Harvest Moon (Brook Haven Romance Book 1) by Charlene Bright Page A

Mac’s.
    “Oh wow. That’s cute.”
    “Wait! Watch this …” He
held the other one up. Instead of going for Mac’s nose, that one laid a kiss
right on his lips. Drake cracked up.
    “How long did it take
you to teach them that?”
    “I didn’t teach either
one of them. The little boogers just started doing it on their own every time I
picked them up.” He tried to look annoyed as he said it, but the little guy in
his right hand climbed up his arm and snuggled into his chest right next to his
armpit. Drake could see him visibly melting. God, he hated the thought of how
upset Mac was going to be when they had to leave.
    “That’s awesome,” he
said. He almost told him that Sam would be back on Wednesday, but he just
didn’t have the heart. “You want to go to the market with me this morning?”
    “Nah … I better stay
back and make sure these guys eat and take care of their other business.”
    Drake smiled. “Okay. Do
you have anything you want me to take for you?”
    “Yeah, if you don’t
mind. There are a couple of new carvings on the table in the shop.”
    “Okay, I’ll bring us
some lunch when I get back.” Mac was already immersed in conversation with one
of the kits and hardly noticed Drake leaving. Drake went around to the woodshop,
and when he opened the door and saw what was on the table, tears actually stung
the corners of his eyes. Mac had carved a replica of each kit as well as one of
them curled together sleeping. They were lifelike and beautiful, and there was
no way that Drake was going to sell them. He took them with him; he’d bring the
money back to Mac, but they would go into his private collection, the one in
his house that Mac rarely saw because he refused to leave his own.
    Any time Drake took one
of Mac’s carvings into town and it didn’t sell, he bought it. They were genuinely
beautiful works of art, but unless it was tourist season, the folks in Brook
Haven didn’t often have a lot of money to spend on non-essentials. Drake had a
collection of at least a dozen … and now he had three more.
    He made it into town
just in time to set up his table before he had his first customer. Hooter had
wandered off to say hello, and Drake didn’t worry about him; everyone in town
knew the old yellow Lab.
    “Hi, Drake!”
    “Hey, Karen, how’s the
shoulder?”
    “It’s so much better
thanks to that salve you gave me last week.” Karen lived alone in a house at
the edge of the woods with no electricity or running water. Drake gave her a
camp stove a while back to cook on, and the nice folks who owned the grocery
store kept her supplied with fresh water and anything non-perishable that they
would have to throw out. She always had a different ailment, and Drake had come
to suspect over the years that most of her pain came from the inside and
manifested itself in body aches.
    “I’m glad to hear that.
My mama swore by it for her joint pain.”
    “Your mama was an
angel,” she said. “We sure do miss her around here.”
    “Thank you, Karen. I
miss her too.”
    “I got a crick in my
knee these days …”
    Before she left, Drake
had loaded her down with a grocery bag full of vegetables and more salve. He
was just wrapping things up with his second customer—a paying one—when he heard
a familiar voice.
    “Well, there he is.
Where are those wild animals you’ve been hanging on to for me?”
    “Sam! I thought you
weren’t coming back until Wednesday.”
    Sam raised an eyebrow.
“Well, that’s a nice welcome home if I ever got one,” he said.
    “Sorry. I’m just
surprised to see you.”
    “Well, hitting the
beach was nice after the conference, but you know me, I’d rather socialize with
the animals.”
    Drake smiled. “Yeah,
I’ve noticed that about you.”
    “So how are those kits
doing?”
    “Well, when I left the
farm, Mac had one of them rubbing noses with him and the other giving him
kisses.”
    Sam cringed. “You
domesticated them?”
    “No … Mac did, I