AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even with her arms full, Van was animated and obviously excited about something. She kept pointing to a massive purple speckled hank of yarn with her chin. I couldn’t help grinning. I’d have to build her a cabinet to store all of that. I had that extra room in my place that I didn’t know what to do with yet—
I cut off my thoughts. She’d mentioned building a she shed on her property after Gideon’s men were done customizing her bus. That would be plenty of room for her craft stuff. She didn’t need part of my house.
Before I could start making mental plans to build an arbor for our pretend wedding in my backyard, I marched across the street and blocked the path of the two women. They continued to talk and laugh until they practically bumped into me where I stood with my legs spread and my arms crossed.
Van blinked and her laughter turned into a soft smile. “Hey, you.”
“I’m too young to be a father, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be a good one.”
AJ patted Van’s shoulder with a hand with long nails in ten different colors and rings winking on every finger. “Good luck, sister friend.” She piled her yarn on Van’s stack and vanished back in the direction of Every Line A Story, her clunky boots clicking heavily on the sidewalk.
Van’s face was completely obscured by her precarious yarn pile, so I grabbed a bunch off the top. The purple one was distractingly soft.
“You are embarrassing as hell, you know that?” she muttered once I’d cleared enough she could actually speak clearly.
I thought about it for a second and nodded. “Yeah. I’ll grant you that.”
She released a windy sigh and shifted courses to the café and its small selection of round tables outside. “Now that you’ve chased off AJ, go buy me a coffee.”
“Tall Americano with a double shot?” It probably should’ve worried me I already knew her coffee order.
Then again, I also knew her first orgasm happened super quickly and then she usually made me work for the second, so knowing her coffee order probably wasn’t a stretch under the circumstances.
The circumstances being having inordinate amounts of sex whenever we could manage it. Usually in Tabitha’s shower or on her couch or in my bed when we finally dropped into it late at night.
I stacked the yarn on the small table and Van produced a folded up canvas bag to hold it all from a pocket of her denim jacket. Why she hadn’t done that before leaving the store, I had no clue.
Macy and her best friend Vee were working the counter. One was smiling from ear to ear and the other was grumbling about a missing truck of supplies.
“Hey there, Officer McNeill.” Vee’s blond ponytail bobbed as she pushed a tray of pastries at me. “On the house for our town’s finest.”
My stomach grumbled, reminding me I hadn’t had lunch. “Thanks. Can I have two?”
“You can have as many as you want. Actually, I’ll wrap up one for Christian too. He never takes a break.” She pulled out a bag emblazoned with Brewed Awakening and started wrapping pastries in bright purple wax paper.
“How is Christian your brother-in-law?”
“A question I’ve wondered often myself. Murphy is far less surly than his brother. Though Christian is all bark, no bite.” She put a few extra pieces of wax paper in the bag and pushed it my way. “Take whatever you’d like. Make sure you grab one for Van too,” she added with a wink, looking pointedly out the window to where Van sat in the sunshine, scribbling furiously.
Or maybe she was drawing, since she was using her tablet. She was always doing secretive things on there she wouldn’t let me see.
Probably designs for the bus. She still kept those close to the vest. I wasn’t above plying her with orgasms to get a look at what she was working on.
Not in the parking lot, though. That would have to wait until later.
I grabbed a couple of pastries and wrapped them in the wax paper. For Van, I’d gone with chocolate on top of chocolate with chocolate frosting. “Thanks, Vee. Can you make me a double and a tall Americano with a double shot?”
“Sure thing.” She moved to the machines to make the coffees quickly and competently while Macy slammed around a clipboard and rutted through shelves with an assortment of curses.
“Rough day, Mace?”
“Would be a great one if fucking people could do their fuckity fucking jobs.” She gave me a blinding smile. “How’s it going for you, Duck Saver?”
There was a name I hadn’t heard before. “Just fine, thanks. Didn’t know you were watching.”
“Oh, I know everything that goes down in this town. Including the big bed your girl is somehow fitting into her bus. Wonder why that is?”
“How can she fit a big anything on that bus?”
