A Vine Mess (Love on the Vine #4)

6. Liam

My house was more spotless than it had ever been, including the day I moved in.

Ella was coming over, and I refused to let her think I lived in squalor.

Truth be told, I was fairly organized—I had to be for my job. But there were always a few things I let get out of hand before I mustered the energy to tackle them, namely dishes and laundry.

I did my laundry weekly, but I typically lived out of my dryer, my clothes often finding themselves spilling out onto my laundry room floor. As for the dishes…some days I was motivated to load the dishwashers, and some weeks I wasn’t.

Now, my old log cabin on the fringes of Apple Blossom Bay was so clean you could eat off the floor.

And not a moment too soon, because tires crunched on the gravel just as I finished wiping down the counters in the kitchen, and a minute later, a light knock came at my door.

I took one last frantic scan around the living space, pleased to find everything in order. Then I wiped my damp palms on the thighs of my jeans and opened the door for Ella.

Every time I saw her, she took my goddamn breath away.

No one had the right to be as stunning as she in simple black leggings and an oversized Chateau Delatou sweatshirt, the hood cut off and draping over her torso to expose a single shoulder and the florals tattooed there. She’d braided her hair back, though a few wispy purple bangs fell free, framing her green eyes, which sparkled in the low lights from behind me.

“Hi,” I said, stepping aside to admit her.

Not bothering with pleasantries, she simply walked past me, dropped her bag on the hardwood near my feet, and moved deeper into the space.

I did my best to stay still, to not word vomit all over the place, to not pick out tiny little details about my home and explain everything that was wrong with it.

I didn’t know why the fuck I was so nervous.

Actually, I did, and it had everything to do with the woman turning a slow circle in the center of my living room, her feet making soft shush ing sounds on the thick rug.

“You know,” she said at last, turning to face me with a soft smile on her lips, “I’ve lived in this area my entire life and never knew this place existed.”

“Well, it was a shit hole when I bought it,” I blurted.

A surprised laugh escaped her at my candor, and her eyes twinkled. “You’d never know it.”

“That’s kind of the point,” I grinned. “I needed a project when I moved here. This property was the perfect canvas.”

“How large is the lot?” she asked .

“Ten acres.”

She whistled low, moving toward the back of the cavernous living space, where a wall of windows and sliding glass door captured the view of the field and forest beyond my house. This time of year, the deciduous trees were just beginning to bud with fresh leaves, turning my backyard into a springy wonderland that mixed with the darker hues of the coniferous trees. The field stretched quite a ways, and Ella turned to me once again.

“How far back do you mow?”

An odd question, but I said, “About halfway. Just enough to give me some room to work if I need it. There’s actually a short fence back there, and that’s where I stop.”

“You should plant some wildflowers out there,” she said, almost absentmindedly. “That’d be so dreamy in the summertime. The sun sets back there, right?”

“Sure does,” I confirmed, nodding to the rocking chairs sitting on my back deck. It was still winterized, but once it warmed up some more—probably after we got back from our trip—I’d open it up again. “I sit out there with my coffee in the morning and bourbon at night.”

Ella sighed audibly, her shoulders relaxing away from her ears as she hugged herself. “It’s so quiet.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant it as a good or bad thing, but I said, “I like my solitude.”

Her eyes darted to me and held as she asked, “Doesn’t it get lonely?”

“Never,” I replied with a headshake. “There’s a reason I bought a place on the fringes of civilization, Wildflower. I like being alone. And after—” I choked on what I was going to say next, clearing my throat awkwardly and plowing ahead despite it. “I needed this space. This stillness.”

“ Needed ? Or need ?”

A great question. With her standing in front of me, I wasn’t sure anymore.

Unwilling to expose that closely guarded secret, I ignored the question and turned from the window, moving away from her and into the kitchen.

Ella followed me, gasping in surprise. “You cooked?”

I snorted. “What, like it’s hard?”

“Did you just… Legally Blonde me?”

“Maybe,” I grinned. “But to answer your first question: yes, Ella. I cooked.”

It wasn’t anything fancy, certainly not an Ezra Wendt-worthy meal, but I knew my way around the kitchen enough to put together a fairly decent chicken marsala and salad.

“You are…” She gnawed on her bottom lip as she searched for something to say, and my eyes locked in on that spot. My entire body hummed with how badly I wanted to tug it free, to pass my tongue over the spot, soothing it before slipping into her mouth.

I hated how badly I wanted to taste her.

More so because I knew I’d likely never get the chance.

“You’re not at all like I thought you were,” she said, at last finishing her thought.

I chuckled. “I can assure you, Wildflower, I’m every bit who everyone else thinks I am.”

I plated the food and walked it to my dining room table, erring on the side of caution and placing the dishes opposite each other. I didn’t dare give myself the chance to sit next to her and spend the next however long breathing in her scent and experiencing her warmth. I needed a solid slab of wood between us.

