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“You got me cake?”
“You said you wanted cake. You ask, I deliver.” He leaned down and kissed her.
She smiled happily at him as she opened the small cake box. “Chocolate?”
“With salted caramel frosting and chocolate cream.”
“Awesome.” She took the knife he passed her and lifted it toward the cake.
“Hey, make a wish first,” he said, putting his hands over hers.
She rolled her eyes. “I wish that this surprise of yours involves you naked.”
“You’re not supposed to tell anyone what your wish is. And I’m serious,” he said, “you have to make a wish on your birthday. Bad luck not to. Grey used to make us all close our eyes and make a wish every year.”
“Bossy,” she said, but she closed her eyes and her face relaxed for a minute before her eyes sprang open again. “And now, cake.”
Cake for two took time, Zach torn between wanting to stay here enjoying himself with Leah and needing to make sure they got to the party so all his—and Faith and Lou’s—hard work wouldn’t go to waste.
It was close to eight. They really needed to make a move. But looking at Leah in the sunset light, he was very tempted to stay right where they were.
But nope. Hopefully if the party went the way he wanted, the smile on Leah’s face would be even wider when they got there. And after the party was done, he could take her back to the guesthouse and take that oh-so-tempting dress off her and do all the things he’d been thinking about.
“You look like you’re plotting something evil,” Leah said.
He shook his head. “Not evil. Hopefully good.” He started gathering up the food and the plates and glasses. “But for my plan to work, we need to get going.”
Her eyebrows lifted but her smile widened. “Is it time for some of those things we were discussing earlier?”
“You really do have a one-track mind, Santelli.”
She stuck out her tongue. “And you still like that track.”
“Absolutely. But no, I have something else planned before we get to those particular things.”
Leah pretended to pout. “If you wait too long, my mind may change.”
He snorted. “I doubt it. Face it, you want me bad.”
“That goes both ways,” she retorted, but didn’t look annoyed.
“Truth. But anticipation makes things better, or so they tell me.”
“Who’s ‘they’? Not Grey. Grey wasn’t a big believer in delayed gratification.”
That was true. His dad had been of the “see it, go for it, get it” school of life. He’d died too young, but no one could accuse him of having missed out on much in the time he had.
Other than being a better dad perhaps.
Zach shook off the thought. Tonight was about Leah.
He put the last glass back into the basket and climbed to his feet, holding out his hand to help her up. “Come on, Santelli, it’ll be fun.”
When they got back to the guesthouse and he just put the basket on the front steps and came back to her, pulling the keys to Grey’s old truck—which Faith had loaned him for the duration of his stay—from his pocket, Leah laughed.
“That old thing? Doing it in style, Harper.”
“Don’t knock a classic.” He patted the truck’s hood. It was old and kind of ugly, and Faith should have traded it in by now, but he was glad she hadn’t. He had too many memories of Grey telling him to get in the truck and taking him off on some wild escapade to want it gone. “Hop in,” he said to Leah.
