Page 54 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

My mind reeled as we made our way into the orchard, Bram carrying a black duffel bag while Remy, Poe, and I followed with the canvas tote bags Bram had bought at the barn to hold the apples.

Of all the things I’d thought would happen to me after losing the Hunt, apple picking with three inked giants in leather and biker boots hadn’t been in my wildest imaginings.

People stared as we passed, and I couldn’t blame them. The Butchers looked like they’d stepped straight out of a nightmare, like teleporting demons from an alternate universe.

I couldn’t figure it out. It had been hard enough to figure out why Bram had bothered coming at all, but why on earth would he bother bringing me to an apple orchard when we could have just gone to the farmers market and been back at the loft in an hour?

I gave up looking for an answer, focusing instead on picking a variety of apples for use in the kitchen: tart Granny Smiths and Macintoshes for baking, Galas for homemade applesauce, and a few Braeburns, firm enough to stand up to roasting with sweet potatoes, plus some Fujis and Honeycrisps for eating raw.

It was warm, the air just crisp enough to let us know summer was really over, and the leaves stood out in a cacophony of color against a deep blue sky.

Bram didn’t say much, just tromped ahead of us like he knew where he was going. He pulled us deeper into the orchard, past the point where the kids on field trips walked with their teachers.

It was quieter back here. We passed a pond with ducks, a small river that flowed under a walking bridge, and even an old graveyard near the back of the property.

Like most of the kids who grew up around Blackwell Falls, I’d been on apple-picking field trips as a kid — it was a rite of passage in Fall — but there were dozens of orchards in the area, and I’d never been to this one.

It was a large, rambling property and our tote bags were brimming with apples by the time Bram stopped near a copse of Macouns so brilliantly red, they looked like they belonged in a fairy tale.

A narrow stream wound a few feet from the place where Bram dropped the duffel.

I looked around. Other than the soothing trickle of the stream, the place was deserted and dead silent. “What are we doing?”

“Breaking for lunch.”

He peeled off his leather jacket and I forced myself not to stare at his swollen biceps. His black T-shirt stretched across his muscular chest, and his big thighs flexed as he spread his jacket out on the ground.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen anything stranger than Bram Montgomery, the wicked scar bisecting his face, carefully spreading his jacket on the ground in an apple orchard.

“I didn’t bring food,” I said. “I didn’t plan to be gone this long.”

It seemed like a lifetime ago when I’d gotten dressed, planning for a quick trip to the farmers market.

“I’ve got food.” He gestured to his leather jacket. “Sit.”

I started to bristle at the command but checked myself. I didn’t know what this… whatever we were doing was, but it almost seemed like Bram was trying to be… nice?

Plus, at least he was speaking to me, if not actually looking at me. It was something.

I sat, pressing my mouth together to keep from asking more questions or saying something that would break the spell.

Remy and Poe took off their jackets and stretched out on the ground next to me while Bram unpacked the brown bag from the farmers market, like there was nothing strange about the fact that Bram had planned, for lack of a better word, a picnic.

He pulled two kinds of cheese from the bag, followed by prosciutto and a box of crackers. There was a loaf of fresh bread, a jar of olives, and three bottles of local hard cider.

I would have laughed out loud, but the moment felt tenuous, like we were walking on a fallen tree over a raging river.

Bram used a plastic knife to cut some of the cheese and put everything in the center of our little circle.

Thanks to the fact that he’d given me his jacket, he was sitting directly on the ground.

I wanted to offer him my jacket but had a feeling the gesture wouldn’t be welcome.

This was his show, and I couldn’t help feeling that he was like a wild animal, that he might bolt and run into the surrounding woods, never to return, if I moved too quickly.

We passed the first fifteen minutes in almost total silence, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should have been. The stream gurgled a few feet away and birds chirped in the apple trees that surrounded us.

My earlier tension started to dissolve.

Bram had chosen dry cheddar and good Havarti, its creamy smoothness a contrast to the crisp apples we plucked to eat from our tote bags.

It was nice to eat food presented by someone else.

I loved cooking, had since I was a kid standing on a step stool in the kitchen with my dad, but there was something comforting about having someone else hand you food you didn’t have to plan, buy, or prepare.

Food was nurturing, and I was used to being on the other end of it, at least when I wasn’t home with my dad.

I looked around, the detritus of our picnic between us, and exhaled. “Thank you. I think I actually needed this.”

Bram met my gaze and gave me a half nod, which felt like a flood of communication after his weeks of ignoring me completely. When he passed me the open bottle of cider he’d been nursing, I hesitated, then took it from his hand.

His gaze was heated as I brought the bottle to my lips, and my stomach fluttered with the knowledge that moments before, his mouth had been on the bottle too.

I lowered the bottle and licked my lips to catch a stray drop, then handed it back, holding Bram’s gaze. I was so busy watching him that I didn’t clock the fact that Poe’s and Remy’s eyes were locked on my face until Remy spoke.

“Goddamn.”

I looked down at my body, wondering what he was talking about, if maybe I’d spilled food or cider on my clothes. “What?”

“I think I need to taste that cider for myself,” Remy said, his eyes glued to my lips.

He wanted to kiss me. Here. In front of Poe.

And Bram.

“Is that…” I looked at Poe, because I’d slept with him and hadn’t told him about kissing Remy after the protest. “Is that allowed?”

Poe leaned back on his elbows and flashed a lazy grin that went straight to my cunt. “Anything you want is allowed, little bird.”

I hesitated, then leaned toward Remy, wondering what the fuck I was doing. I was sitting on the tinderbox of my lust for all three of the men around me, and I was lighting the match all by myself.