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After waking up three days in a row with excruciating back pain and listening to Viv whining non-stop about how uncomfortable her air mattress was, Art had caved and ordered three bed-in-a-box sets online, reasoning that he could get them real beds when things quieted down. Much to everyone’s delight, the beds had far exceeded all expectations.

“You’ll never guess what Viv said to me when I took her upstairs,” I said, grinning at Art as he glanced up from the sink he was filling with hot water for the dinner dishes. “She said I wasn’t ‘so bad.’” I waggled my eyebrows.

“Ohhhh,” Art said. “High praise indeed coming from that one! Congratulations.” He flashed me a teasing grin, but I read real happiness in his eyes. “I can almost do you one better.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, putting down my tiny paintbrush to listen.

“This morning, at breakfast, Merry asked if you were his new mom.”

My heart skipped a beat, but the dread I thought might follow didn’t manifest.

“Huh. What did you tell him?”

Art shrugged and laughed. “Honestly, before I could answer, he’d moved on to something else. But I was going to tell him that he has a mom who loves him very, very much, and now he’s super lucky to have a Meg who thinks he’s pretty awesome, too.”

“Good answer,” I said softly, the words easing something into place inside me.

We both worked in silence for a moment, until Art turned, resting his back against the sink as he dried a plate.

“Oh, that’s pretty,” he said, eyes widening as he saw the forget-me-nots I was painting on a fresh cookie.

“The others are all teacups we have in the store. This one reminds me of a cup from my aunt’s house.”

“What we create isn’t all that different, when you think about it,” he said thoughtfully after watching me for a few minutes.

“How so?” I asked, glancing up at him. By day, Art worked tirelessly teaching local teams the best way to install and maintain his company’s fiber system. But his true passion was designing websites. The one he’d just finished making for Shona’s coffee shop was stunning. He kept offering to design one for us, but I was far too overwhelmed with everything on my pate to even think about it. I’d promised to discuss it after the grand opening, but I was secretly hoping he’d be too busy with other projects to remember any time soon.

“You take something relatively functional and basic, like a cookie, which anyone can make if they have the right recipe and ingredients, and you use your skills to make it stand out from the rest. It’s what I do with websites. Except instead of sugar and food coloring, I use code.”

“Huh, I hadn’t thought of it that way. I like that.” I grinned at him. “Makes me feel a tiny bit closer to you for some reason.”

He laughed and, slinging the damp dishcloth over his shoulder, came over to my side of the table, turning up the radio on his way. Taking my hand in his, he pulled me to my feet and into his arms.

“I much prefer to be close to you like this,” he murmured, swaying our bodies in time to the music.

When the song ended, we stayed intertwined, lost in each other’s eyes, until the opening bars of a faster-paced song startled us out of our trance.

“I have to get back to work. These cookies aren’t going to ice themselves,” I said, eyeing the last dozen that had yet to receive their base coat of white icing, and the three that I was painting. I painted more than one at a time so I could work on one while the paint for each layer dried on the others.

“I’m almost done with the dishes. I can help after if you’d like,” Art offered with a sincere smile that faded slightly when I hesitated. “Unless you think I’m not up to the task,” he teased.

“No! It’s not that,” I protested. “I just don’t want to impose on you. I’m sure you have something better to do.”

“Nope.” He grinned. “Nothing more important than helping you if you need it.”

“Then sure. Thank you,” I said, hoping that my smile didn’t look as forced as it felt.

While he dried the last of the dishes, I prepared more pearly-white royal icing and the tools he’d need to flood the remaining cookies. Then, when he was ready, I showed him the technique his daughter had mastered in minutes. It took all my willpower to smile encouragingly and walk back to my own work rather than yanking the cookies away from him as soon as he got started.

“Am I doing it wrong?” Art asked, when I glanced up for the third time to see how he was getting along and winced.

“Nope,” I replied, unconsciously echoing him as I shook my head. “You’re doing a great job.”

“Sweetheart,” Art said, affably, looking back down at the cookie he was icing and getting back to work. “Remember that time on the beach when we promised to be honest with each other?” I grimaced, my stomach suddenly tighter than a drum. “This would be a fantastic time to practice that.” He shot me a crooked grin that stirred up the butterflies in my belly and winked. “I promise that nothing you say will upset me.”

“Fine!” I blurted out, too tired to keep curbing my tongue. “You shelved the books all wrong!”

His eyes widened in surprise. “What? The books? Downstairs?”