Chapter Twenty-two: That’s Where It Is

Chapter Twenty-two

Willow

THAT'S WHERE IT IS

Performed by Carrie Underwood

The relief that flew through me when Lincoln didn't leave was just another ridiculous emotion in the sea of them I'd had since the minute he'd walked into the cemetery. His house was hardly a good hiding spot if it was Poco who'd left the note. He'd assumed we were dating. He'd seen Lincoln and me together several times now, and he'd likely know to look here if he couldn't find me at the cottage. But as irrational as it might be, I felt hidden here. Not only hidden but safe and cared for. As if he was just a regular guy, and I was just a regular girl, and we could let these tantalizing emotions run free.

Maybe Lincoln had cast a spell on me with the seductive rub of his thumb along my mouth, or maybe it was just years of aching for this type of connection and affection, but I wanted the spell to last for at least a few hours more. I wanted to suspend time while we were secreted away from the world.

So, instead of objecting, instead of insisting he go do whatever he'd been about to do, I simply breathed out, "Thank you."

He leaned down, lips brushing a feathery kiss along my forehead that had my eyes fluttering shut and my entire being convulsing as his scent, his kindness, his brave humanity filled my soul. It was all too much and not enough.

He released me, stepping back, and I opened my eyes to see his smile had returned. What would it be like to see him like this all the time? Happy. Content. I ached for him to have that possibility—for us both to have it.

"Do I get to have dessert before dinner?" he asked. "Because that smell is taunting me."

I shook my head. "No. Absolutely not. It's not even ready yet. That's just the base. Plus, I've got the meal completely planned out, and I refuse to let you ruin it by starting with sweets."

"The culinary snob in you is coming out again. Tell me, Sweetness, have you ever had cake for breakfast?"

I rolled my eyes. "I mean, loaf cakes and scones might as well be cake."

"No. I mean a full-on, layered cake with buttercream icing and all."

"And I suppose you have?" I asked, but there was doubt in my voice.

"It was practically a requirement in our house after any celebration. We always had too much cake left, and my sisters and I made it a thing. Cake for breakfast. Sometimes…" His voice lowered as if telling me a sensual secret. "Sometimes, we even put it in a bowl, poured milk over it, and ate it like cereal.

I gasped, and he snickered.

"The absolute horror on your face is worth the risk that came from telling you that secret. If it ever appears in some news article someday— the Matherton siblings ate cake for breakfast —our parents would take the heat for our unhealthy lifestyle, the press would make some Marie Antoinette reference about us needing to be beheaded, and yet it would still be worth it."

Multiple emotions ran through me. Pleasure that he trusted me. Frustration that he'd had to live with those kinds of thoughts most of his life, doubting all the people around him, having to hold back his secrets from those who only saw him as the president's son—someone to use, someone to gain something from. Even once I'd figured out who Lincoln was, I'd never really seen him in that light. And now, knowing him more, all I saw was a passionate, talented, caring human. A man living with buckets of grief and yet able to see through it enough to reach out to others.

The dark superhero and archangel mixed, hiding in plain sight.

I knew what it was like to always be keeping part of yourself from those you were with.

I wanted his playfulness to remain, the teasing taunts rather than the dark shadows that could crawl over him as easily as they crawled over me, so I kept the horrified look on my face before responding. "It's blasphemy. That's utter blasphemy. Not only because milk would ruin the texture and flavor of the cake as it was designed to be eaten by the chef who made it, but because that is not breakfast."

"Please. And donuts or pancakes or fancy crepes are any better?"

I shook my head. "Different textures. Different combinations of flavors and purpose."

He stepped around me, heading back toward the kitchen. "I'm going to turn you from a food snob yet. Where's the dessert?"

I chased after him as he searched the kitchen, eyes landing on the chocolate layer I'd pulled from the oven. He slid open a drawer and grabbed a fork. I barely reached him in time to stop him from plunging it into the center of the brownie-like combination.

"Don't you dare ruin my dessert!" My laugh spoiled the command. I brought his hand with the fork to my chest, snaking the utensil away with my free hand and flinging it toward the sink.

"What are you offering instead? You know, to keep me from diving into this treat that is just sitting here in my house, waiting for me?" he asked, gaze falling to my lips and then down to my chest, which was rising and falling quickly with each wild beat of my heart.

When his eyes returned to mine, they were molten. Warm blueberry syrup melting my reserves as if they were butter, making me want to throw every caution to the wind and take, take, take. Gorge myself on the passion he was presenting me with. That all-consuming want sucked me right in because before I knew it, I was rising on my toes and placing a soft but almost chaste kiss on his lips.

