The smells of cooking coming from the kitchen weren’t exactly appetizing, but Jane wasn’t going to complain. She had a few more days here, and then she’d be going back to her life in Minneapolis. She’d find a new job for a little while until she sorted out how exactly she’d open that bed-and-breakfast, but a future was finally opening up in front of her.
Her phone blipped and she picked it up to see a text from a work friend.
Jane, can you cover my Saturday shift? I’ve got a family thing. Let me know!
Apparently, one of them hadn’t heard that she’d been a victim of the last wave of layoffs. She sighed and put the phone back down without response. She hadn’t been close enough with any of her work friends to even tell them that she was leaving town. Colt had been right—she did need someone she could talk to, but with her husband’s passing she’d lost the camaraderie with the military wives. Widowhood affected all of her relationships.
It was time to start over.
From the bedroom, Jane heard the side door bang shut, and the bass notes of Colt’s voice reverberating from the other room. Jane picked up the bedtime storybook that her girls loved and waited for them in the hallway.
“Come on, Micha,” she said. “Suzie, come on.”
The girls picked up their dolls and followed her down the hall toward the living room. She emerged into the room at the same time Colt came in from the kitchen.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.” She stopped short and smiled hesitantly, and they were both silent for a moment. She glanced over as Micha and Suzie pulled a throw blanket off the couch and entertained themselves by rolling in it and giggling together.
“Look, Colt, I’m sorry about earlier,” she said quickly, keeping her tone low. “I shouldn’t have vented on you like that. It wasn’t fair to you, and it was—”
“You were fine,” he interrupted, and he closed the distance between them in two quick strides. He was suddenly so close that her breath caught in her throat and she looked at him, her thoughts draining from her head.
“Jane, I think we can count as friends at this point, can’t we?” he asked softly.
Friends didn’t come that close to kissing each other, but he had a point, and to their credit they hadn’t crossed any lines. And maybe she’d misread the situation.
“I think so,” she said.
“Well, friends talk. They open up. You weren’t out of line, okay? If anyone was, it was me.”
They were adults with self-control and they could keep things solidly on the side of friendship if they wanted to.
“Dinner is going to take another half hour,” Peg said, poking her head into the room, and Colt took a step back. She held two plates in her hands, and she glanced between Colt and Jane. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” Colt said brusquely.
“You might as well have some apple crisp,” Peg added. “There’s some left over. But you promise me you’ll eat supper.”
Peg deposited the plates onto the coffee table, two grayish masses, one tan slice of apple showing on top of one plate.
“Mmm.” Colt seemed to be trying to look enthusiastic, but it didn’t make it to his eyes. He glanced over at Jane and she sent him a sympathetic look.
“Hold on,” Jane said. “I saw a can of whipped cream in the fridge.”
“Yeah?” Colt said, and she had to smile at the hope in his voice.
Jane went into the kitchen, pulled the can of whipped cream out of the fridge and gave it a shake.
“You sure you won’t let me give you a hand?” Jane asked Peg.
“It’s just a matter of waiting on it,” Peg said, glancing up from where she was working on a crossword. She looked over at the oven, then back down at the crossword. “Half an hour,” she repeated. “Give or take.”
Jane headed back into the living room where Colt was now seated on the couch and the girls were covering his knees with the throw blanket.
“Nigh-nigh...” Suzie said, patting Colt’s knee under the blanket. “Nigh-nigh...”
“Kiss,” said Micha, and she kissed his knee with tiny pursed lips. “Nigh-nigh...”
“They’re tucking you in,” Jane said with a laugh.
“Yeah, it looks that way,” he said. “Are you putting me to bed already?”
“Nigh-nigh, Cat,” Micha said seriously holding up one finger in an imitation of Jane, and Jane rolled her eyes then held up the whipped cream.
“Want some?” Jane asked.
“Yeah, that would be great,” he said, holding out his plate.
“No!” Micha said reproachfully. “Nigh-nigh!”
Jane sprayed a fluffy coil of whipped cream onto his crisp, and then did the same for her own.
“Come have a bite,” Jane said to her daughters, sinking into the couch next to Colt, and the girls were placated with mouthfuls of crisp.
“The whipped cream helps.” Colt smiled, then turned his attention to his plate.
Jane smiled back and took another bite. It did help—a simple sweet treat could cover over a whole multitude of awkward mistakes. She was going to have to start fresh in every other aspect of her life, so maybe she could start over with Colt, too.
He was family. If her girls were going to have a relationship with their dad’s side of the family, then she needed him.
Colt watched as Jane fed Micha a bite of her crisp, Jane opening her mouth in an unconscious mimic of her child. Mother and daughter smiled into each other’s eyes.
“Yummy?” Jane said. “It’s good, right?” Then she turned to Suzie, her fork held aloft. “Open... Mmmm. Yummy, right?”
It was such an ordinary moment, but Jane glowed in a special way when she was talking to her little girls. It was like they lit up a place inside her that no one else could touch, and he had a hard time tearing his gaze away. She tucked her veil of dark hair behind her
