Page 38 of Lovewell Lane (Honeyfield Dreamers #1)

Derek

I woke up to the smell of her before anything else.

Vanilla and jasmine. Margo was curled against me, her leg thrown over mine like she’d claimed me for herself.

Her hair was golden in the early morning sunlight and I found my hand absentmindedly tracing it.

The golden strands made a beautiful mess across my pillow. I didn’t dare move.

Her breathing was slow. Her fingers twitched around where our hands rested against each other. I counted the freckles dotted across the bridge of her nose.

I smiled into the soft light of morning and bit back a yawn.

Usually, I was ready to jump out of bed the second my eyes opened, but with Margo here I found myself drifting off back to sleep.

This felt right. Margo’s presence in my life was impossible to ignore.

We might have agreed to take it slow, but after the past couple of nights of her sleeping over, I wasn’t ready to ever give this up.

Eventually, she stirred.

“Morning,” she mumbled, not opening her eyes.

“Good morning,” I whispered back.

“You’re staring again.”

“You’re in my bed.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Margo teased.

“I already have,” I determined.

That earned me a half-smile, and then she groaned and pulled the blanket over her face. “What time is it?”

“Before five,” I said. “Tessa’s still asleep. You’ve got time.”

“What do you think the odds are that my mom left town overnight?”

I laughed and pulled the blankets over her head. “Keep dreaming, baby. Maybe you can escape her there.

She peeled the blanket back with a sigh and sat up. “I have to go deal with her.”

“Now?”

“She’s probably sold all of my belongings and bought us two plane tickets by now.”

I pushed out of bed and watched her lazily walk into the bathroom. She sleepily brushed her teeth and got ready for the day.

“You want breakfast?” I asked from my place, leaning on the door frame.

“I don’t have time.”

I pushed off of the door to stand up straight. “You’re not facing your mother on an empty stomach. I’ll make eggs and toast.”

She huffed but didn’t protest any further.

We ate quietly at the counter, her bare knee bumping mine. She didn’t pull away.

When she kissed me goodbye, it was casual, and something that had quickly become familiar. It had only been three days since we decided to take things slow, and she’d already dug her claws into my heart that would be painful to rip out.

The day didn’t slow down after our quiet morning together.

By noon, I was in the barn, coffee in one hand with the other on my hip while I went over final prep with each of the department leads for the Honey Festival.

“So far we’re on track,” Bailey said, ticking off items on her clipboard. “It would be helpful to know a better estimate for how much we need to have prepped day-of. Otherwise, we’ll be wasting product.”

“The mayor isn’t giving out any numbers. Our best bet is to prepare for anything,” I said.

She grimaced. “That’s the plan.”

We finished the walkthrough, reviewed logistics, and triple-checked the quality of all processed goods. This was the kind of environment I thrived in. It was structured and left no room for error.

But my head wasn’t in it. Not really.

Every time I had a second to breathe, I kept thinking about her. How tired she looked walking out this morning. How comfortable she looked sitting at my table eating breakfast with me. How stressed about her mother she was, even when she was half asleep in my bed.

At one point during a lull, I pulled out my phone, unable to not talk to her for a second longer.

If I was with you right now I’d be finding excuses to drag you into your office and put my mouth on that spot behind your ear that makes your brain stop working.

She didn’t reply right away. But three minutes later, I watched those three dots appear on the screen.

Are you sexting me, Derek? I guess old dogs can learn new tricks.

And at work? I’ll bring my apron home tonight and you can see what it looks like without anything underneath it.

I bit my fist and screwed my eyes shut for a quick second before composing myself.

Tucking the phone away, I took a long breath.

She knew what that apron did to me. Something about seeing her in it made me picture her baking in my kitchen after sunset just for me.

In that daydream, she has a ring on her finger.

That night, I swung the front door for Margo open just after sunset. She was later than usual. I turned to give her a hug when I discovered… that it wasn’t Margo. It was her mother.

“Oh, hello,” she purred.

“Ms. Sinclair,” I greeted.

She walked right through the open doorway that was intended for Margo and turned around to laugh softly at me. Her hand pressed to my chest as she insisted, “Margaret. Please, I’m not an old woman.”

My eyebrows raised, and I didn’t say a word.

“What does it take to get a drink around here?” she asked. “Margo says there isn’t a single bar in town.”

“There’s one outside of it,” I said. “You could probably get a cab there if you call.”

Her high-pitched laugh pierced my ears again.

“Oh, Derek, you are so funny.”

I followed her to the kitchen where she helped herself to my wine cooler. “Shall we open this up?”

I shrugged. “Where is Margo?”

“Oh, who knows, she’s so obsessed with that little store of hers. Probably bussing tables.”

I blinked while she rummaged around my kitchen until she found two wine glasses. She poured a glass for each of us before joining me at the opposite side of the kitchen island. Sitting on the stool right next to me, she scooted closer than necessary.

I stood up partially to pull my stool closer away from her when the door burst open.

Margo stood in the front doorway, glaring at the two of us. Her mom was leaning forward with a wine glass in her hand as I leaned away from her. Without context, we probably looked like two adults sharing a glass of wine before getting up to other adult activities.

Margo had clearly just gotten back from Lucky’s. She looked like she’d been pacing, her hair up, keys in hand, jaw tight.

“Get. Out,” she said to her mother.

“Oh, Margo. I figured I’d let you have your room back. This place is a little more my speed anyway,” said her mom as she looked around at the high ceilings of my house.

