The man Jonathan Walter Hutchison made was totally falling in love with me.
He went back to the eggs and said, “I eat clean because of her.”
Whoa.
I wasn’t expecting that.
But then…
The ice cream.Candy.Cookies.
The treats that weren’t a treat, I could see that’d bring up bad memories.
He put the eggs back in the fridge, got the sausage, returned the skillet to the range and threw some in it.
“I like what my diet gives me.Sustained energy.Clear mind.Good sleep.”He tossed a grin over his shoulder this time.“But I’m thinkin’ I might find more times to cheat.”
I grinned back, and his was big, but mine was bigger.
Hutch made our second breakfast.
I sipped coffee.
And fifty yards away, in the trees, under the snow and their tombstones, Chisolm and Clementine rested easy.
Because that kitchen was providing what it was put in to provide.
Warmth.
A safe space.
And love.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Halloween
Mabel
“Igot a Twix.And I got a Snickers.And I got some Nerds.”
Emma, in her fairy costume (with a coat over it, something she did not like, but her growing stash was taking her mind off that ongoing tantrum) was skip-walking, holding Hutch’s hand, all the while inventorying her candy haul, doing this as we walked Lillian and Harry’s street on Halloween.
Liam, in a Captain America costume (no surprise), had raced ahead to the next house, dragging Brett along with him.
Emma stopped dead and looked up at Hutch.
“I don’t have no Reese’s, Missa Hutch.”
“I don’t haveanyReese’s,” Abigail corrected, walking with me behind them, carrying our portable wine glasses, she had Tonks’s lead, I had Hannibal’s.
Emma gave her mother a look, then turned back to Hutch like he could snap his fingers and a Reese’s cup would appear.
“We’re not done yet, sweetheart,” he pointed out.
“Oh.”She looked around.“Right.”
And thus commenced more skip-walking.
