“Their loss,” Lane said smoothly.
Kissie blushed.
Trig wondered if he was having a nightmare.
“You should both come to the party tomorrow,” Lane suggested. “Mother has outdone herself.”
The party where he saw Lane making out with his girlfriend through the Montgomery mansion window? Trig would literally rather spoon out his own eyeballs. “I don’t think that would be—”
“We’d love to,” Kissie said, sliding her fingers into the crook of Trig’s elbow.
“Wonderful. It was a pleasure to meet you, Kissie Mitchell.” Lane’s magnetic, Ken doll smile transformed when he looked at Trig. If he didn’t know the man better, Trig would have sworn it was remorseful. “It’s good to see you too, Trig.”
“He never calls me that,” Trig whispered, perplexed, while he watched Lane walk out the door.
“Never calls you what?” Kissie whispered back.
“Trig. He always calls me Andrew.”
“He reminds me of Ivan Drago,” Kissie said, staring at Lane through the bakery window. “I expected him to have a Russian accent.”
“Why did you tell him we’d go to his party?” Stepping back from her, Trig spluttered, “Unless you want to…unless you want him. Because you’re both single.”
“No way. He’s not my type at all.”
His lungs started working again.
“But sometimes a necessary part of developing an effective ad campaign is researching the competition.” She cracked her knuckles. “You call it a party. I call it recon.”
“Trig! Kissie!” Billy called from behind the counter. “Happy Valentine’s Eve!”
“Hey Billy,” Trig said, shaking Billy’s hand across the counter. “Those cookies were amazing, the highlight of the singles night for sure.”
“Singles, huh?” Billy asked, arching a bushy brow at them. “You don’t look so single to me.”
Trig’s eyes bulged. “Kissie is helping me with a project for Mystic. We’re not—”
“Are those kitten cupcakes?” Kissie asked, making goo-goo eyes at a tray of chocolate cupcakes in the display case.
“Aye, they are,” said Billy’s wife Kathleen as she emerged from the kitchen. “I made them this morning.”
“Do you want one?” Trig asked. “My treat.”
Rubbing her hands together, Kissie said, “Yes, please.”
“Wait, there aren’t any nuts in those, are there?” Trig asked Kathleen. “Kissie is allergic.”
Wrapping her arm around him in a side hug, resting her head on his shoulder long enough for the fruity scent of her shampoo to flood his senses, Kissie said, “I can’t believe you remembered that.”
“Well, aren’t ye the loveliest little thing.” Kathleen—a nearly six-foot-tall black woman Billy had met on a trip to Scotland, fell in love with, and somehow convinced to move back here with him to Twin Hearts—was beaming down at Kissie like she wanted to knit her a sweater and tuck her in at night.
Kissie’s cheeks went rosy. “Um, thanks?”
“Where did ye find this one, Trig?Ooch, she’s precious as a wee beetle.”
“I am pretty short,” Kissie agreed.
“This is Kissie,” Billy told Kathleen. “She and Trig are ‘only friends’.”
