“I will end you.”
“Idle, cruising, and highway speeds. Got it.”
Cara’s laughing now, bright and surprised, and Nate’s ears have gone completely red. But he doesn’t stop purring. If anything, it gets louder when she laughs—like her happiness is feeding it.
Lucas hugs her next—brief but tight—and when they separate, his hands linger on her shoulders.
“Congratulations,” he says, softer now. “Both of you. Really.”
“We have food,” I announce, because someone needs to move this inside before we all freeze in the entryway. “I made stew. And backup stew. And bread. And possibly too many side dishes because I’ve been stress-cooking for two days.”
“Backup stew?” Cara asks.
“In case you didn’t like the first stew.”
“They’re the same stew,” Lucas says. “He just made twice as much as any human could eat.”
“It freezes well.”
“You made enough to feed the entire town.”
“I wasnervous.”
Cara’s looking between us with this soft expression that makes my throat tight. “You were nervous about me coming back?”
“We’ve been a disaster,” Lucas admits. “Theo reorganized the pantry three times. I alphabetized the spice rack. Nate—” He pauses, frowning. “Actually, what did you do before you left?”
“Shoveled the driveway.”
“It wasn’t snowing.”
“It might have snowed.”
“It was forty degrees.”
“Preparedness isn’t a crime.”
Cara laughs again, and Nate’s purr kicks up another notch. It’s genuinely loud now—I can feel it vibrating through the floor.
“Kitchen,” I say, steering everyone in that direction. “Food. Then you can tell us everything.”
Dinner ischaos in the best way.
Cara sits at the kitchen table with Nate plastered to her side, his hand on her knee, his chair pulled so close to hers they’repractically sharing it. Every few minutes she shifts, pressing her thighs together, and I catch another wave of her scent—richer each time, sweeter.
Something’s building. I can smell it.
But right now, we’re eating stew and catching up, and Cara keeps looking around the kitchen like she’s memorizing it.
“So,” she says, gesturing with her spoon. “Ten years. What did I miss?”
Lucas and I exchange glances.
“Where do we even start?” I lean back in my chair. “Nate arrested a goat.”
Cara chokes on her stew. “Hewhat?”
“It was trespassing,” Nate says stiffly. “On municipal property.”