As she trailed behind me, Ella vehemently shook her head. “I don’t think that’s true at all. Everyone in town says you’re a reclusive, grumpy bastard, but I don’t see it.”

The words weren’t anything I hadn’t heard before, but they still needled. I knew it was my own fault the residents of Apple Blossom Bay viewed me that way, but it still smarted that they so callously went along with it instead of attempting to get to know me.

“What do you see then?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to know the answer.

“You’re crazy smart,” she said quickly. “Though I doubt that’s ever been in question. But you’re kind—way more so than anyone gives you credit for. I’m sure that has a lot to do with you,” she added with a brow raise, easily pegging me. I loved and hated that in equal measure. Loved having her be the one to see right to my core, but hated that she so easily exposed my soft underbelly.

“When I came here, I was running,” I said, recognizing that was the first time I admitted that out loud to anyone.

“From what?”

I exhaled deeply through my nose. “I’ll tell you one day. It’s not important now. What is important is that I dove headfirst into my job at the winery and fixing up this old place because I needed the distraction. It seemed like, before I could really blink, over a year had passed, and the people around here had already made up their minds about me. I’ve never had the energy nor desire to correct them.”

“Sometimes, I wish for that. ”

“For what?”

“The anonymity you have. I’ve spent my entire life here, and my family settled this town. I’ve never known a single day of peace where its residents are concerned.”

“It’s great you have that sense of community, though. Right?”

“Yes, and no. Some days, I just want to disappear. To…feel my feelings without everything I do and say being examined under a microscope. And I know with my family, that will never go away. They care about me, as I do them, and I love them for it…but I would kill to go one week—hell, one day —without someone in town stopping me on the street to say how sorry they were to hear about my breakup. It makes my skin crawl to know these people are talking about me behind closed doors, you know? Or, sometimes, just right out in the open where anyone can hear and chime in. Sometimes, it just feels like my life isn’t mine.”

She glanced up at me then, those green eyes swimming with emotion, and added, “That’s why I need this trip. Thank you for letting me tag along.”

Breakups were like bruises. Eventually, they became nothing more than some discolored flesh and a memory of the ache you’d once felt. But in the thick of them, when your skin was still mottled black and blue, pressing on them meant only pain.

The last thing I wanted to do was cause this woman pain. It may have been several months past, but there was no timeline for healing.

Unbidden, my hand slid across the table to clasp hers.

“Anytime.”

The mood between us was considerably lighter after that, as though we’d unburdened ourselves and could now move onto more exciting matters—the road trip.

Maybe it made me old fashioned, but I liked maps. In my home office, I had an older, sepia-toned map of the United States framed on the wall, and I liked sticking pins in the places I’d traveled. Recently, I hadn’t added many, but I had taken the liberty of using a row of bright-blue-headed pins to map my route from here to Portland.

When we finished eating, I walked Ella back there, the trip taking twice as long as it should have because she stopped frequently to admire the craftsmanship of my home.

Her awe pleased me to no end, but I couldn’t let it go to my head.

She wasn’t admiring me, only my ability to use my hands.

I’d like to show her all the things I could do with them.

Fuck, Danvers. Snap out of it.

I turned the corner into the office ahead of her and mentally shook myself, but it was no use. My thoughts were clouded with her every time she was near.

I was a pathetic bastard.

But , I was a pathetic bastard who had the girl of his dreams in his home right then, so maybe I wasn’t doing as bad as I thought.

When Ella entered the room, I swore all the clear air left it until only her floral scent remained. I wasn’t complaining; I’d happily drown in it.

“Wow,” she breathed, stepping closer to the wall to examine the map. “This is incredible.”

Careful not to touch her, I also approached, tracing my fingers along the map’s surface and the path I’d charted. “This is the route we’ll take. ”

Ella leaned in and squinted. “Why are we going through the UP? Wouldn’t it be faster to go south?”

“I want to make a stop at Pictured Rocks,” I said. “It’s been ages since I’ve been up there, so I figured now was a good time to fix that.”

“I’ve never been up there,” she told me. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“Considering you’ve lived in Michigan your whole life? Yes. But also, not really. People tend to forget the Upper Peninsula is there.”

That never made sense to me, that this whole piece of land just…didn’t exist to some people. Arguably, it was the most beautiful and all the best parts of Michigan. From Tahquamenon Falls, Kitch-iti-kipi, Copper Harbor, to Black Rocks and our stop at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, there was so much natural wonder to enjoy. Being there, surrounded by so much undeveloped and protected land—it put a lot of things in perspective. Yoopers enjoyed a slower way of life, a lot like what we had here on Old Mission.

“That just wasn’t the place we went for family vacations, you know?” she said, her delicate pointer finger and its bubblegum-pink tip following the same line of push pins I’d just traced.

