“I distracted Willa while she was making it this afternoon.” He winked at me, a slow, sinful grin spreading across his mouth. “That should count for something.”
I flushed instantly, my face heating at the memory of his lips on my neck and my chest against the island as he bent me over it, doing things to me no cobbler should have to witness.
Sutton made a choked noise. Chloe just smirked. Laurel gagged.
“Oh no,” I muttered, already bracing for their inevitable ribbing.
“I’m not sure I want to eat that cobbler,” Sutton said, all faux innocence. “My eyes are still trying to recover from what I witnessed inpublic, so I’m not sure I want to have anything to do with what goes on in private.”
“Seriously,” Chloe said. “You two had an awful lot of fun in the office.”
“In theoffice?” Laurel asked. “You’re animals.”
Chloe grinned. “It hasn’t been the same since the Spicy Book Showdown.”
“Why wasn’t I invited to have fun in the office?” Emma asked with the kind of innocence only a five-year-old could muster.
“That was the night you stayed with Mimi,” Holly cut in, only amplifying my mortification. “Remember? When we made our special crowns?”
“Oh yeah!” She beamed at Holly before turning her gaze on us. “But next time you have fun in the office, I wanna come.”
“I promise you don’t, little bean,” Declan muttered, handing her a purple marker and offering his tattooed arm up for coloring practice.
While Lincoln just kept grinning like the smug jackass he was, I tried to sink into the floor. Unfortunately, it remained very much solid and not at all cooperative.
Dinner unfolded with the usual beautiful absurdity that came with being part of this family. Laurel muttered about having to deal with “the fucking chickens” at the farm, which cost her a dollar in the swear jar from a delighted Emma. Declan, Xander, and Lincoln kept devolving into a heated argument about the best kind of bourbon for an old-fashioned, while the perpetual grump Atlas silently demolished an entire plate of ribs and contributed to the conversation solely in grunts.
And somehow, through all of it, my husband kept touching me.
A hand on my thigh. Fingers combing through my hair. His palm resting on the back of my neck, thumb brushing up and down my nape like he couldn’t help himself.
It was instinctual now, this thing between us. I wasn’t sure when it had happened…what had been the tipping point. But there was no denying it anymore—our connection was bone-deep and impossible to ignore.
As dinner was served, the conversation never slowed. Laurel fueled Lincoln’s hunger for gossip with a rundown of the latest high school drama. Atlas very reluctantly passed a jar of my strawberry basil jam down the table after only taking five spoonfuls for himself, and Emma was dumbstruck when Chloe told her I’d made it from scratch.
“Did youreally, Aunt Willa?” she asked, eyes wide as she devoured a roll spread with jam.
“She did,” Lincoln confirmed before I could say a word—the easyauntthat had fallen from her little lips still managing to knock the wind out of me anytime she said it. “I helped pick the strawberries.”
I huffed out a laugh and shook my head. “You picked, like,five, and then disappeared to flirt with Pearl.”
“Have youseenPearl? She’s a smokeshow.”
“She’s seventy-two,” I said dryly.
“Like I’ve told my idiot brothers, even grandmas deserve the Lincoln flirtation treatment once in a while.”
Before the conversation could devolve any further, Holly cut in, “You didn’t give us part of your stock for selling, did you? You have enough jars for the market next weekend?”
I nodded. “Yeah, Lincoln’s been helping with production, so I’ve been able to can more than usual.”
“And the demand isstillthrough the fucking roof,” he said, leaning back in his chair with a proud grin on his face.
“That’s a dollar, Uncle Linc!” Emma yelled, her delighted cackle making everyone laugh.
Holly’s smile was soft and warm, her eyes filled with nothing but love and pride. “Sounds like you two are really making this work.”
We…were. Which shocked the hell out of me. From day one, I’d thought this would be a disaster. Something I had toendure. And now, I never wanted it to end.