When I went to step back, one of his hands gripped my hip while the other went to the back of my head, and he pressed our mouths together with a fierceness that surprised me. Every vein that had been dancing along the edge of the fire burst open. Twined in deep with the longing was a feeling of utter acceptance. For some reason, this man saw me. All of me. And liked it. Wanted more of it.

Joy. This was joy. All the other times I'd thought I'd experienced pure happiness, I'd been wrong. Locked to him, bodies and souls melting together…this was what happiness was. It was the absolute definition of it.

God, I wanted to keep him. Keep every moment.

When I finally came up for air, when I finally broke away, my voice was breathless. "Dinner will be ready in an hour if you get out of the kitchen and let me finish rather than distracting me."

His eyes lit up. "I've been blamed on numerous occasions by my family for forgoing food in lieu of a good distraction."

"Not on my watch!"

"Food snob and food police."

I laughed and turned back to the pancetta I'd been in the middle of chopping when the doorbell had rung. Lincoln stepped away, sitting on the barstool at the island, and pulling his sketchpad to him along with the pencil I'd snagged. He flipped past my design to a fresh page and started drawing while I worked.

I hadn't meant to look at the drawings when I'd been searching for a blank page. But it wasn't just the angel statue that had snagged my eye. It had been the pictures of someone who looked like me but not quite. A blurred version of me, without the freckles and a more pointed chin. He'd said he'd seen me in the cemetery before that night with Poco, and from a distance, he wouldn't have known I had the marks running along my nose and cheeks. It had been odd to see myself, or some strangely fuzzy rendering of me, on the page.

But I didn't let it go to my head. He hadn't known me. He'd been caught by the idea of someone in the cemetery in the middle of the night.

As I finished the meal, he sketched and asked a million questions. Innocuous, getting-to-know-you kind of questions about favorite books and shows and music. Places in Cherry Bay I liked, and did I know there was a fairy-tale castle just down the road, hidden away?

"River Briar, right? The theater department at Bonnin uses it once a year for their annual fundraiser. The woman who owns it graduated from the university. I heard she didn't even know her dad before she inherited the place, but her husband makes movie sets there now."

"Can anyone visit it?" he asked.

"It's not open to the public, to my knowledge, but they hold private weddings in addition to the charity events there, so they must let prospective clients on site. I'd bet they'd be happy to show you around."

He grinned. "Me? You think?"

I tossed a piece of bell pepper at him. He caught it and munched on it.

"If I can get someone to find out about it, do you want to go with me?" he asked.

My breath faltered, lungs spasming. It would mean being seen in public with him again, risking someone who actually knew who he was taking a picture and posting it. But that was a worry for another day, so I told him the simple truth. "I'd love to see it."

He pulled out his phone, fingers flashing over the screen before pocketing it again.

"So, you just text someone and magically get what you want?" I asked.

His brows bunched together in thought. "Not quite. The artist you saw at the gallery this morning…she's painted the castle. She said she works for the caterer who does their events, so I thought she might know someone who could get us a tour."

He went back to drawing, and the silence settled down between us for so long this time I started to worry I'd said something that had offended him. Had it been the tease about him magically getting whatever he wanted?

When we sat down to the first course, and he was still lost in thought, I missed the easy laughter and the playful back-and-forth we'd had.

"I'm sorry if I offended you."

He looked up at me, brows lifting. "What?"

"Ever since I made the dig about you getting whatever you wanted, you've been quiet. If I hit a nerve, I'm sorry. I don't really think it's true. I was just teasing. You aren't spoiled or entitled. If I didn't know who your dad is, I'd never assume you'd led a privileged life. You're way too… I don't know what the right word is. Down to earth? Empathetic?"

"I'm the one who should apologize," he said. I'd tried putting our plates on opposite sides of the table, but he'd moved them side by side again like he had at lunch, so when he put his fork down and turned to face me, our knees collided. "You didn't offend me at all. My brain got caught up in an idea for this series of paintings I'm working on. It's what I was drawing." His head tilted toward the sketchbook on the island. "I get lost in my art all the time. My sisters call it my Mr. Grouchypants state because if and when I'm pulled out of it, I usually howl like a beast. But the truth is, most of the time, a gorilla in a tutu could dance in front of me, and I wouldn't see it. The worst sort of tunnel vision."

The tension released from my back. "A gorilla in a tutu?"

He chuckled.

As we finished the rest of the meal, he returned to the more talkative, inquisitive man I'd seen earlier. His gaze, full and intense, was on me once more, and I felt ridiculous all over again. Needy. Silly. I didn't know how to do casual friendships any more than relationships. Other than Shay, I hadn't had any real friends since the ones I'd grown up with in Chicago. At first, I'd kept to myself for fear of slipping up, and then later because it had become a habit.

