Christmas at Fox Ridge

24. Eira

Chapter twenty-four

Eira

March 25

Eira:

Skipping coffee tomorrow

Please forgive me

Holly

Bitch, I’ve got thallium on order for next week already

If everything goes to plan, I won’t be there next week either. But I’m not telling her that quite yet.

The Fur-Ever Home Animal Rescue manager, Dolly, slides a mug shaped like a cat across her desk to me. “I’m so glad you could meet me in person. I feel bad you drove all the way here, though.”

“It was no problem,” I say with a smile. “I was planning to be in the neighbourhood anyway.”

I grab the calico tail handle and take a hearty sip while she outlines the project she has in mind. Doing business rebrands, comics, and animal-care graphics aren’t my usual project choice, but after creating an illustrated children’s book for Fox Ridge Therapeutic Riding a few weeks ago, I’ve had three animal rescues and a 4-H club reach out.

It’s a nice palette cleanser between the alien cocks I’ve been drawing almost non-stop, thanks to a prolific author going viral with one of my cover designs in January.

I smile up at her as I finish taking notes, underlining the completion date she’s requesting. “Thanks so much for asking me to do this. I love cats and helping them in any way I can. But you guys have a special place in my heart… You probably see so many animals, you don’t remember them all, but Lucas McKinney brought in a kitten a couple months ago. Any idea how she’s doing now?”

Dolly purses her lips in thought. “I don’t remember Lucas bringing in any animals recently. He dropped off a dog he found back in the fall, but that’s the last I remember.”

“Just a small black kitten.” I cup my hands together to demonstrate the tininess. “We found her over the holidays, but you were closed, and he said he was going to bring her in afterward.”

She shrugs casually. “We haven’t had any kittens lately.”

Did he bring her back to the barn even though he swore he wouldn’t?

Shaking my head to clear it, I smile and reach out for a handshake. “I have to run, or I’ll be late meeting my realtor. But thank you again for the opportunity, Dolly. I’m excited to get started on this.”

Leaving the shelter, I move like an Olympic champion speed walker down the sidewalk, already late to meet the realtor a few blocks away. The stubby, worn buildings that make up Fox Ridge’s singular block of businesses cast a shadow that nips at my skin, and my cold fingertips struggle to type out a coherent text.

Eira

Cat? Where?

Lucas

English? Please?

He calls, but I can’t answer. Partially because I’m less than a minute away from my destination. Partially because he doesn’t know I’m in Fox Ridge, and I’m convinced I’d somehow blow the surprise. As if the second I answer, somebody in the empty street will yell out, Hey, did you know you’re in Fox Ridge?

Eira

Call you in a little bit.

Lucas

Please. I miss you.

He is going to shit when I pull up to the ranch this evening.

Smiling to myself, I look up at the blue skies and take a deep breath. I’m sure my family and friends will say I’m crazy for uprooting my life on a whim. But after I left Fox Ridge, I nabbed a page out of Lucas’s playbook and chose to trust in fate.

And the second I did that, things started falling into place.

He leaned into me outside the bar, filling the already warm summer air with a new, inescapable heat. “I’m so fucking attracted to you in every sense of the word.”

“Oh, darn.” I licked my lips. “What should we do about that?”

“Tonight? We should go back to my hotel room, and you should let me worship you.”

“And after tonight?”

His hand on the small of my back, adding to the mounting ache between my thighs, he ushered me toward the Uber. “We should trust in fate.”

“Whatever will be, will be, hey?” I slid into the seat with him hot on my heels. “That sounds like a debonair way of saying you don’t plan to call me after tonight.”

“Not at all, Doodlebug. I like to think fate gives us the tools—paint, brushes, canvas—and the vision. But it’s up to us to create it.”

“So, fate is like Bob Ross?” I side-eyed him, warming my palm against his.

He chuckled quietly. “A series of happy little accidents brought us to this moment, didn’t they?”

A break in the sidewalk catches the toe of my Chelsea boot, and all reminiscence shatters when I crash to the ground. There’s an instant pain in my knee and the heels of my hands, forcing me to sit and collect myself for a moment before I dare stand back up.

“Are you—” Lucas’s voice wraps around me. “Eira? What are you doing here?”

“Hey.” I smile up at him, blinking back tears. “ Surprise. ”

“Surprise is damn—” He doesn’t even let his own sentence leave his lips before they’re colliding with mine. In complete contradiction to my racing pulse, his kiss is slow and indulgent. It’s welcoming me home, with a languid swipe of his tongue between my parted lips. Pressing on his chest, my hand confirms the rapid thrum of his heart matches my own.

“I… I’m running late,” I mumble between kisses.

“For…” Kiss. “What?” Kiss.

With a hard swallow, I swipe my hand to the back of his neck, revelling in the goosebumps that arise.

“It was supposed to be a surprise…but I quit my job yesterday.” I mindlessly straighten the corduroy collar of his denim coat. “And when I was scrolling social media last night, an ad for a real estate agent in Fox Ridge popped up. Thirty minutes of rabbit-holing later, I was booking an apartment showing for today.”

Lucas’s thumb applies firm pressure to my chin, keeping me locked in place, and his stare is unnerving. “You’re moving here.”

A statement, not a question.

“Well, I was considering—”

“Let’s go see the realtor. Right now. Come on, baby .” He excitedly tugs at my arm, stopping immediately when he senses my hesitation. In the heat of the moment, I think he forgot he found me in pain on the ground. He looks down at where a trace amount of blood is slowly seeping through the knee of my light-wash jeans. “Oh…oh, shit. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, um… I’m sure I’ll be okay.” I smooth over his soft brown hair. God, I just want to keep touching him and never stop again. “She’s just at the apartment above the bakery.”

