Page 21 of Her Mountain Man Protector

She lets go and grabs another muffin. "Text me if he tries to put you on the floor again. I'll bring a cot and a speech."

"How do you know about the floor?"

"Uncle A said one bed. I have an imagination. Unfortunately." She points at Colt. "Be nice. She makes muffins. That's rarer than a Hawthorne who smiles."

Then she's gone, bounding down the steps, already shouting something at Alden about muffins that cure grumpiness. The truck pulls out. The gate clangs. The house shrinks back to timber and the two of us and a bowl of batter that looks like hope if hope were orange-flecked and slightly overmixed.

Colt stands there, huge and unwillingly softened, watching the empty drive.

"She's going to be a problem," he says.

"She's going to be my favorite person in this county besides the pie waitress." I slide the tin closer to him. "Eli. That's the boyfriend. Works nights at the landing by the old boat sheds. Motorcycle he's not supposed to have."

Colt's gaze cuts to me, sharp. "You get all that from zesting an orange?"

"I get all that from listening. You should try it. People tell photographers things. We look like we already know."

"Boat sheds are down-river from the mill. I'll have Marin run the name."

"Don't spook her. She likes him."

"I don't care if she likes him. I care if he likes the landing for reasons that aren't a sixteen-year-old."

"You can resume scowling after you eat two."

"I don't eat muffins."

"You will today. House rules. I cooked last night. I'm baking this morning.”

He rubs a hand over his jaw, that raw scrape of stubble loud in the quiet room, and when he looks at me the look is heavy enough to lean on. "You're enjoying this."

"I'm enjoying not being shot at. The muffins are a bonus. Rowe is a bonus. You standing in my kitchen trying not to admit you slept well is the tax I pay."

"Your kitchen?"

"For now." I wipe flour off the counter with more care than the counter needs. "You can have the window. I'll take the oven. That's as close to a treaty as you're getting before noon."

He almost argues. And I see the exact moment he decides against it, knowing I’ll win anyway. He takes his mug back to the window instead, and I stay at the counter, listening to the sound of the waterfall.

7

Colt

Oakley hands me a muffin. They're tart and still warm, and watching her wait for the verdict with flour on her cheek does something vicious to the part of me that’s supposed to be working.

"Well?" she says.

"They're fine."

"They're excellent. We've covered this dance."

"They're excellent. Don't make a habit of being right before noon."

She grins, luminous and unrepentant, and I take my coffee back to the window before I do something unwise with that mouth. The tree line is quiet. The gate is shut. The house is one room and she fills all of it, Equinox shirt slipping off her shoulder every time she reaches for a cooling rack, dark curls falling past that slim line of throat I’ve been trying not to catalog since she sat up in my bed.

I'll give her credit. She claims the kitchen. Most people in her position go still. She bakes.

My burner buzzes. Marin.