Avery giggled. “Sadie, I’m not a baby anymore. I’m almost a teenager.”
Sadie gasped and pulled back. “You are not! And even when you are, you’ll always be my baby girl.” She tuggedAvery into another hug, kissing her cheek a dozen times before straightening and looking at Eastern. Something flashed in her eyes…heat? But it came and went so quickly he almost wondered if he’d made it up in his head.
She stepped inside and Eastern moved forward, setting a hand on her hip and pressing a light kiss to her cheek. Damn, her skin was soft. “Thank you for coming, Sadie.”
“Thank you for inviting me.”
He’d had to. The previous night, she was all he could think about. How was she after the break-in? Was she hurting? Scared? Inviting her over for dinner tonight allowed him to make sure she was okay.
He moved back to the kitchen.
“When Daddy said he invited you to dinner, I wassoexcited!” Avery gushed, words coming out so quickly they ran into each other. “He asked me what your favorite food was, and I said pasta with fish in it.”
Sadie laughed, and the sound floated throughout the room, punching him right in the damn chest. “Seafood marinara.”
“Daddy said he could make it, but I told him I wasn’t sure he could.”
Eastern frowned. “Hey!” Avery glanced up at him from where she and Sadie had stopped at the kitchen island. “I’m a great cook.”
“Daddy, you already burned the garlic bread, and you had to look up how to cook mussels.”
“I’m sure lots of people need to look up how to cook mussels, and the burned garlic bread was supposed to be our secret.”
Avery giggled. “Sadie always told me I don’t need to keep secrets from her.”
Sadie cringed before lifting a shoulder. “Sorry.”
“It’s true,” Eastern admitted. “I didn’t know what to do with the mussels, and I put the garlic bread in too early and it burned a bit.”
“A bit? Daddy, one side is black.”
“Charred,” he corrected. “And I’ll have that side.”
Sadie lifted a shoulder. “I don’t mind some charred garlic bread. It actually sounds kind of good.”
Avery wrinkled her nose, looking at them like they’d both lost their minds. “I’d like the un-charred part.” Her eyes lit up. “Sadie, I made you something at school today. Hang on, I’ll go get it!”
She sprinted out of the room—and the second it was just him and Sadie, the air thickened.
He studied the circles shadowing her eyes. “How’re you doing?”
She lifted a shoulder. “The store has been cleaned up. Replacements for everything that was broken have been ordered, and my grandmother seems okay.”
He inched forward. “No. How areyoudoing?”
“I’m okay.” Her words were quiet, almost not crossing the scant distance. “You and your deputies don’t have any idea who it might have been?”
Frustration kicked him in the gut. “Not yet. We’ve questioned those in the surrounding stores and asked about surveillance footage, but no one has any.” He shifted his gaze between her eyes. “Morris Anderson was home with his wife and has home security to support that.”
“You still thought it might have been him?”
He lifted a shoulder. “It has to be someone, and I didn’t like the way he was talking to you in that alley. Even though the register was open and the money gone, it could have been a random robbery, but everything else, the trashed display cases and furnishings, point to a deeper motive.”
Her brows flickered.
Unable to stop himself, he reached up and cupped her neck. “I’ll find this person.”
Her eyes flared and she opened her mouth to respond, but before any words came out, the patter of Avery’s steps sounded in the hall. He stepped back, dropping his hand, not missing the hint of disappointment on Sadie’s face.