I shrugged but didn’t answer. Given her family had money, that wasn’t surprising.

Then she whirled on me. “So what’s the plan, exactly?”

“We’ll leave from here on Wednesday and head straight for the UP,” I started, dragging my finger from Old Mission up to Munising. Then I moved south, over Wisconsin to a spot along the eastern Minnesota border. “Then we’ll head to Rochester for the night. It’s a pit stop to sleep, basically. I want to avoid night driving as much as possible, so this is a safe place to rest for the night until we proceed to South Dakota.” Again, I moved my finger along the route. “We’ll spend one night camping in the Badlands National Park—”

“I’ve always wanted to visit there!” Ella exclaimed, cutting me off. “Those rock formations look so pretty in pictures.”

“I hear the sunsets are spectacular.”

“If we’re camping, I’ll bring stuff for s’mores.”

“Deal. Now, where was I?” I squinted at the map, looking for the road I wanted. “Ah, here. We’ll travel through the Badlands, taking some backroads until we reach Hermosa, South Dakota. It’s about a half hour south of Rapid City, where Mount Rushmore is. There’s a lot in that area we can do, so other than seeing the monument, we can play it by ear.”

I had a few things I wanted to accomplish, personally—hiking, checking out Custer State Park and the local wildlife, a drive through the Black Hills—but I hadn’t planned on Ella, and I wasn’t going to force her into anything she didn’t want to do.

“All of this sounds amazing so far,” she gushed, dropping down into my desk chair and tucking her feet under her crisscross style. “What’s next?”

I grinned. “The part of the trip I’m most looking forward to: Yellowstone.”

Ella perked up. “Think we’ll meet any of the Dutton family?”

I barked out a laugh. This girl continued to surprise me. “You watch that?”

She tsk ed at me. “Of course, I watch that. Haven’t you seen Luke Grimes?” She made a whew sound, tipping her head back and fanning herself and though she was suddenly all hot and bothered.

“He’s not really my type,” I said. “But it’s nice to know what yours is. I’m more of a Rip guy myself.”

Ella flushed deeply, and I chuckled. I loved that I could elicit that sort of reaction from her.

Instead of acknowledging my comment, though she did make a show of looking me up and down, she plowed ahead. “Where to after Yellowstone?”

“Originally, I was going to head right to Portland for the wedding,” I said, drawing a line through Montana and across northern Idaho until my finger came to rest over Portland. “But when we had that community garden meeting and Owen mentioned his hometown, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I’d like to see where he grew up, and I’ve never spent any meaningful time in Idaho, so we’ll be taking a few days in Dusk Valley before ending up in Portland.”

“I love that,” she said. “I mean, he’ll be my brother-in-law one day, so I’d like to meet his family and see how he grew up.”

My brows drew together in confusion. “Haven’t you already met them at the distillery opening?”

Ella’s shoulders slumped. “Alfie and I were in a bad place then, so I wasn’t exactly putting my best foot forward.”

My teeth ground together at the mention of that asshat. I vowed then and there to do everything in my power to return Ella’s happiness—to remind her of the girl she’d been the day we met.

“I’m sure they don’t fault you for that,” I said, reaching out and giving her shoulder a squeeze. Touching her was a horrible idea, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed the physical contact for both our sakes, to remind her she’d be okay, that I was here supporting her on that journey, and to remind myself that she was just…here. With me.

She sniffed and said, “I’m sure you’re right.” Then, like a switch flipping, she straightened and said, “So tell me about sleeping arrangements.”

Sleeping arrangements? Oh hell.

I awkwardly cleared my throat and scratched at the back of my neck, eyes darting around the room, everywhere but in her direction.

“Well, there will be one night of camping in the Badlands,” I started. “You can take the van and I’ll sleep in my tent. But the night in Rochester…I tried, I really did, but they only had the one room available, so for that night…ahh…”

“Liam, spit it out.”

“We have to share a room.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for Ella’s rebuttal.

It never came.

Instead, a small, light tinkle of laughter left her, growing in volume until she was practically in hysterics.

I frowned, confused.

“I’m sorry,” she said when she’d regained some of her composure, swiping at her eyes. “It’s just…you looked so fucking terrified about telling me that.”

“I…wasn’t sure how you’d react.”

“As long as there’s two beds, I don’t see an issue.”

I gaped at her, impressed by how well she was handling all of this .

“You sure? I can call and cancel, look for something else. We can pick a different city, or—”

Standing, she lifted her hand and slapped it over my mouth so quickly I stumbled back a step, breaking the contact before it fully settled. Which was probably the smartest thing I’d ever done.

“Liam, this is your adventure, okay? I’m just along for the ride. We’ll be fine.”

Then she breezed out of the room, leaving me staring after her like a putz.

I’ll never be fine where you’re concerned.