CHAPTER THIRTY
By Saturday, Donovan was tied up in knots. The planetary crossing was still wreaking havoc. Just that morning, Old Man Carson’s cows had inexplicably busted out of the barn and stampeded into town where they proceeded to crap all over One Love Park and eat most of the landscaping. Cleanup was still ongoing.
And Eva still wasn’t opening the vault on her secret. Donovan had a bad feeling about it, but she’d asked him to trust her. He’d been turning it over in his head, wondering exactly what this woman was to Eva and what trouble she could cause. When he’d picked her up to take her over to Pierce Acres for the apple butter boil, she looked pale, exhausted.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his tone easy.
“I’m fine,” she announced with a bright, phony smile. “Excited about apple butter.”
He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. Even his monumental patience was finite. He’d asked her point blank, and she’d batted those hazel eyes at him, all innocence and sweetness, and then lied to his face.
He was in law enforcement. Sure, Blue Moon was a sleepy-ass town with hardly any trouble, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t spot a lie at ten paces. He didn’t like that she didn’t trust him with this secret, but he’d waited this long to win her. He could wait a little longer to earn that trust. She wasn’t going to shake him. If either of them was going to do the changing, it was her.
It was with this determination that he took her hand in his as he steered his SUV toward Pierce Acres. Colby and Layla were splitting the shift this afternoon and into the night, leaving him free—barring any major emergencies—to enjoy the return of the Apple Butter Boil.
“I assume you’ve never been to an apple butter boil?” he asked Eva, his thumb stroking her hand under his.
She shook her head. “Apple butter boil virgin.”
“I think you’ll like it,” he predicted.
“Well, with apples, sugar, and Phoebe’s chicken corn soup, what’s not to like?” Eva joked.
They pulled into the gravel drive and bumped their way toward the house and barn. Donovan pulled off into the front yard, which resembled more of a parking lot than a yard.
Kids and dogs wrestled and played chase. Men with beers and mugs of coffee stood around a huge kettle over a fire. Women, Eva’s sisters included, juggled glasses of wine and babies. And right then, as Donovan took Eva’s hand and led her into the fray, everything in his life felt just about perfect.
The Pierces greeted them with beverages and cookies and a tour of the apple butter setup. The witch’s cauldron—as he and Beckett had called it all those years ago—hung over a crackling fire. The scents of apple and burning wood hung in the air. The trees had all turned here, too. Golds and rusty reds clung to the branches for one last hurrah before winter settled in.
It was beautiful. It was home.
“We were just discussing the madness around town,” Summer said, opening a bottle of Chardonnay on the picnic table.
Jonathan, dressed in a tiny flannel shirt, ran over to Donovan arms raised. Donovan lifted the boy up over his head and spun him around delighting in the giggles.
“He just ate carrots,” Summer warned. “That is not attractive vomit.”
Donovan settled Jonathan on his hip and tuned into the conversation.
“It’s like the entire town has PMS and a hangover,” Joey said.
Donovan froze and stared at her. “Jesus. You got bangs.”
Joey shrugged scraping her fingers through the choppy layers covering her forehead. “What’s so weird about that?”
“You haven’t changed your hair since you were seven,” Beckett pointed out, burping Lydia on his shoulder.
“You grew a beard,” Joey shot back.
“That’s different. That was for a bet.”
“You kept it. Maybe you’re under Uranus’s influence,” Joey argued.
Carter slapped a hand on Donovan’s shoulder. “I imagine you’ve been dealing with this kind of shit all over town.”
“You hear about Clayton’s crotch of cold brew the other day?” Donovan asked, handing Jonathan over when the little boy reached for his dad.
“That’s all it was? I heard Selma dumped an entire pot of hot coffee on him,” Carter said.
Donovan rolled his eyes, well used to the Blue Moon grapevine.
“I heard that Selma threw the pot at his head, and he tossed her over the counter to protect himself,” Franklin piped up.
“This is what happens when you disable the gossip group on Facebook,” Joey muttered.
“What? You get bangs?”
“Stop talking about my hair!”
Donovan reached for Eva and reeled her in. “I can’t believe you’re related to all these weirdos,” he teased.
“Blood and marriage. You chose to be here. So, who’s the real weirdo?” she grinned.
He leaned down, intent to take her mouth with his own, before remembering that Eva’s father was standing next to him.
