“Poor pookie,” she teased, shoveling shredded pork mixed with peach salsa in her mouth.
He tipped his head to her plate. “And the rest of that I made in your shitty-ass kitchen.”
She caught his eyes, chewed, swallowed, and replied quietly, “I best get on designing your dream kitchen and making it a reality then.”
Suddenly, he didn’t give that first shit about cooking in her crappy kitchen.
“Yeah, sweetheart. You best get on that,” he replied.
Her phone on the coffee table chimed and her eyes went to it.
“Speaking of,” she said, leaning forward from where she was tucked up in the corner of the sofa with her food.
She grabbed her phone and sat back.
Using her thumb and face recognition, she read the text.
Then her gaze came back to him.
“Our counter to their counter was accepted,” she announced. “They’re going to send the paperwork. We have until tomorrow at five to sign.”
Goddamn…
Brilliant.
Boone said nothing.
Ryn said nothing more.
They just looked at each other.
Eventually, she tossed her phone on the cushion between them and shared, “Axl’s salsa is everything, but nothing beats your pulled pork, and as always, your Cobb is da bomb.”
“Thanks, baby,” he replied.
She went back to her plate, declaring, “Kitchen notwithstanding, I’m gonna miss this pad.”
“You’re not going to miss paying rent on it when you’re at my place most of the time,” he noted.
“True,” she mumbled. Then louder, she said, “Totes gonna miss your pad too, though.” She shot him a sassy smile. “We’ve had some fun there, baby.”
“And we haven’t had fun here?”
“There’s more room there, and you have better equipment,” she returned.
That was when he burst out laughing.
When he was done, the thought hit him.
They’d bought a house together.
No.
They’d already done that on her second flip.
They’d just bought their house.
“Rynnie,” he whispered.
Her attention came right to him.
“I’ll break my back to make you happy, honey,” he vowed.
“I’ll break mine so you won’t have to,” she returned.
Yeah.
That was his woman.
Her expression softened, her eyes hooded and her lips tipped up.
She then turned back to her plate.
Boone located the remote and hit go on their program.
And he settled in and watched something he wouldn’t pick to watch, a Netflix documentary series about unsolved mysteries.
Ryn was addicted to that kind of stuff.
He wasn’t a TV guy so he didn’t care much either way.
The only thing he cared about was that, in the minimal downtime she allowed herself to have, she got to do something that chilled her out.
And for some reason, true crime chilled her out.
So he was good.
Though, regardless, he’d get to do what chilled him out later.
And he’d do it to Ryn.
His woman was addicted to that too.KAJump ahead two weeks and six days…“What’s your favorite recipe?”
This time, I ask this question of Boone.
“Pulled pork,” he answers.
“What’s Ryn’s?” I ask.
“The pulled pork. Always will be, no matter what I make.”
That was definitive.
“Food and memories, hunh?” I note.
“Food and memories,” he agrees.
I smile at him.
And Boone smiles back at me.Chapter ThreeComes from the HeartKAAfter Fortnum’s…We’d gotten sidetracked, repeatedly, mostly the guys handing each other shit, so the meeting went long before we could finish going over the recipes.
This meant they had to take off.
Though it was clear they liked me, considering they asked me to go to Auggie’s house the next day to finish up.
Letting me into their space.
I was looking forward to it.
Aug was going to make pork rind nachos.
I was looking forward to that more.
This gave me time to do something there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to do when I got to Denver.
I hit the castle up in the Highlands where High and Millie lived.
High, Millie, Poet…
And Chief.
The door to the huge silver boom mansion was opened before I even hit the steps up to the veranda.
High stood there.
It was incongruous, this handsome but very rough biker, standing in the doorway of a rather palatial, elegant Victorian home.
Still, I knew Millie.
So it totally worked.
When my foot fell on the veranda, I greeted, “Hey, High.”
“Hey, babe,” he greeted in return. But he waited until I stood in front of him before he said, “When I heard you were in town, knew you’d show.”
Yeah.
Nothing could keep me away.
He stepped aside and I entered his house.
Even though I was scanning the floor as I did it, my attention was taken by movement as a man entered the room from a doorway to the left.
I looked into sapphire blue eyes I knew very well and said, “Hey, Tack.”
His gravelly voice came softly.
He knew what this visit meant.
Tack always knew everything.
“Hey, darlin’.”
That’s when he bopped in, moving not with feline grace, but like a badger.
He’d never been graceful.
His sister wasn’t either.
It was hilarious.
But now, as I took him in, my heart lurched.
Smooshed grumpy face.
Creamy thick fur with gray at his ears, on his tail and around his eyes, nose and mouth.
Ice-blue eyes.