He looks across the street toward our destination, then shrugs. “Let me piggyback you.”

“Promise not to drop me?”

“Never.” He takes my hand, pulling me to my feet, then boosting me onto his back. “I can’t believe you quit. I mean, I can because you’re incredible.”

“Thank you.” I breathe against the skin behind his ear, getting high off his musky scent and soaking up the warmth of his back as we cross the street. This is something I can get used to—traipsing through the tiny core of Fox Ridge with him.

“We’re celebrating with the finest chicken tenders and fries tonight.” Lucas sets me down outside the numbered door the realtor told me to use. And he opens it with a half-smile on his face. “You don’t need your own apartment, you know.”

I hesitate outside the entryway, seeking an explanation in his expression. The taut muscle in his jaw ticks, and he stares back without a hint of emotion.

“True. I could find a nice garden suite, or a carriage house, or a townhome.” I tease him by ticking off the options on my fingertips. An insinuation isn’t enough for me. If he wants me on his ranch, he needs to be a man and say it. “Oh, maybe a cabin in the woods?”

His mouth opens just as a woman’s voice flits down the stairwell. “Ira? Is that you?”

“It’s Eira,” Lucas and I say in unison.

“Sorry about that! Come on up.”

We follow her cheery tone—me hobbling at a painstaking pace, Lucas pressing a firm hand to my ass and preparing to catch me if I fall.

The initial glimpse of the space is beautiful—twice the size of my current apartment for a fraction of the price. I’d have no trouble affording this, even if commissions decrease for a period of time. Picture windows let in acres of sunlight, and the open concept carries that light, airy feeling throughout.

“Wow, it’s gorg—”

“She doesn’t want it.” Lucas tightens his fingers around the shirt fabric on my lower back. “Sorry for wasting your time, Margaret.”

“Oh, is there an issue with it?” she asks meekly.

“The issue is that it’s not on my property, so we’ll be spending a fortune on fuel going back and forth every day. Plus, I don’t think her demon cat is going to appreciate the move.”

I look at him, tears making my vision slightly blurry as they threaten to spill over. “Dolly at the shelter told me you didn’t bring her in… You kept her?”

“Margaret—mind giving us a minute? Feel free to look around.” He gestures to the space as if he’s the realtor here, and turns to me, cupping my chin delicately. “Of course I did. My cat-sitting fees are astronomical, though. Especially when the creature is actively plotting my murder at all times. Plus, there’s all the vet bills, her fancy canned food, and Band-Aids in bulk. You owe me big time.”

“Thank you.” In spite of my knee, I stretch up to kiss him, letting Lucas bear my weight in his arms. “Any chance you accept alternative forms of payment? I kind of quit my job yesterday.”

“I’m actually in pretty desperate need of someone to keep my bed warm at night. And the problem is, I don’t seem to have room there for anybody but you.” He shifts his hold on my face slightly, tipping my head and running the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. “Think we could work out a trade?”

I glance around at the perfect apartment that suddenly doesn’t feel right at all. “Isn’t this moving a little fast? Maybe we should live separately for a while, instead of jumping into things?”

“Are you saying that because it feels like you should, or because you want to?”

“Because isn’t that the way relationships typically go? We date casually for a while, become exclusive, fall in love, and then move in together? This is everything in one fell swoop…” I look around at the vast empty space. All at once, it doesn’t feel like a place that’ll ever be home, but merely a stepping stone on the way to where I want to be. A stone I could simply skip right over.

“For me, everything already happened in one fell swoop when I saw you at the bar. Not love at first sight, per se, but familiarity. When you catch the eye of the one person you know in a crowded party and everything relaxes with the feeling of, ‘oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you’. Nothing weighs on you anymore.” He presses a chaste kiss to the bridge of my nose. “That’s how it felt. Whether meeting you was fate or coincidence or some damn good luck, I believe in it. I trust it.”

I’ve been looking for you .

If asked to describe the night I met Lucas, that would be it.

“Margaret,” I call out, not breaking eye contact with Lucas as we exchange smiles like a pair of love-drunk lunatics.

When she pops her head in from the master bedroom a moment later, I say, “Turns out I won’t be needing your services.”

“Neither will I,” Lucas adds.

“W-well, but…” Margaret’s eyes bounce between us with a confused expression. “Well, Lucas, what about—”

“Thanks for all your hard work, truly, but I won’t be selling my place anymore.” He smirks at my confused gawking. “Might be a little awkward if I ask my girl to live with me and then promptly make us homeless.”

“Oh, okay. No worries at all. I’ll go ahead and cancel the photographer and everything.” Margaret pulls her phone out and taps away at it. All the while, I’m tugging at Lucas’s sleeve like a small child demanding attention.

“Ready to go home, Doodlebug?”

Before he’s finished the sentence, I’m halfway to the goddamn door.

“You were selling the ranch?” I grip his hand tight on the walk along the uneven sidewalk, taking careful, limping steps that don’t require the full extension of my aching knee.

“Thought it might be time for a fresh start in the city.” He shrugs casually. “I didn’t want to tell you until it was officially on the market. That's why I couldn’t come visit you—I had meetings with the realtor and lawyer.”

With a shiver, I lean my head against his shoulder. “I’m glad I caught you in time.”

“It was fate, baby.”