"Take this off." He tugged at her shirt until it was free and tossed it to land near his.
"How much time do we have?" she panted.
He tugged at the button on his jeans. "When do you have to get Maddie?" Alex always went commando, so when his jeans dropped, and he kicked off his shoes, he was gloriously naked.
"Forty minutes."
"How late do you think you can be? Forty-minutes is not enough."
Bubbly laughter burst forth. It was the same happy sound she made when she opened a present.
"I don't think she'll hold me to the minute."
"I like this town more and more." He tugged her jeans free, and once the condom was on, he pressed inside her. For the next hour, Alex made love to her all over the house.
She would never be able to walk around her home and not see him in every corner—feel him in her muscle memory.
When they finished, he gave her another passionate kiss. The kind that said he'd be back.
"You're glowing," Katie said. "I guess you had a playdate too?"
They sat at Katie's kitchen table, sipping sweet tea, and staring at the calm lake. A passing boat sent a ripple across the glassy surface. Alex was her ripple.
"It was a pleasant hour."
"You could have taken two." She looked over her shoulder, where the girls sat side by side on the sofa, holding hands and watching Dora the Explorer. "Aren't they precious?"
A sad look flashed across Katie's face.
"Something wrong?" Mercy asked.
Katie heaved a sigh. "Not really. I mean, how could anything be wrong? I'm alive, I've got the best husband, and Sahara is my miracle child, but sometimes I wish I could have more. A brother or sister for my baby would have been nice." She tapped the space above her heart. "Bad ticker."
It wasn't hard to learn about residents in a small town, and Katie was a pink letter recipient of Bea's, a woman Mercy never met but would have loved to. Katie didn't only inherit the bakery, but she was also the recipient for Bea's daughter's heart when Brandy died. The tale was fascinating and something perfect for a Hallmark movie.
"I always wanted a houseful of children. Since I'll never have any of my own, I have to parent vicariously through other's children," Mercy said.
"I thought I'd risk it to give Bowie a son, but as soon as I mentioned it, he had a vasectomy. He wasn't willing to lose me."
"How did you know he was the one?"
She laid her palm over her chest. "I just knew. Bowie was actually quite the a-hole at first, but I softened his disposition. What about you? Is Alex the one?"
She waved the question away. "It hasn't been long enough to really know."
"Yes, it has. If there's something there, you know it."
She watched a water-skier zip past Katie's dock, leaving the water churning and lapping against the shore.
"My inner voice constantly warns me not to fall too soon because there's so much to lose when love goes wrong."
"You didn't have a good one the first time. Don't put yourself out to pasture because one bull was bad." Katie's Texas upbringing was always present in her accent, but her reference was straight from the Lone Star state, or at least it sounded authentically Texan to Mercy's untrained ears.
"In all fairness, it wasn't all Randy's fault. There is a lesson to be learned from being a pleaser. Maybe while I focused on being the best wife, cook, and housekeeper, I overlooked more important things. I thought he was madly in love with me until that knock on the door."
Katie silently shook her head. "That was on him and not you. Now back to Alex. What do you feel?"
"I'm falling fast and hard. Alex is everything I thought I'd loathe and yet it turns out I love it all." She chuckled. "Not the groupies. They are my biggest concern. What happens when he's on the road, and women show up on the bus and his hotel room?"
Katie sat for a moment as if contemplating. "You have to trust him to do the right thing. No one can give him what you do."
"Not true. A million women are willing to try, and I'm sure they all have something good to offer."
Katie topped off their glasses of sweet tea. "Don't repeat your mistakes. In my experience, a man who has to work harder appreciates you more."
She had a point. She wasn't impressed with Alex when they met. He didn't win her over with his fame and fortune.
"I wasn't easy at first. We banged heads long before we banged bodies."
"You're already different from the rest. They wanted something from him, and you didn't."
She took a long drink and let the sweet liquid ease down her throat. "He pays me to watch Maddie."
"He should because she's not your daughter."
That truth cut her deep. "I wish she was. I don't know what her mom was like, but from the things she's said, and after listening to the friend tell Alex the cause of her demise, I can only imagine that she's seen enough sorrow to last a lifetime."
"Kids are resilient. Nothing about her screams abused or neglected. You are a positive influence in her life, and that's another plus for you. How lucky was he to need a sitter just when you needed a job?"
"That was pretty remarkable—a much-needed coincidence."
Katie laughed and stared at the ceiling. "I think there's a higher power involved."
Mercy's brows lifted. "You mean, God?"
"No, I mean Bea. She's filled this town with pink letters and love, and I think she's up there working her magic on the people she never got a chance to meet."
"I like the thought of that. I could use a little heavenly interference in my life."
Maddie climbed off the couch and walked to stand in front of her. She tugged on the arm