I stood up. “Actually, I think it’s time you leave,” I said.

“Oh, Derek,” Margo’s mom chided. “We just poured the wine.”

Margo walked closer to us and yanked her mom by the arm until she was out of the seat. “Get out,” her voice was ice cold.

“I’m your mother.”

“I don’t care,” Margo said. “Get out. You can go sleep at the Inn if you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

Looking the least bit embarrassed, Margo’s mother walked to the back door and turned to look at Margo. “I can’t believe you’d treat your mother this way.”

“Funny, I can’t believe you’d treat your daughter this way,” Margo said.

We both stayed silent as we watched her mother turn and walk back to the guest house. My shoulders were tight from clenching them together. I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time this had happened to Margo before.

“She was only in here for a few minutes,” I explained. “I wasn’t sure what to do with her.”

Margo’s eyes were guarded. “Did she try to make a move on you?”

“She was a little touchy,” I admitted. Subconsciously, I put a hand to my chest as if to brush off where she touched there. “But no, all she did was pour us wine.”

Margo sighed and nodded. She kicked off her shoes and sank onto the couch with an unceremonious huff. “I’m sorry,” she groaned.

“Don’t apologize to me. Is she always like that?”

“She tried to sleep with my best friend in college twice. We never dated, but she always thought he was my secret boyfriend.”

“Gross.”

“Tessa’s already asleep?” she asked.

“Yeah, you’re home pretty late.”

Margo sighed and looked at me. I wanted to melt from that look alone. “I feel bad that I missed her.”

“You can see her tomorrow,” I soothed. “What’s wrong?”

“My mother isn’t leaving,” Margo said. “She says she’s ‘found an unexpected interest’ and that I should welcome her to town.”

“Want me to talk to her?”

“No. I’ll do it.” She looked up at me then. “I need a minute first.”

I nodded and pulled her to my side. “Okay.”

“What if she had made a move on you?” Margo asked.

“I would have kicked her out,” I said simply.

Margo nodded and bit her lip with a worried look on her face.

“I’m not interested in anyone else, Margo.” I grabbed her chin gently to have her look at me. “You are the only person I want to do this with. Be with. No offense, but your insane mother isn’t my type.”

She giggled a little at that. “She would make you miserable.”

“Most people do,” I agreed. I let the silence settle around us for a little while longer before interrupting, “I think it’s good for you to stick up for yourself. You shouldn’t have to drop everything you’re doing for her. She isn’t your child. She’s supposed to be your mom.”

Margo nodded and rested her head on my shoulder while looking up at me. “I know. It’s just hard.”

“I know.” I let Slick get away with a lot more than he should. Having one dead parent made me want to appreciate the living one more.

I watched as Margo closed her eyes and calmed herself. “I’m going to go talk to her.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, I need to do this myself.”

I busied myself in the kitchen, which coincidentally had the perfect view into the windows of the guest house while Margo spoke to her mom.

From body language alone, the conversation was heated, but never escalated to yelling.

It lasted for about thirty minutes before Margo walked back out of her door and back into mine.

She looked relieved. The weight of the world slightly less heavy on her shoulders. I pulled her into my arms before asking, “It went well?”

“As well as it could have,” Margo answered. “She’s going to get a room at the Inn in the morning.”

“Good,” I said. Though, I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed. If the guest house was suddenly open again, I didn’t have an excuse for Margo to sleep over every night. “One fire down, now all we have is the Honey Festival.”

Margo laughed. “Just one day left. I saw the mayor this morning. He couldn’t hide the smile on his face, so I’m guessing Scarlet worked some sort of magic to sell tickets.

“Thank fuck for that,” I said. “At this rate, nothing will surprise me. The entire Festival could consist of the mayor and his two cousins and I wouldn’t be shocked.”

“We should do slightly better than that,” Margo joked. “My best friend will be here. That’s three people.”

“Sounds like a raging success to me.” I paused. “Will I get to meet her?”

“Scarlet?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Margo tilted her head. “Of course. She’s excited to meet you. Is that weird?”

“No. I think that’s nice.”

“I know we’re taking things slow,” Margo reasoned. “If it’s weird–”

“It isn’t, Margo. I’m excited to meet her.”

We gave each other tired smiles before quickly agreeing to head to bed. Once we were in our designated spots, she pulled out her journal that she showed me on the night we caught fireflies together.

“Writing about your mother?” I asked when the scratching of the pen on paper sounded aggressive.

She laughed lightly. “Yup. Just so I don’t forget a few years from now.”

I trailed my gaze over to her, she was bent over with the journal in her lap. “It looks like you’re on the last few pages.”

Margo sighed. “I know. I need to get a new one. I’ve just had this one for a few years, and Scarlet got it for me. It feels lame to just replace it with some random journal from a department store. So I’ve been writing in teeny tiny writing.”

She flipped the journal around to show me her ridiculously small handwriting. I laughed at her weird quirk and waited patiently for her to finish writing. Once she was done, she let out a giant exhale.

“Feel better?”

She nodded with a sweet smile. “It really does help to write everything down. I should get you one sometime.”

“Only if I get one of those sparkly pens, too.”

She put her journal and pen on the side table next to her before lying down and scooting closer. Her laughter warmed my neck. “I can have that arranged.”

I held her tighter than I ever had, and we fell into a deep sleep soon after.