The screen door squeaks open, and my mom and sister step in, arms full—Allie carrying a big glass bowl, Mom holding a breadbasket wrapped in a dishtowel.
“Vern, I’m glad you’re doing okay,” Mom says as she heads into the kitchen.
She sets the breadbasket on the table and squeezes my shoulder in greeting.
Pops’ mustache twitches as he pulls his gaze from the television. “Deanna, it’ll take more than a clogged artery or two to keep me down. What’d you bring me, Allie? Dessert?”
“Pops,” Wes grumbles from the kitchen. “Don’t push it.”
“Sorry, Pops,” Allie mumbles, leaning down to kiss him on the cheek. “No sweets for you. But I made some fruit salad, and Mom made some homemade bread that’s delicious and still warm.”
Quinn comes down the stairs barefoot in a pair of artfully holey jeans and a striped shirt that hangs off her shoulder. She looks like she doesn’t have a care in the world, but the way her gaze quickly darts away from me tells me she’s just as aware of what happened upstairs as I am.
Her damp hair falls in natural waves down her back, and her skin is still flushed from what we just did in the bedroom, her lips a little swollen. She looks soft and warm and so damn pretty I can’t tear my eyes away from her casual descent.
I go breathless at the mere sight of her and have to push down the sudden urge to kiss my way up her exposed shoulder, to bury my nose in the crook of her neck and breathe her in.
Her cheeks go slightly pink when she glances my direction and catches me staring.
“Quinn, honey, it’s good to see you,” Mom says, breaking the spell as she wraps a nearly rigid Quinn in a hug at the bottom of the stairs.
Quinn clears her throat, holding my gaze. “It’s good to see you too,” she says, the words a touch too bright. “How’ve you been?”
“I’ve been busy, barely have had a moment to catch my breath. I was so grateful when Tripp invited us to welcome Vern back—and that Sawyer offered to cook.”
“I’m glad you could make it,” Quinn says, fingers nervously playing with the hem of her shirt. “I know spring is chaotic around here.”
She’s trying her damnedest to play it cool, but I know she’s replaying what she just did to me up in that bedroom.
“In the best way,” Mom says. “I like keeping busy.”
Mom threw herself into a new job as the county’s 4-H program coordinator after Dad passed. Spring meant her calendar was full of enrollment deadlines, wrangling volunteers, and fair prep.
“So does Quinn,” Allie chimes in from the counter. “She got herself a pot-bellied pig from a rescue.”
“Almost lost the pig, too,” Wes teases.
“You should’ve seen her and Tripp chasing that damn thing through the mud,” Pops says, chuckling. “Both of them were slipping and sliding all over the place.”
Red creeps into Quinn’s cheeks, and I ease back in my chair and snort. “That thing is smarter than I gave him credit for.”
Quinn lights up. “Pigs are actually just as smart as dogs. If I had to guess, he got bored and wanted a little field trip.”
Sawyer sets the last dish down on the table and wipes her hands on a dishtowel. “Alright, grab a seat before everything gets cold.”
Chairs scrape and dishes clink as everyone settles around the table in a comfortable, noisy shuffle. I nudge the chair beside me out with my boot, casual as I can manage. Quinn hesitates only a second before slipping into it.
She passes me the bowl of fruit salad, squirming a little in her seat when my fingers linger on hers a touch too long.
“He needs a new enclosure,” I note. “Sooner rather than later.”
She nods. “Good thing you ran to town yesterday and grabbed everything.”
“If Sawyer doesn’t mind helping Wes with the cattle again in the morning,” I say, glancing her way, “I can help Quinn put something together.”
Sawyer lifts a brow and slides into her chair with a smirk playing on her mouth that makes me think she sees right through me. “Sure. You two make a pretty cute pig-wrangling team.”
Quinn chokes on her drink. Under the table, I press my palm to her knee in a steadying touch, narrowing my eyes at Sawyer. She definitely suspects something.And she's absolutely being a little shit-stirrer.