“Soooo,” Franklin drawled staring at them. “Anything you want to tell your father, Evangelina?”
Donovan looked at Eva, trying to telegraph his mental panic.
“Dad, Donovan and I are dating,” Eva said, looping her arm through Donovan’s.
Franklin nodded, considering. “I actually found out through that spot of investigative journalism Anthony wrote up in The Weekly Monthly Moon,” he said amicably.
“Sorry, Dad,” Eva grimaced. “I should have told you sooner. It’s been a crazy few days.”
“I’m used to getting the news on Facebook rather than hearing it from the mouths of my daughters. Donovan, you’re a lucky man. Eva, try not to screw this up.”
“Dad!”
It was as much of a blessing as he needed. With a grin, Donovan silenced Eva’s protest with a smoldering kiss.
“Geez, guys. Can you do that somewhere else?” Evan asked. Donovan reluctantly pulled back from Eva’s sweet mouth and caught the kid rolling his eyes.
Niko slapped a hand on Evan’s shoulder. “Not too long from now, Evan, you’re going to be finding things to do somewhere else, too,” he predicted.
Gia appeared out of nowhere and covered Evan’s ears. “Nikolai Vulkov, don’t go putting ideas into his head!”
“Mom, I’m thirteen. The ideas were already there,” Evan argued. “I’m just way more mature about it than all of you.”
“He’s not kidding,” Gia sighed, letting her son wiggle out of her grasp. “He’s so grown up. He’s not going to need me anymore.”
Phoebe put an arm around the lamenting Gia’s shoulders. “Honey, they’ll always need you,” she predicted.
“Mom! How long should the soup simmer?” Beckett called from the porch.
“Mom, did you bring cornbread?” Jax demanded.
“See?” Phoebe said.
Donovan draped an arm over Eva’s shoulder. “I feel like we’re looking at our future,” he predicted.
Wordlessly, she cuddled into his side, resting a hand over his heart, and everything felt just about perfect again.
It got even better ten seconds later when Clementine the goat, cool as a cucumber, ambled by and ducked behind a tree.
“Shouldn’t we—” Eva gestured toward the camouflaged goat.
“Oh no,” Donovan shook his head. “Let’s just let nature take its course.”
The damn goat had the patience of a four-star general and bided her time until Jax was inhaling a slice of cornbread the size of his forearm. He never saw it coming.
“Watch out, Uncle Jax,” Aurora shouted with glee. But it was too late. Clementine head-butted him in the gut, and as he doubled over, she caught him in the face with a toss of her head.
“Ouch! What the fuck!”
Quick as a ninja, Clementine snatched the cornbread out of his hand and trotted over to Joey.
Jax, clutching a hand over one eye, glared at his wife. “You said you’d untrain her!”
“I’ve been busy! We have kids and horses and…”
“Your bodyguard goat just punched me in the face over cornbread!”
Whistling cheerfully, Carter slipped a halter over Clementine’s beady-eyed head.
“And you! You insist on keeping this monster around.” Jax pointed wildly at Carter.
Carter held up his hands. “Man, I can’t help it if she hates you. She likes everyone else.”
“Mom!” Jax yelled.
Phoebe sighed. “A mother’s work is never done.”
Joey, trying to hide her laughter, hustled into the house to get ice for her husband’s face.
“If you’re my friend, Cardona, I want you to shoot that stupid goat right now!
--------
Post-goat attack, the apple butter boil was everything Eva hoped it would be and more. Jax—with his new black eye blooming—orchestrated a football game with the kids, his brothers, and the ever-competitive Emma and Joey. More bottles of wine were opened, more food brought out, and the apples slowly cooked down under the heat into a soupy mixture.
Seeing her sisters and father relax and enjoy themselves reinforced Eva’s decision to keep her current woes to herself. She could just imagine what dropping the Mom Bomb would do to their little festive picnic. It would be a disaster, ruining the day they were all enjoying.
She let Donovan distract her, and together they shared a steaming bowl of soup and the easy touches of a couple. He was attentive and sweet and so damn sexy. When he rolled up his sleeves to take a turn stirring the apple concoction with the long wooden paddle, she stared at him over the shoulders of her sisters and friends as she caught up with everyone. She cuddled her niece Lydia and let Meatball the beagle fall asleep with his droopy head in her lap.
When Donovan stretched out in the grass next to her, she fed him pieces of Phoebe’s cornbread while they watched the sun sink lower on the horizon.
