The place is starting to clear out.
Vendors are packing up, and guests are loading their exhausted children into their trucks.
Ruby suddenly stops dead. “Snow cones!”
I follow her gaze to a little stand with a brightly colored umbrella and a big machine grinding ice into fluffy mounds.
The temperature is rapidly dropping as the sun starts setting, but who am I to refuse? Auntie Harleigh is a pushover.
“Well,” I say, pretending to think it over, “it would be rude not to support the vendors.”
Ruby grins and drags me toward it.
Two minutes later, she’s clutching a cherry-red snow cone, and I’m holding one the color of the ocean.
Blue raspberry.
My fingers are already sticky as the sugary syrup runs down the edge of the paper cone.
Ruby takes a huge bite and immediately shivers. “Brain freeze!”
I laugh. “Slow down, kiddo.”
We step away from the stand and scan the crowd.
“No sign of your dad yet,” I say.
Ruby shades her eyes dramatically and looks around. Like her three feet and ten inches can see anything but a sea of kneecaps.
We walk deeper into the crowd and right into Porter.
He stands about twenty yards away, talking with someone near the beer tent. Even from this distance, he’s easy to spot—tall, broad shoulders, dark hair catching the sunlight.
And he’s wearing jeans and a white henley, boots and a cowboy hat.
Yummy.
My man can wear the hell out of a suit, but I really like the cowboy side of him.
“Let’s go say hi to my friend Porter.”
Ruby nods and takes my hand, and I lead her over to him.
My pulse speeds up the closer we get.
We’ve been sneaking around for weeks now.
Private moments. Stolen kisses. Late nights in his work cave. I’ve even spent a few overnights at his house in Moose.
And right now, he has no idea we’re walking straight toward him.
He looks up mid-sentence.
The second he sees me, his entire face changes.
His eyes warm. His mouth curves.
That slow, sexy smile of his hits me like a punch to the chest every single time.
