“Stay,” I say against her hair. “Tonight. Stay with me.”
She’s quiet for so long I think she’ll say no. Then: “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She burrows closer. “But you’re making breakfast.”
“Deal.” I pull the throw blanket over us, tuck her against my chest. “Fair warning though—I burn toast.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
She falls asleep first, her breathing evening out, her body soft and trusting in my arms. Her weight settles heavier as sleep takes her, going boneless against me. Each exhale ghosts warm across my collarbone. The throw blanket smells like cedar from the chest I keep it in, rough wool scratching where it drapes over our bare legs. I lie there watching her, feeling the weight of her, the rightness of it.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table. I reach for it carefully.
Piper: Mom wants to know if you’re bringing someone to Sunday dinner.
Me: Maybe.
Piper: HUNTER. Is it the doctor???
Me: Go to bed, menace.
Piper: Don’t screw this up.
Me: Not planning on it.
I set the phone down, tighten my arm around Claire. There’s no damn way I’m screwing this up.
Because somewhere between Bay Seven and this couch, I stopped playing the field and started playing for keeps.
Chapter 10
Hunter
“Open your mouth, Doc.”
Claire’s sitting at my kitchen table, blindfolded with one of my bandanas, her hands folded in her lap like a kid waiting for Christmas. She showed up for our third date twenty minutes ago in a denim skirt and a blouse that makes her hair look like fire and let me tie the blindfold without a single question about what I had planned.
Trust. That’s what this is. She’s trusting me.
I fork a piece of roasted carrot and hold it to her lips. She opens, takes the bite, chews slowly, her face scrunching in concentration.
“Carrot. Roasted with... thyme? And brown sugar, maybe.”
“It’s honey from Hank’s bees. And you’re right about the thyme.” I set the fork down and lean against the counter. “The veggies are from my garden out back.”
“You have a garden?” Her voice rises at the end like she can’t believe a lumberjack would ever grow something.
“Started it a few years ago. There’s tomatoes, carrots, herbs, some other stuff. It keeps me busy when I’m not at the mill.” I grab another fork and spear some squash. “Next one.”
She takes it, and this time putting her tongue out to catch my fork. My brain short-circuits for half a second as I picture that tongue doing naughty things to before I recover. I shift my stance, already half-hard just from watching her eat. This woman is going to kill me.
“Butternut squash.” Claire’s smiling now, the kind that says she knows exactly the effect she’s having on me. “Also from your garden?”
“Yep.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it. “You’re good at this.”
“I have an excellent palate.” She tilts her head, still smiling behind the blindfold. “What’s next?”
