Page 92 of Devoured By the Forbidden Mountain Man

I looked at her.

Piper’s expression had lost the easy amusement she wore around Gavin. “I was furious when he told me. I’m still furious about parts of it. Mostly that he let me love him for almost two years without giving me the choice of knowing who I was loving.”

I waited.

“He understands that now,” she continued. “At least I think he does. He’s trying.”

I glanced through the doorway.

Gavin was carrying empty glasses toward the kitchen while Hunter held the door of the dishwasher open for Rex. Gavin caught Piper watching him and smiled at her.

She smiled back before looking down at the dessert plates.

“He loves you,” I said. “He has terrible instincts about what protecting people is supposed to look like, but he loves hard.”

“I noticed.”

The answer held enough dry affection that I laughed.

Gavin reached the kitchen before we said anything else and handed two glasses to Rex. Piper passed him a dessert plate without ceremony, and whatever private conversation we had been having folded easily back into the room.

Case appeared a moment later to inspect the options.

“I would like everyone to remember that Hunter brought the pear tart, so praising it excessively could create expectations.”

Hunter came in behind him with coffee in one hand.

“I bought it. I didn’t bake it.”

“That is not information you needed to volunteer before they tasted it.”

Hunter kissed Case lightly near the temple as he passed.

Case stopped talking.

The silence lasted less than a second, but it was long enough for me to see the flush rise along his cheekbones.

I looked down at the knife in my hand before he could accuse me of noticing.

By the time dessert reached the table, nobody sat in the same places.

Gavin and Piper shared one end of the sofa. Earl had taken an armchair near the window with coffee balanced on one broad palm. Annette sat beside him with her shoes stretched toward the warmth from the fireplace. Case occupied enough of the other sofa for two people until Hunter sat down and Case immediately made room.

Rex carried the last two plates out with me.

The house sounded different with people in it.

Conversation drifted from one end of the room to the other. Forks clicked softly against dessert plates. Somebody laughed every few minutes without the sound needing to belong to a joke everyone had heard. The fire snapped beneath the low murmur of voices while wind pressed briefly against the windows and moved on.

I stood near the doorway longer than necessary.

Rex touched my lower back.

“You’re doing it again.”

I looked up at him. “Doing what?”

“Standing instead of eating.”