underwear he bought for her. Gretchen’s willpower would be useless right now even if she wanted to engage it. She tilts her hips as much as she can while sitting on the step, trying to urge the contact he’s teasing.
“Charlie,” she repeats, this time less a question and more a desperate plea.
“You want this?” His voice is deep, calm, a vibration in her ear. It has that intensity that signals he’s furious with her, and it’s unexpected, startling, even.
Her curiosity and concern battle with an intense and exponentially increasing need for release. The latter wins out as soon as his fingers dip under her waistband, and she gasps out her assent; she doesn’t think she’ll ever bethatgood of a person, no matter how much she attempts to reform.
She nearly sobs when he finally touches her where she needs him. Her arm reaches up, circling his neck in some desperate subconscious attempt to ground herself in the moment, ensure she doesn’t float away on the sensations he sends throughout her body. Then he buries two fingers inside her and she cries out as he curls them and strokes over the spot he’s already learned will send her over the edge within a matter of seconds.
“I need you to remember this,” he says, his other hand still cupping her breast. “I need to know you’re going to crave this every single time you walk up these steps for the rest of your life.”
The rest of my life. He’s going to marry me. Gretchen never spent much time imagining the moment she would officially become engaged, which is probably for the best because she certainly never would have thought it would happen while she was being pleasured on a farmhouse porch.
“Tell me you’re going to remember, Gretchen,” he says. His tone has shifted, she notices, and it doesn’t feel like he’s ordering so much as begging her. As if the pleasure isn’t even the point, just the only way he thinks he can make himself important to her. She hates to think that she hurt him when she said she didn’t need anything from him, but it’s for his own good. If she’s going to leave Charlie better off than she found him, she cannot let whatever this is between them turn into something that keeps him tethered to a place he no longer wants to be.
That doesn’t mean losing him won’t haunt her, of course. But she’s used to that by now.
“I will, I will,” she answers, closing her eyes against the truth of it and against the release that’s coming at her fast, a massive wave that will take her out no matter how much she braces herself for it. “I’ll remember, always.”
Charlie lets out a sigh, his breath hot on her neck. Relief? And then he rewards her for her honesty, because he understands that’s what she’s giving him, and this is the exchange rate. His fingers find a somehow even more perfect angle as they move into her again and again, and Gretchen lets out a long whine that crescendos into a moan as she comes, the stars behind her eyelids joining the ones in the sky when she finally blinks back into awareness.
