“Because my dog spends 24/7 withme.”
Just as understanding of what he was getting at made her eyebrow arch, they were interrupted by Jack bursting through the door, yelling for his aunt Gwen. “We found it—it was in the freezer with the popsicles—and Mom said I should tell you so you can come back in the house.”
Case didn’t want Gwen to go back in the house. He didn’t want her to walk away until they’d come to some kind of understanding about what was happening between them. That would involve him telling her all of the things he’d like to have happen—most of which involved not so much as a layer of cotton between them—and her telling him whether she’d like to have those things happen, as well. It wasn’t exactly a conversation they could have while her ten-year-old nephew was standing right there, feeding the remnants of Eli’s popcorn to Boomer.
And when their eyes met over the boy and dog, the desire to escape such a conversation was written all over her face. Maybe she’d caught hiswe need to talkvibe or maybe she just knew it was time they figure out and put words to what they were doing, but she obviously wanted no part of it.
“Better it fell into the freezer drawer than the toilet, I guess,” Gwen said, and Case was dismayed to see she was already moving toward the door. There was no doubt she was going to take advantage of Jack’s interruption to make her escape. “You don’t mind closing everything up, do you, Case?”
“Of course not.” He gave her a benign smile for Jack’s benefit, but tried to let her know with a slight narrowing of his eyes that he was on to her and theywouldbe revisiting the kissing issue.
And it would be soon.
Chapter Eight
Found: a cell phone in the vicinity of the gas station and turned in to the police station. It’s locked, but there is a photo of a celebrity with a rather foulmouthed quote on the lock screen. To claim it, stop at the police station and identify the celebrity and quote. (Hint: it’s not our own Gwen Sutton, though she certainly does like to use obscenities in her books.) Margaret at the front desk has requested you not actually use the four-letter word in the quote, or she will submerge your phone in hot, soapy water.
—Stonefield GazetteFacebook Page
There was something worse than waking up to two boys yelling about whose turn it was to do a chore and their mother yelling at them to figure it out and their grandmother yelling at everybody to stop yelling.
That was waking up to an email from her agent.
Of course he opened with hoping the email found her well. She wasn’t so sure about that part. Then came the dreaded phrase “no pressure,but,” followed by the reassurance he just wanted to check in and see how the writing was going, and see if there was anything he could do to help.
The translation of course, was that her deadline was approaching faster than either of them would like and she’d already been given an extension. She’d had a valid reason for that, seeing as her father had passed away. Being sucked into trying to open a bar and spending all of her free time daydreaming about kissing the grown version of her teen crush again weren’t quite as good, as excuses went.
After assuring him it was going really well—she did write fiction, after all—she took a shower, made her bed and did a few other things until the house was quiet. Once she was fairly certain everybody was either gone or busy doing something anywhere but in the room with the coffee maker, she went downstairs.
She’d been wrong. Mallory was still in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a notepad in front of her. From a brief glance as she passed by on her way to the coffee, Gwen thought it was a grocery list, but she wasn’t sure. “Good morning.”
“’Morning,” Mallory replied without looking up from the notepad.
“Grocery list?” After fixing her coffee, she sat down and took a sip. Half-and-half definitely needed to be on that list if that’s what her sister was doing, because it was already getting low and she absolutely didn’t want to go without again.
“Sort of.” Mallory set down her pen and took a sip of her own coffee. “Mom wants to try a few recipes out for the bar, so I’m making an ingredients list so we can experiment with the menu.”
Gwen’s eyes widened. “Are we at that point already?”
Her sister shrugged. “Not really, but we don’t want to wait until the last minute. And Mom can’t really help with the construction, so working on this gives her a way to feel like she’s doing something.”
When Mallory picked up her pen and went back to her list, her attention bouncing between the notepad and whatever was on her tablet’s screen, Gwen sat back and drank her coffee, content to let the conversation lapse.
Without talking about the brewery to distract her, though, her mind wandered to Case. It always did if she didn’t have something specific to think about, but thinking about him—constantly reliving their kisses over and over—while sitting across from Mallory made her uncomfortable.
She felt guilty. Guilty for kissing her sister’s ex-boyfriend. Guilty for hiding it. Guilty for wanting to kiss him again.
“What is going on, Gwen? You keep looking at me like you want to tell me something, but alsodon’twant to tell me something, and I have too much going on in my life to guess what it is.”
Gwen drew in a deep breath and then decided it was best to get it over with. “I kissed Case.”
“Youwhat?”
“Twice.”
“Twice?”
“But I’m not going to date him,” Gwen continued in a rush. “It was just a couple of kisses and I’m sorry.”