“I love it when we’re all together like this,” Eva admitted, leaning back against Donovan.
“How many kids do you think we’ll have?” he asked, twirling a blade of grass between his fingers.
“Donovan! You are ridiculous. I’m still waiting on our first date.”
“I’m only asking because I was an only child. I thought it would be fun to have more kids, like the Pierces.” He nodded toward the brothers who were picking on each other, using the familiar arts of headlocks and name-calling.
“Fine. We can have two then,” Eva laughed, going with the moment.
Donovan stiffened beneath her and then relaxed. “Talk like that is going to get you a ride straight to the justice of the peace, Evangelina,” he warned.
She shivered at the heat in his tone.
“When can we get out of here? To have sex, I mean, not get married,” she corrected herself.
“If you don’t want any apple butter, we can go right fucking now,” Donovan said, already rising to his feet.
Eva giggled and let him pull her off the ground. She felt giddy as if Donovan and the day had pushed away all of the bad that had been closing in on her. The bad that had sent her a note that said simply “Sunday.” It was Agnes’s deadline for Eva to cough up the ten thousand dollars. She didn’t have a plan yet, but she would, and then the woman would be out of her life forever.
“Maybe we could just go find a nice quiet cornfield or a barn,” she suggested, a new need revving her system with anticipation.
“Is this research, or do you really want to have sex in a barn?”
“Everything is research, and yes, I really want to have sex in a barn,” she laughed.
He was dragging her across the drive to the little red barn when a candy apple red pick-up truck eased up the drive.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Donovan breathed, stopping in the middle of the lane.
“Who is it?” Eva asked.
The horn tooted and the driver waved out his window.
“My parents.”
The truck came to a stop and was immediately surrounded by the horde of Pierces.
“Surprise!” the woman in the passenger seat called through the open window.
Whoops and greetings were shouted out as the couple climbed out of the truck.
Donovan had the long-limbed blonde woman in a ball cap in his arms and dangling off the ground half a second after she stepped out of the cab of the truck.
The family resemblance was strong and got even stronger when the silver fox with a tan and well-fitting jeans ambled around the hood.
For the first time ever in Eva’s experience, Donovan was speechless.
Phoebe was grinning maniacally, and Eva knew she had something to do with the surprise.
Donovan dropped his mother gently to the ground and embraced his father in a one-armed hug.
“What are you two doing here?” he asked, his voice gruff with emotion.
“You think we’d miss a planetary crossing in Blue Moon?” his mom laughed.
“You did not come back here to hold my hand while I do my job,” Donovan said.
“No, you dope,” she grinned up at him. “We came back because we missed you. And we heard the Apple Butter Boil was resurrected.”
Donovan swung around to face Phoebe. “You?” he asked.
She shrugged innocently. “I missed them as much as you did. Plus, I figured you might have someone you’d want to introduce them to,” she said, shooting a pointed look in Eva’s direction.
He wrapped Phoebe in a one-armed hug and kissed her on the top of the head before releasing her.
He reached for Eva’s hand. “Mom, Dad, there is someone I want you to meet.”
“There’s a lot of someones,” his father said, scanning the crowd. “I’m only recognizing about fifty percent.”
“Well, start here,” Donovan said. “This is Eva, my girlfriend. Eva, these are my parents, Michael and Hazel.”
Hazel’s eyes widened marginally, but it was the woman’s only outward sign of surprise that showed. She still had cop written all over her in her straight-as-a-lance posture, and the way she took in everything without reacting to it.
“It’s great to meet you,” Eva said.
“Real nice to meet you, Eva,” Hazel said, offering a firm shake.
“Well, hello,” Michael said, all wolfish charm.
“Dad,” Donovan said warningly.
Hazel punched her husband in the shoulder. “Don’t pick yet. Let her get to know you before she has to deal with your flirtations.”
“Anything you say, my bride,” Michael said, winking in his wife’s direction.
Hazel opened her arms to Phoebe. “It’s about damn time I see your face again,” she said.
“It’s about damn time you came back from the west coast,” Phoebe countered, wrapping her friend in a bear hug.
“You got any wine around here? Where’s Elvira?” The two women linked arms and wandered off.
“It’s good to see you, Dad,” Donovan said.
Michael slapped a hand on his son’s back. “It’s mighty good to see you, son. We’re staying with you by the way. Hope you have clean sheets.”