“I know. They’re my favorite too.”
She looks up at me, blinks twice, and then grins. “No way.”
“Favorite part of coming home is that you can get eggnog year-round here.”
“Mine too.But I can’t say that in front of my mom or grandma. They’ll think it’s code forI want to move home.”
“I tell Lorelei sometimes. She doesn’t believe me.”
Amanda slides out of my hands and skips to the fridge. “Have you ever had it on ice? I think today calls for iced eggnog lattes.”
“Agreed.”
She turns with the eggnog, then slides a look at the wide doorway from the kitchen into the living room. “Well, good morning, lazybones. Finally decided to join us, did you?”
Chili saunters into the room and snorts at both of us.
I take him out while Amanda finishes our eggnog lattes.
It’s still early, but you can already feel the heat starting to rise. Steam lingers on a lake beyond the pine trees. The morning birds seem muted, like they, too, would rather go hang in a pool than hunt for food when it’s this hot.
Amanda steps out onto the back porch with both of our coffees before Chili’s found the perfect spot to do his business. He’s not prone to wandering—that would take effort—so I’ve let him off his leash to find whatever he wants to find out here.
She hands me an oversize snowman mug with ice floating in the tan liquid. “Do you have your phone on you? We should go over your questionnaire now and worry about that letter later. Grandma and Mom will start calling soon about me bringing you to the bakery to meet them, so I should know more things about you and vice versa.”
“Pretty good logic there,” I murmur while I pull my phone out of my pocket.
“I’m trying.”
“Of the two of us, you’re far more likely to pull this off without a slip.”
She wrinkles her nose, but then she sips her coffee.
It’s like watching her eat fruitcake all over again with the way her eyes close and her head lifts, highlighting the curly tendrils of hair not tucked into her bun wrapping the base of her long neck. She sighs in satisfaction, sips again, and sighs deeper with a softmmm.
Whatever Amanda thinks she’s lacking in strategic planning for a fake engagement, she makes up for in spades with the emotions that radiate out of her pores.
Ecstasy over coffee. Joy over my dog. Worries over her family. Eagerness to prove her worth.
I sip my coffee too.
Damn good latte.
“Okay. Let’s do this,” she says. “First question.”
I clear my throat and look down at my phone as I realize I’ve been staring at her. “Favorite food.”
“Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, or snack food?”
I blink at her.
She starts to smile. “I like to eat. Don’t you have favorites for every meal?”
“That’s a question I’ve never been asked before.”
“Lucky day. I’ll bet I can come up with a few more. What’s your favorite meal? Not like,I like steak and eggs, but like,I never skip breakfast.”
“No steak.”