I hadn't felt lonely.

I hadn't been unhappy.

But now, having this simple, ordinary conversation with Lincoln proved I'd forgotten what life was like when you weren't alone. After the trial, I'd told myself I'd do everything I could to experience life and find joy in every day, but I'd still been holding myself back. Mom had been right when she'd told me the same thing in the store. I was letting the Viceroys win.

As Lincoln pushed his plate away after the main course, he said, "That was incredible, Willow."

Happiness coasted through me. Not since receiving praise from my instructors at culinary school had a compliment hit me so hard. Not even Hector's expounding on the piece I'd brought to The Tea Spot.

"Have you ever thought about opening your own restaurant?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No. Absolutely not. I don't want to run a business. I want to create not manage a restaurant or deal with finances and taxes and the health department. I like making meals for people I care about, but I don't love it the way I love making pastries."

I deftly sliced the tall layers of strawberry chiffon and chocolate torte and brought him a piece.

He closed his eyes while taking a bite, pleasure coating his face in a way that made my belly go soft once again. When he opened his eyes, there was a heat to them that only melted me more.

"Delicious. Sweet but not too sweet. Vibrant. Complex but light," he said, sticking his finger into the whipped cream frosting and licking it off.

I could only watch. Fascinated. Full of that hunger and yearning I'd been having since the moment he descended into my world.

"It's just like you." The words hummed out of him.

I pushed away from the table. I recognized it as running and knew it made me a chicken, but he was terrifying in the way he kept breaking through all my boundaries. Every moment I sat with him, I wanted more of the impossible. I'd always wanted someone who would take the leap, take a risk on me, but I hadn't really thought about it in reverse. What would I risk for them?

Would I risk Mom? Her safety? Mine?

I started cleaning the mess I'd made in the kitchen while he finished his dessert, watching me the entire time. The quiet now wasn't a vacuum. Instead, it was loaded with the passion that moved between us.

When I'd finally righted the counters as much as I could, he came over and put his plate in the dishwasher. "What would you like to watch?"

It was the last thing I expected him to ask. I frowned. "What?"

He raised a brow, lips twitching. "Dinner. Dessert. Movie. I figure it's as close to a first date as we're going to get at the moment."

My throat tightened at the thought of us dating. Of being on a date. More impossibilities. I shouldn't stay, but I also didn't want to go home. I was a mess. A movie would be a good distraction, wouldn't it? Still, I couldn't help but ask, "What would you be doing if I wasn't here?"

"Obsessing over the gallery, heading to the studio to paint, or reading."

"Do you read a lot?"

He nodded. "It occupies my brain. Allows me to fall asleep sometimes."

"What are you reading now?"

" The Night Circus . Do you read?"

"Not very much. I'd rather be baking."

He grabbed my hand and tugged me out of the kitchen, flicking off lights as he went and guiding me toward the stairs. My brain kicked into overdrive, longing and nervousness mingling and making my palms sweat.

"Where are we going?" I asked, voice breathless and airy.

"I don't have a television in the living room yet. The only one hooked up is in my bedroom."

My feet turned to cement blocks, dragging my fingers from his grip.

He turned back, lips twitching. "I promise to be the perfect gentleman. No nefarious reasons for inviting you into my room. I have a little sitting area there and the love seat is actually really far away from the bed—at least a good three feet."

It was a dare. I recognized one when I saw one. But the truth was, my curiosity was stronger than my nervousness. What would his room look like? Would it be forcefully sunny like the kitchen or a calm blue sea like his study?

I urged my feet to move again, and his grin grew. I followed him to the last room on the second floor and entered the dark side of his house. The place the tortured superhero resided. The mesmerizing vampire. The room was elegant and moody with woods stained almost black and burgundy brocades layered with the barest hints of purples and silvers. Angled several feet away from the king-sized bed with its intricately carved footboard was a low-backed love seat in a plush wine-colored fabric piled with accent pillows. A stack of paintings was propped up against a dresser partially hiding a wide-screened television.

Lincoln began moving the canvases into the hall. I went to help, and my hands stalled on a painting of a woman who looked a lot like me. Except, like in the sketchbook downstairs, she had no freckles, her chin was narrower, and her eyes were a soft, robin's-egg blue. A glance at the lower corner showed Lincoln's name scrawled with a date from over a decade ago. Long before he'd ever met me.

He came back into the room, stopping next to me and looking down at the painting.

"That poorly executed piece was my early attempt at capturing Sienna. I didn't know what the hell I was doing."

A million doubts flooded into me. I'd thought he was as attracted to me as I was to him. I'd thought he saw me…the real me. But what if, instead, he was simply capturing a fleeting reflection of the woman he'd loved and lost?

