“No worries.” I take a breath. “I’m just a little ... out of it. Hi.”
She’s holding a big glass bottle of what looks like apple juice. On second thought, I think she popped out of the pantry. She shakes up the bottle in both hands, vigorously, then goes over to the butcher-block island and pops off the top. Definitely apple juice. The label has a golden apple on it and saysSea Haven Cidery.
“This is my daughter, Kaylie,” Layne says.
“I’m ten and a half,” Kaylie informs me as her bottom lands on a barstool and she pours herself a glass of juice. She eyes myBlackpinkT-shirt and adds, “I like your shirt,” which I imagine is one of the highest forms of praise one can hope for from a ten-year-old girl.
She’s wearing a kid-sized Nirvana T-shirt that I have to assume her dad or her uncle picked out for her. “I’m Sierra. I like your shirt, too.”
Her eyes light up, and I’m pretty sure this means we’re friends now.
“Do you have a son, too?” I ask Layne.
“No. Why?”
“The room I slept in. I just wondered ...”
“That’s Uncle Mason’s room,” Kaylie provides.
Mason’s room ... as in, the one he slept in when he was a teenage boy? The sobering dots gradually connect in my head. “Oh. Did he grow up here?”
“Yup. Are you staying for lunch?” she asks me.
Hell, no. This is awkward enough.
“I really can’t. I’m not feeling so well.” It’s not just the mild nausea and dehydration and pounding headache that are bothering me. Sophie was supposed to arrive in Orchard Cove this morning.Past noon.Yikes. “Thank you for the invitation, but I should really get going ...”
“You can have some juice.” Kaylie slides the second glass she’s just poured toward me. It looks refreshing as hell, and Iamalmost thirsty enough to drink toilet water right now.
So I thank her and down the whole thing in a few gulps. Before I’m finished, a gray-haired man has walked in the back door. He sees me, stops, and stares. He wears work jeans and a flannel shirt, and looks very much like a several-decades-older version of Layne.
“Hey Grandpa, this is Sierra,” Layne says. “She’s a friend of Mason’s.”
The man grunts a hello.
My cheeks must be bright pink. They’re burning.
“This is my grandpa, Tommy,” Layne tells me.
Tommy. The grandpa Mason’s friends warned me about.Even grumpier than his grandson, Jace said.
“Hello,” I say. “Sierra Daniels. Nice to meet you.” I can’t believe I’m meeting the entire extended family of my ridiculous one-night stand that wasn’t even a one-night stand because we didn’t have sexbut they don’t know that. “Uh, where is Mason?” I ask, edging toward the door. “I’d love to thank him for helping me out last night.”
“Oh, he’s gone,” Layne says casually. “He may have gone down to the bar. Or to pick up supplies for the renos. He has a lot to do.” He doesn’t actually sayespecially since he met you yesterday, then vanished. But there’s a teasing implication in his tone that I hope goes right over his daughter’s head.
His grandfather follows the conversation like a hawk.
“Uncle Mason never misses breakfast with me,” Kaylie informs me, and it’s clear she’s picking up onsomethingthe adults aren’t saying. “We’re not sleep-in people.”
“I’m sorry if he missed breakfast this morning,” I tell her, again trying to slink toward the door. “It’s totally my fault. I kept him up late last night.”
Mason’s grandfather makes a grouchyhmmmsound. Even if Jace hadn’t warned me, it’s quite obvious he’s the grumpy type, and when he frowns, I can totally see the family resemblance to Mason. “And how do you know my grandson?” he asks me.
I stop in my tracks. “Oh. I met him at his bar. I was kind of stranded last night, and he was nice enough to let me make some phone calls and then, uh, walk me ... home.” My face grows hotter as Kaylie stares at me, trying to connect all the dots in her ten-year-old brain. The dots that her father and great-grandfather have already connected.
Sex.
They definitely think I had sex with Mason last night. In his childhood bedroom, on that little bed.
