She ate ham, green beans, a bread roll, a deviled egg, corn, and potatoes gratin. She avoided eating Grandma’s offering: green Jell-O with fruit and nuts suspended inside it.
When lunch concluded, they moved outdoors for an egg hunt on the enormous grounds of Willow and Corbin’s house.
She and Zander made their way to Winnie, the four-year-old daughter of Britt’s cousin. Winnie squatted near her basket, both hands over her face, crying.
“Bad hair day?” Britt asked.
“I’m terr—terrible at finding eggs!” Winnie wailed.
That’s true, Britt mouthed to Zander above Winnie’s head.She is terrible. To Winnie she said, “Chin up, sister. If you join forces with Zander and me, I think we might be able to find more eggs than either of your brothers.”
Her tear-stained face lifted.
“I graduated with a minor in egg hunting,” Zander told the girl.
“And I was once crowned Miss Easter Egg.” Britt smiled and gestured for Winnie to stand.
The girl rose.
When Britt bent to unbuckle her shoes, the kayaking injury in her side tweaked with pain. She stilled for a second, pressing her hand to the spot. The ache subsided and she kicked her shoes free.
“Uh-oh,” Zander murmured. “Britt’s getting serious.”
“And you should, too,” Britt told Winnie. She tugged off Winnie’s Mary Janes and frilly socks while the little girl giggled.
When Zander picked up Winnie’s pink basket, Britt arched a brow at him.
He returned her look. “Real men carry pink Easter baskets.”
“Of course they do.” She grabbed Winnie’s hand. “Ready?”
“Nobody’s holding his hand.” Winnie pointed at Zander.
Britt took hold of Zander’s free hand. She’d held his hand plenty in the past. When her family prayed before dinner. When she needed to tow him somewhere in a hurry. But this time, the masculine strength and texture of it sent a hot thrill all the way to the backs of her knees, where it gathered and sizzled. Every other sensation, except the exquisitely acute sensation of his hand holding hers, fled.
“Now I’m ready,” Winnie announced.
“Hmm?” Britt tried to remember what Winnie was talking about.
“I’m ready to hunt for eggs,” Winnie clarified.
“Right. Of course.”
They hurried forward. As soon as they reached the first egg hunting spot, she let go of Winnie’s and Zander’s hands.
She made a show of looking for eggs even though she was approximately as coherent as a sleepwalker. Her hand, the one that Zander had held, felt entirely different than her other hand. More sensitive. As if the skin of that hand had been bathed in starlight.
Holding hands was sweet and snuggly and cozy. Respectful. Chaste. But it wasn’t powerful.
Or at least it hadn’t been before. The touch of Zander’s fingers just now had seethed with power and intimacy—
Fiasco, Britt.Fi-as-co.
Holding hands with a man did not rattle her! Nor did telling Zander that he needed to come back to Washington and fall in love with a local girl. But right after she’d said that to him earlier, an unpleasant lump had come into her throat and she’d felt like she was choking on her statement. The prospect of Zander falling in love with a local girl had struck her as ghastly—the last thing in the world she wanted. To cover, she’d made an overcorrection and said something dumb about searching for prospects for him.
She’d never had a problem setting him up in the past!
Zander found hidden egg after hidden egg.
