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I give it a couple more minutes, then I say, “So I think I need to get some ice on the shoulder.” I rotate my left shoulder, where I got slammed into the boards at some point. It barely aches, but it’s the best excuse I can come up with when nine-tenths of my brain is occupied by a sweet little blond baker who I can already smell and taste.

“I’m going to stay for a little while,” Lydia says. “And Mom seems to be having a good time.” She looks over her shoulder at our mother, talking and laughing with her new group of friends. “Okay if we come in later?”

They are staying in the guest room at Brewser’s. “Absolutely. You might beat Brewser home. And the back door is always unlocked.”

“Should you announce that out loud in public?”

I sigh as I stretch up from my stool. “Everyone knows. And if I try to lock it and someone stops over, they make a huge racket about it.”

“Well, that’s like an alarm system, right? They’d make a racket if someone tried to break in,” Hudson says.

Beckett chuckles. “You mean, like the stalker who breaks into his house on a regular basis?”

I work on not reacting.

“Yeah, the only person they’ve caught coming and going from the house is your sister, and now they’re all line-dancing,” Teddy says.

Beckett nods. “Good point. Who knows, the real stalker might teach them something too. Like how to tie knots and pick locks and we’ll suddenly have stalkers everywhere.”

“If they all showed up with pumpkin cheesecake, I think people would be okay with it,” Hudson says.

“Hell, they’d probably turn it into one of the official Parks and Rec clubs,” Wes laughs.

Before this conversation can continue and anyone has a chance to connect any actual dots, I head to the cash register and add my two twenties to the pile of cash stacked up next to it. It’s not how I run my business, but it is Bruce’s preferred way of accounting. He hands out tickets, and everyone comes up and adds their money to the pile that he later stashes in the register.

He trusts that no one will forget to pay or even shortchange him.

Apparently, this has worked for him for nearly three decades.

I nonchalantly make my way to the front door, rubbing my shoulder as I go for good measure, and step outside. Light spills out from both of the huge windows on either side of the door, so I know that Sutton is somewhere down the short path and off to one side of the sidewalk.

As soon as I step off the path, I hear a whispered, “Law.”

I turn left and find her leaning against the side of City Hall, the building immediately next to Perks and Rec—the entire reason Bruce opened the coffee shop and diner when his husband, Harley, first became mayor several terms ago.

“Hey, Pumpkin,” I say, striding over to her quickly.

I look around and find the street blessedly deserted, except for us at the moment, so I take a chance, cup her face, and kiss her the way I’ve been dying to.

It’s a risk for sure, and I know it can’t go on for long, but I can’t resist.

She kisses me back, of course, and I have to force myself to lift my head long before I want to.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi.” She smiles up at me. “Want to go out to the barn with me?”

I blink, then nod. Adamantly. “Yes. Yes, I do. Very much.”

She laughs. “I was going to do this whole thing with notes and make it a scavenger hunt, but…” Her grin is sweet and sexy. “I didn’t have time to put it together and I don’t want to wait.”

“I love that,” I tell her. “The idea and that you can’t wait.”

“We’ll do it sometime,” she tells me, her gaze on my mouth.

“Okay,” I agree. “Or you can just tell me what you want and we’ll do it.”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth.