“Well, I can share this hut with you. I think I’ll pass on those bears, though.” I reached up and cupped his face between my hands. “I love you, Nate. You mean the world to me. I feel as though I’ve been searching for the last few years. When you showed up, I knew I’d found the piece that had been missing. I just hadn’t realized it yet.”
A couple minutes went by before I asked, “Want to make some breakfast with me?” I tugged on the front of his shirt and dragged him off the futon.
“Twist my arm.” He winked.
“I will if I have to.”
I opened the cupboard and pulled out the coffee.
“Oooh, lemonade!” he said as he scanned the fridge. He poured himself a glass and downed it in one gulp.
“Who drinks lemonade first thing in the morning?” I gagged as I poured the water into the coffee pot.
Nate slammed the fridge door and set the cream on the counter next to the coffee pot, along with two mugs. After I hit start on the coffee pot, I spun around to face him. He grinned and scooped me up in his arms so he could kiss me. He tasted like lemonade and sexy.
The bedroom door opened.
“That’s it. I really will go live with Frank if this is what I’m going to have to put up with,” Wren joked as she walked into the living room.
I touched my swollen lips. “Oh, come on, we were about to make some breakfast. How about a coffee cake?”
“Make it that cinnamon roll cake, and then that will be a yes,” she said.
My kitchen was small, and when there were three people trying to make a breakfast cake in it, it felt even smaller. By the time we were done, no one had escaped getting covered in flour or sugar. Wren had managed to drop an egg on her foot.
Nate finished washing the last of the dishes while I poured three cups of coffee for us. The tiny oven beeped, telling us our messy creation was done.
I carried the coffee pot and mugs to the table. Nate brought the cake.
Wren sat down with us, and Nate made my heart melt a little further when he said, “Wren, that was a brave thing you did yesterday.”
Wren blushed—a rare thing for her—and ducked her head. “Oh, you know. Just your typical greedy biological father. What’s new.”
“You don’t even know how lucky I am to have you,” I told her as I leaned across the table to give her the world’s most awkward hug.
“Oh, trust me, I know how lucky you are. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be moping in a pile of chips, letting this one get away,” she said as she jerked a thumb in Nate’s direction.
“Whoa, hold on. Moping around in a pile of chips?” Nate asked with a grin. “I haven’t heard about this yet.”
“And hopefully you never will.”
A loud knock sounded. Did miracles never cease? I did not want to admit what a disgusting person I’d turned into when I thought Nate and I didn’t have a future together.
“Come in!” I called.
The door opened, and we were treated to the neighborhood eye-candy.
“I stopped by to say goodbye,” Johnny said as he leaned around the door.
“Come in and have some coffee.”
He nodded, dropped his bag on the ground, and stepped inside to take the seat next to Wren. “How you doing, squirt?”
“Just fine, po-po.”
He chuckled and took the mug that I poured for him.
“So, what were you here investigating?”
“Gun-running.”
“Ah, Gabe. How’d he make out of the deal?”
“Turns out the only thing he’s smuggling is fireworks. Makes all his cash selling illegal fireworks here in Oregon.”
I laughed as Johnny took a sip of his coffee.
“Gabe the Gunrunner is selling fireworks. That’s actually funny. Are you arresting him?”
“No. I have more important things to do than that. But I will say I’ve learned some valuable lessons from this whole thing.”
“Oh really, and what’s that?” Nate asked.
He smirked behind his mug. “Don’t try to date Louis Nathaniel Mercier’s girl...”
We all laughed a little too loud at that—all of us except Nate.
Johnny continued, “And that, sometimes, things are exactly what they look like.”
“What does that mean?”
“That sometimes you meet someone, and what you see is what you get. A lot of the people in this trailer park have taught me that. There seems to be an open-book policy here when you belong. It’s nice.” He drained the last of his coffee. “But now that we know Gabe is a dead end, I have to move out of here and head back to some real work.”
Nate stood up and followed him to the door. He reached out and shook Johnny’s hand. “Good luck. Wish we could have gotten that chance to take that hike together.”
I wondered when they’d had the chance to talk about hiking. Nate must have become chummy with him when I wasn’t looking.
“Maybe someday.” He gave a jaunty wave and stepped out the door.
“I wonder what his real name is. You know, I kinda like that guy now,” Nate admitted as he sat down beside me again.
“I know. He really is cute. I don’t know why I didn’t ask him out sooner.”
Nate scowled at me as he turned and rested an arm on the back of my chair. “Wren, look away. I’m going to murder your sister.”
“Have at it. I’ve got plans today.” Wren laughed and stood up. She grabbed my favorite sweatshirt from the hook—the little thief—and booked it out the door.
“More coffee?” I attempted to place a mug between us, but Nate grabbed it with one hand and laid it down on the table.
“Who’s cute?”
“Puppies, kitties, alpacas—I mean, the list could go on.”
“No, the list couldn’t go on.”
His eyes sparkled dangerously as he leaned close and whispered, “There should only be one thing on that list.”
I sighed as I breathed in slowly. “And what—”
I forgot what I was saying when he