Why did that hurt so damn bad? Why did it make me want to slam the canvas down on something sharp and tear at the face that looked up at me? Why was I filled with the same jealousy that had coursed through me when I'd seen his head bent close to the artist at the gallery?

I swallowed over the lump in my throat. "I look like her."

When I risked meeting his eyes, I saw a flicker of something there I couldn't name. Loss. Compassion. Devotion. But was it for her, or was it for me?

He took the painting from my hand, saying, "That first night I saw you in the cemetery, I thought she'd returned to haunting me." He set the painting so it was lying sideways, propped up against the wall with her face turned away from us. I didn't have time to process the words about her haunting him before he'd captured my hand and was running his thumb along the palm. "We both know I'd be lying if I said there isn't a resemblance between you."

"Resemblance? We could be twins."

His gaze bored into mine. "Yes. But do you know what I've learned from actually living with twins most of my life?"

I shook my head, unable to speak.

"No matter how much they have in common physically, they're not anything alike. They're individual people. Individual souls. Their wants and needs and desires are different. Katerina may share Juliette's chin and eyes and hair, but my sisters are nothing alike. One is fire and sass and attitude, and the other is peace and calm and nurture. Anyone who met one and then expected the other to be the same would be quickly enlightened. You may look like Sienna, Willow, but you aren't her. There's nothing about you that's the same."

"I'm a flawed version of her perfection."

"Believe me, Sienna had her own flaws. That painting was done by a sixteen-year-old who idolized her and glossed over the nuances that actually made her interesting. She had a scar"—he ran his finger along my chin—"from falling out of a treehouse we tried to build in the backyard. And wild eyebrows that were never smooth." His finger skimmed my brows.

My body loved every touch. Longed for more. But my heart was still twisted and hurting from the seed of doubt that wouldn't be easily shaken after seeing the portrait. It had stolen some of my peace. Some of my blissfulness.

"Do you know what Sienna said when she saw that painting?" he asked, and as I obviously couldn't know, he kept going. "She told me I hadn't captured anything but a fake shell. It was missing her soul. And she was right. She's always been right when it comes to me."

His hand landed on the curve of my neck, thumb at my pulse point. The beat thudded fast and furious against the soft pressure of his fingers, revealing my anxiety to him.

"I miss her. I'll always miss her. But she wasn't perfect. Besides, it's neither her nor perfection I crave these days. The only thing I hunger for is you." His voice was so low and deep it vibrated through me. And I wasn't sure why those words stabbed even more when they were meant to soothe.

"I should go," I said softly. I should. For so many reasons, of which finding out I looked like his long-lost love was only one.

I was surprised when his hands picked me up and practically tossed me onto the love seat where I landed with a surprised huff.

"I'm not letting you turn this into something it's not," he said, glowering down at me. "My interest in you has nothing to do with her."

"Every time you look at me, you have to see her."

"I see Willow. That's who I see when I look at you. Just like I don't look at Juliette and see some imitation of Katerina."

I spun my dad's class ring in my fingers. So many reasons for me not to stay. But I also heard the determination in his voice. The raw truth. I believed him. He didn't see me as her. And he wanted me to stay. He hungered for me. When would I ever hear a man say that to me again? Would there ever be someone else who did?

The thought of walking out his door brought more pain than the idea of staying, because I hungered too. For the euphoria of his touch. For the connection. But also for the idea that I could mean something to this caring, protective man.

It was wrong because it could hurt Mom and me.

It was wrong because he'd already lost a woman he loved and seen others he cared about hurt, and I could lead more of that anguish to his door.

"Lincoln, I—" I started but then shook my head, cutting myself off. He simply watched me battle with myself. Patient. Waiting.

Hadn't I said I wanted more of him? This was more. This was him openly sharing his past with me. The grumpy man who'd saved me from the cemetery had peeled back that tough outer layer and shown me the gentleness beneath it.

I'd promised myself I'd take what I could get out of life, even when I was bound by so many restrictions. The rules governing me might be the reason I was forced to give him up before I was ready, so did I really want to walk away when I had the chance to stay, simply because his old girlfriend looked like me?

We had much bigger hurdles to jump than that. Impossible ones.

So, I'd take these few hours I had with him this weekend, and I'd savor the feeling of falling head over heels for someone before it was ripped away.

I released the tension that had remained in my shoulders and curled my feet under me on the love seat.

"So, what are we going to watch?"

The relief coasting over his face reinforced that I'd made the right decision. He'd done so much for me already. If my being here brought him some sort of comfort, any sort of pleasure, I could and would give him it. I'd give it to us both.