It was one of the Dartmoor buildings, overflow for the trucking business, Ava had said, and the temporary home of Maude’s Furniture, owned and run by one Albie Cross, formerly of London.
“Boys,” Ava called, “be careful.” She sighed. “Why do I bother?”
Someone whistled, sharply, and both boys froze in their tracks. Leah glanced over her shoulder to see a Lean Dog she’d never met before striding toward them, smirking to himself as he pulled his hand from his mouth. He had dark hair, and intensely blue eyes. “Here.” A British accent, and he held his hands out for Millie, who reached for him immediately.
Ava handed her over. “Someday, you’re gonna have to explain how you of all people have the kid magic, Fox.”
“Me of all people,” he mused, hiking Millie onto his hip. “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”
“You should.”
“Go shop in peace, ladies.” In a stage whisper, as he turned away, “Try not to stare at Albert. He’s very self-conscious about his whole face situation.” He gave a dramatic wince, and walked toward the boys, already propositioning a round of the Quiet Game.
“Albie’s brother,” Ava explained when he was gone. “Great babysitter, but don’t trust him as far as you can throw him.”
“Dunno,” Albie said, “your husband could throw him pretty far.”
Ava snorted.
Albie had his brother’s startling blue eyes, and the same dark, glossy hair that was the sort of thick that begged you to run your hands through it, but his face was a little more rugged, a little less precise. He looked approachable and friendly in a way that Fox didn’t.
He had a corner of the warehouse cordoned off with orange cones and plastic chains, which Leah found amusing. Inside the barricade, he’d set up benches, and saws, and tables, and a whole array of tools. Sawdust and fragrant wood curls littered the ground, and once she got past the idea of an outlaw biker making furniture, she realized that all of it was quite pretty, and nicer than anything she would have been able to afford at one of the big box stores.
She picked out a modest café table that came with two chairs, but Ava steered her instead toward a larger, round-topped dining table with four chairs, and room to squeeze in two more in a pinch. The top was inlaid with several different kinds of wood, a pattern of varying stripes all sealed with poly, simply but elegant, very farmhouse-chic.
Leah ran a hand across the glossy top. “Gonna guess this is out of my price range.”
“Family discount,” Albie assured with a wink. “And I’ll throw in the chairs free.”
“Oh, no–”
“Consider it advertising.”
Albie and Fox loaded it all up in the bed of Ava’s truck, and the kids were wrangled into the backseat, the boys red-faced and happily tired now.
It was lunchtime, and Ava turned to her as she drove them back around to the front of the building and down the long, wide drive that ran back and forth across the entire width of Dartmoor. “You mind if we swing by and say hi to Mercy?”
Leah bit back a grin. “You’re still a hopeless teenager about him, aren’t you?”
Ava faced forward again, color blooming in her cheeks. “A little bit.”
Mercy was camped out on a picnic table in front of the bike shop with Aidan, Tango, and Carter Michaels, the breeze trying to snatch away their sandwich wrappers.
“Daddy!” Cal exclaimed, hand pressed to the window.
Mercy stood when he saw the truck, wide grin breaking across his face, and Ava parked so she could get out and kiss him; so she could open the back door and let the boys out to latch onto their father.
Leah walked around the nose of the truck and leaned against the brush guard, breathing in the scents of river water and motor oil. Déjà vu hit her hard: this could have been a scene from her high school years: the boys on a lunch break, Ava besotted.
Only there were kids now, and wedding bands, and both everything and nothing had changed at all.
It left her a little dizzy.
Tango lifted a hand in greeting, and she waved back.
“Albie give you the discount?” Aidan called.
“Too much of one, honestly.”
