The Perfect Match (Blue Heron #2)(86)

“This is lovely,” Tom said, stopping at the family cemetery.

“Yes. Everyone from the ancestor who fought with Washington to my mom.” She stopped, opening the little gate that enclosed the area, and put Spike down so the dog could capture leaves and make them her prisoners. Honor brushed a few leaves off her mom’s headstone and adjusted the pot of pansies she’d left there yesterday.

For more than half of Honor’s life, her mother had been gone. It didn’t seem possible.

“You Hollands have a good bit of land, don’t you?” Tom asked, breaking the silence as they continued up the hill.

“We do,” she said.

“And here I am, a city kid who grew up in a three-room apartment, marrying into American royalty.”

“Hardly that. American farmers.”

Tom grinned. “Same thing in this country, isn’t it?”

“I’ll tell my dad you said that. Whatever misgivings he has will evaporate.”

“Does he have misgivings?”

Honor picked Spike back up, as her teensy feet would be getting cold, and tucked the dog into her coat. “Well, sure. He’s a father. You and I haven’t known each other that long. If we were getting married a year from now, I’m sure he wouldn’t worry.”

“I imagine I’d feel the same, if I had a daughter.”

A daughter. The thought made her heart swell with longing.

Faith’s pickup truck was in the gravel lot at the top of the ridge. “My sister’s working on the Barn,” Honor said. “Want to go say hi?”

“Not really,” he said, taking her hand. “You know you look a bit ridiculous with that dog’s head poking out of your coat? In an adorable way, of course.”

Oh. That was...that was nice.

His hand was much warmer than hers. Warm and firm and flippin’ huge, and all of a sudden, Honor felt incredibly feminine and adorable...and randy. What—and when—to do about that was another question altogether.

She hadn’t had any trouble figuring out what to do that night when she’d pulled open Tom Barlow’s shirt and licked his neck and kissed him till he pushed her against the wall and held her hands over her head. No sir. No indeedy.

The eggs fluffed their hair and took off their bifocals.

“Ellis Farm Conservation Land,” Tom read from the sign. “All right, Miss Holland. Give me your spiel.”

“It’s land. They don’t make that anymore.”

“Simple as that?”

“Yep. We’ll put in a bike trail that will link up to the rail line. The 4-H club will use the barn for their cows, and we’re going to put in a co-op vegetable garden. There’ll be a picnic area, some hiking trails.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“And see that pond? In the winter, we’ll flood it for skating.” She paused. “Do you know how to skate?”

“No,” he said.

“I’ll teach you. I’m pretty good.”

He smiled. “I bet you are.”

She could see it very clearly—the skies gray and heavy, holding Tom’s hand in the cold air, then going home to warm up. Naked.

“And your party this weekend, it funds the whole thing?”

“Excuse me? Oh, um, no. But the ball raises a lot of our budget. Private donors do the rest. Some of the local businesses.”

“Including Blue Heron.”

“You bet.” Spike was wriggling to get loose, so she put the doggy down and let her wander as far as the leash would let her.

Tom was staring out over the hill. The snow had mostly melted here, as the sun shone on the fields all day. The pond was still frozen.

When she was younger, Honor had skated there with the Ellis kids, when the pond had seemed like a foreign country filled with mysteries no one else had discovered, and only seven-year-olds on ice skates held the key. Then they’d troop back to the New House, and Mom would make cocoa and serve cookies, a Norman Rockwell scene if ever there was one.

And soon, that kind of thing would be available for all the kids in Manningsport. Kids like Jessica and Levi, who’d grown up in a trailer park, and kids like Charlie, who spent most of their days indoors, could have what the Hollands had been lucky enough to be born with. Land. Nature. Acres and acres of woods, water and forest. Birdsong and wildlife and hours of being outdoors.

Spike whined, meaning she had to pee. And to do so, she needed privacy, as the dog had a shy bladder. Tom was sitting on the fence that divided the Ellis land from Blue Heron and was just gazing out at the vista.

“Okay, Spike,” she said, walking down the hill. “Let’s find you a spot.”

All of a sudden, Spike whimpered, trembling, then pulled at the leash. “Those are deer,” Honor explained. “They’re too big for you to take down, so stick with ants, okay?”

Spike didn’t agree; she tugged again, and the frayed leash snapped. In a blur, the dog was off through the grass. “Spike, no,” Honor said. “Come on. Come back here.” There were coyotes around, after all, though it was still light. She started to run, clumsy in her boots. “Spike! Come!”

The dog didn’t listen, charging forward at the deer, barking with all her might, and the deer bolted into the woods on the far side of the pond.