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Climbing out of the car at the supermarket, Mack turned to Lucas, only to watch him slip his hand into Dean’s. Dean looked pleasantly surprised, but recovered quickly and gave his little hand a squeeze.
With a bit of luck, Dean would keep him out of trouble. “Lucas, you behave this time, okay?”
“Auntie Mack, can Dean take me to the bookshop instead?”
Mack glanced at Dean, then back at Lucas. “If Dean says it’s okay, then it’s fine by me.”
“That is the best idea I’ve heard in a long time. Come on, champ. Mack, I’ll be back before you pay,” Dean said confidently.
“We’ll see!” Mack muttered as she walked into the supermarket, relieved at not having Lucas with her to cause trouble.
“Dean, look at this book. It has pirates in it.”
“Do you like pirate stories?” Dean asked as he pulled Lucas onto his lap in the reading corner.
“Oh yes, and dinosaurs . . . and dragons. I like those comics that Thomas reads me as well.”
“Which comics are those?” Dean didn’t remember any comics being mentioned.
“Our Gang.”
Ah, those; the ones that Rose and Jacob’s picture had been hidden in for all those years. “Okay, well you have a pirate book here so what do you say about finding two more books, one about a dragon and the other about a dinosaur, then we’ll go and find your Auntie Mack?”
Forty-five dollars later, they crossed the road back to the supermarket to look for Mack.
“Hey, wait up, Lucas. Let’s go in here and buy your Auntie Mack a present.” Dean opened the door to the jewelers. “Don’t touch anything in here, okay, Lucas?”
“Okay.”
Not really finding anything he liked in the bracelet section, Dean moved on and found a pair of small gold shell earrings. “Lucas, what about these shell earrings?”
“Oh yes. Auntie Mack loves shells. She has them all over her apartment.”
Before Dean had a chance to change his mind, the shop assistant had them wrapped and charged to his credit card.
They exited the shop looking shell-shocked. “That was quick, are you sure you paid for them?”
Dean laughed and ruffled Lucas’s hair. “Oh, I paid. That was the first thing I did. Come on. Let’s go find Auntie Mack, and remember, don’t say anything about her present, okay?”
“I won’t.”
Mack arrived at the checkout at the same time Dean and Lucas reappeared. “Hi, guys.” Then she turned to Lucas. “I see Dean’s been buying you another book.”
Lucas had a cheeky grin on his face. “He bought me four. We couldn’t decide between two dragon books.”
“Oh, really.” Mack cocked an eyebrow at Dean.
“Yeah, I liked the green dragon, but Dean wanted the red dragon so he bought both books because we couldn’t agree.”
She laughed and started to load the shopping onto the checkout with Dean helping her. “Just who’s the child here?”
He grinned. “That wasn’t what you said last night.”
She threw the burger buns at him. “I can’t believe you said that.”
They finished unloading the shopping cart and heard a throat being cleared, only to discover the cashier had been listening to everything they’d been saying. Mack blushed and Dean laughed as he paid before leaving to load the car with the groceries.
Dean had waited until after dinner before retrieving the earrings that he’d bought for Mack. Taking them out of the box and putting them into his pocket, he went in search of Mack. Finding her sitting outside on the step with two glasses of wine, Dean sat down behind her with a leg on either side and wrapped his arms around her.
