“Just uninformed,” he finished for her, and she blushed at the memory of the day she’d knocked on his door and asked him to not only pretend he was engaged to her, but to move into her house. “You keep calling this my home and I guess it always will be because this is where I’m from. It’s where I was raised and where my family lives. But it’s notourhome.”
“Do you love our home like you love this place?”
He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head back so she was looking into his eyes. “You and Johnny are myhome. Always. But yes, I love our house like I love this place. Honey, I ate broccoli with a smile on my face to help you keep that house. I ain’t leavin’ it.”
Emma laughed at the memory of how she’d launched her plan to convince her grandmother she and Sean were engaged with celebratory Chicken Divan, not knowing the fake love of her life loathed broccoli. And he’d eaten it for her. “I’m being silly, aren’t I?”
“You do a lot of silly things, Emma Kowalski, but loving me and worrying about my happiness isn’t one of them.”
She held his chin and kissed him because he was so sweet. But also wrong. “I don’t do alotof silly things.”
“There was the time you put flannel sheets on the bed and then tried to get into it wearing flannel pajamas. I thought you were going to set the house on fire. And the time you tried to change the faucet without shutting the water off first. And the—”
She kissed him again, just to shut him up. This time he cupped her neck and kept kissing her until she softened against him. When he broke it off and looked into her eyes, she sighed. “I love you, Sean.”
“I love you, too.” After taking a deep breath, he raised his eyebrows. “You know what else I love? Bacon. Let’s go.”
As he was about to open the screen door, she said his name and then waited until he turned to face her again. “You know, we can get a pirate ship for our own backyard.”
The grin lit up his face. “You’re a damn good woman, Emma. And maybe sometimes, after the kid’s asleep, we can sneak out there and you can shiver me timbers.”
She frowned. “I’m not sure what that means.”
“Yeah, I don’t actually, either. We should find out before I ask you to do that to me.”
“Just don’t search for it on the internet without a porn filter.”
He almost fell off the camper step, which made her laugh. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Long story.” She grinned and nudged him to get moving because she could smell the bacon now. “Ask Aunt Mary about it sometime.”
* * *
Laney closed the dryer door on what was hopefully the last load of laundry and pondered the feasibility of hiding in the basement for a little while longer. She hadn’t slept well the night before because she’d been too busy tossing and turning and dissecting dinner with Ben’s family.
It was also a hot and humid day, and being in the cool basement didn’t help kill her desire to dump a pile of clean laundry onto the floor, curl up on top of it and take a nap.
“Laney?” she heard Rosie call from the top of the stairs. “Are you down there?”
And there went that idea. “Yes, but I’m on my way up.”
“It seems like you’ve been doing laundry all day,” Rosie said once she’d closed the basement door behind her.
“I think I have. Since Ryan and Lauren left after yesterday’s ride, I was doing their bedding. And between dust and mud, everybody was changing clothes more than they anticipated so I offered to do a few loads for them.”
“That’s nice of you. But you should have told them where to find the washer and dryer and let them do it themselves.”
Laney laughed and sat down at the table, since Rosie had put a sandwich down and pointed to it. “That’s not exactly your usual hospitality.”
“They’re not exactly paying guests.” Pulling out a chair, Rosie sat down with her own sandwich, along with a third plate that she set in front of an empty chair. “Not that we’d take their money even if they tried, but they can do for themselves, if you know what I mean.”
Laney bit into the chicken salad sandwich, wondering what had precipitated this surprise lunch meeting. And who was running late.
She’d barely finished the thought when the back door opened and Mary walked into the kitchen. “I swear, I need a vacation from this vacation.”
“I told you to take one of the rooms upstairs,” Rosie said. “I’ll tell nobody where you are.”
“Trust me, they’ll find me.” She sat down in front of the third sandwich. “Hi, Laney.”
