“Grandpa. I didn’t tell you anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I—”
“You don’t have to bring him soon,” he said. “I just wanted you to know I want to meet him eventually. When you’re ready.” He looked up then, and his eyes were warm and steady, the same way they’d always been when he had something important to say and was going to take his time saying it.
“Okay,” I said, and felt the truth of it move through me, warm and a little frightening. “I think this one will be coming here with me someday.”
Grandpa nodded once, satisfied, and looked back at the gravel. “Good,” he said simply. “That’s all I needed to know.”
He squeezed my shoulder one more time and turned back toward the porch, the pugs trailing behind him, Lois ambling after the pugs. I stood by my car for a moment in the dark, the cobbler warm in my hand, the night air soft around me, and let myself feel it without immediately talking myself out of it.
I was happy. Carefully, with both hands wrapped around it like something I didn’t want to drop.
I got in the car.
I drove home with the cobbler on the passenger seat, where the shortbread tin had been three hours ago. The road back into town was empty and dark, and I had the windows cracked again because the air felt good on my face.
The cats greeted me at the door—Wentworth first, climbing me before I could even set the cobbler down, then Knightley winding around my ankles, then Darcy from the back of the couch, watching with his usualI am pleased you have returned, but will not say so out loud.I put the cobbler in the fridge. I changed into pajamas. I brushed my teeth. I picked Wentworth up off the bathroom counter twice, where he had positioned himself like a small black gargoyle who needed to be exactly in the way of everything I was doing.
I picked up my phone before I got into bed.
CARA: Made it home
Me: Goodnight, Cara.
I held the phone against my chest for a second. Wentworth was already on my pillow. Knightley was at the foot of the bed. Darcy was somewhere in the apartment doing whatever Darcy did at night.
I closed my eyes and let myself sink into the pillow with Wentworth’s small, warm body pressed against my shoulder.
Chapter 22
Jasper
Tonight.
The word landed in my chest with a warmth I had not felt in any morning in a very long time, and I lay there in the gray light and let myself think about it for longer than I usually let myself think about anything. Tonight I was picking Cara up at her apartment at seven o’clock to take her to The Hearthstone for dinner. I had been thinking about it for the better part of two days. I was now going to spend the next few hours thinking about almost nothing else.
My knee was a little better than it had been yesterday, which I took as the universe doing me a small favor. I made the bed quickly and tightly, the muscle memory the Marines had given me that I had never been able to break and had stopped trying to. I went to the kitchen and started the coffee. Before I did anything else, I picked up my phone and dialed Emmett.
He picked up on the second ring.
“Brother.” I could hear the smile in his voice already. “How are we doing this morning?”
“I’m all right.”
He let a few seconds go by. “You are doing onlyall righton the morning of your first real date with Cara Darlington?”
“Yes.”
“Jasper.” His voice shifted. Quieter now, the teasing gone out of it. “Have you told her about the offer yet? The full scope of it. Everything.”
I closed my eyes at the kitchen window. “Not yet.”
A long silence on the other end of the line. Emmett was a man who could use silence the way some men used a raised voice, and he used this one fully, and I let him, because I had earned it.
“Emmett. What?”
