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“Yes! Perfect. I’ll visit with one of our brothers and his mate. Or if they’re busy, I might finagle adate with someone so you won’t think I’m waiting for you to mate Nate and leave the house to me.”
Kayla smiled, then went in through the main entrance where guests took pictures of the two of them walking the dog and cat into the lodge. Everyone loved Rosco and Buttercup. But seeing the cat in the stroller was an extra treat.
“Don’t forget to call him. I know you. You’ll get wrapped up in work and forget about calling until it’s too late,” Roxie said.
Kayla released Rosco so he could greet everyone at the lodge—a group of kids out of school was eager to pet him—and then settle by the fireplace. Buttercup always stayed in their office after a swarm of kids had to see her too. Kayla pulled out her phone. “Calling him now.” She thought of texting him, but she felt she needed to speak with him so she could tell if he really was free to do this or if he was feeling obligated.
“Okay, checking with the front desk to see if we’re having any issues,” Roxie said.
“Okay, good.” Kayla called Nate while Buttercup settled on her fluffy pink cat bed next to the desk. “Hey, you might be busy with that case you were telling us about, but I thought you might like to have dinner at our place tonight. Roxie plans to go to one of our brothers’ homes for dinner.”
“Are you sure you are okay with it?” Nate sounded like he really wasn’t certain she wanted todo this. Like she was feeling guilty about not getting together with him or she’d been coerced.
She wanted to groan out loud. She wanted to just chill out with Roxie and their dog and cat. And do some more promo stuff tonight. But she knew in her heart of hearts she would have a great time with him too.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Kayla had to get out of her darn shell. Life was long for them, but she wanted to enjoy it. She could always find work to fill her time.
“All right. I’d love to. What time?” Nate asked, sounding eager, which made her feel guilty all over again.
“Seven? Would that give you enough time to do your work and come over?”
“Sure. Look forward to it. Or you could come over here and have dinner with me. I’ll fix burgers on the grill.”
“Uh, yeah, that would be nice.” She loved grilled burgers, and it would be nice to have someone else cook for her. She loved to cook, but this would be great too.
“All right. See you at seven.”
She smiled. Maybe Roxie was right. She felt really good about this, and it sounded like Nate wasn’t up to his eyebrows in work. Then Roxie poked her head into the office.
“Good news. Nate and I are on for tonight at his place, so that means you can stay home and havedinner there if you prefer,” Kayla said before Roxie could ask.
“What? Me? Stay home alone? No way. I’m going out for dinner. But great on the date. Um, I need you to go with me to open a guest safe that’s still locked. The guest who now has the room wanted to place something in the safe, and he can’t open it. So we need to do it and see if the previous guest left anything in there.”
“Okay, so are we going to find a million dollars? A bag of uncut diamonds? A cache of passports? An incriminating photo?” Kayla asked, hoping it would be something exciting and mysterious as she grabbed the master key to get into the room safe.
Roxie laughed. “Probably someone’s cell phone like the last time.”
At the PI agency, Nate was so glad that Kayla was coming over for dinner. He’d been trying to let her deal with all the issues she’d had, what with the summer promotional business, banquet managerial tasks, and having to take on more managerial duties while her brothers were out of the office, but also just to have time to decompress after work. And he’d been busy with Nicole being out of the office so much too.
He’d even fantasized about Kayla and himbeing together in a place of their own, grilling burgers, talking over their days. But he hadn’t wanted her to feel pressured about having to see him if she was feeling too overwhelmed about things. No matter what happened on the missing guy case, he planned to ask her tonight to go with him to the cabin after her siblings’ birthday party to make it an extra special weeklong birthday celebration for her.
All settled down to work, he was surprised when Nicole showed up at the agency early. “I thought you weren’t coming in until this afternoon. Are you feeling all right?”
“Oh, yes, just great. Just some morning sickness earlier. Blake went into the lodge to help out, and I’m here to work on pending PI cases.”
“Okay, good. I haven’t learned anything new on the case with Phil. His parents haven’t heard from him. I keep in touch all the time, just in case. And I let them know where we’re at on this.”
“At least they know we’re spending a lot of time on it.” She began looking at the cases that were stacking up. “Do you want to have dinner with us tonight?” Nicole asked.
Nate smiled. “I have a dinner date with Kayla tonight.”
“Oh, wow, yes! I’m so glad you asked her out.”
“She called me and wanted to have a dinner date.”
“Oh,” Nicole said, smiling. “Even better. We’llsee if Roxie wants to have dinner with us then. So where are you taking Kayla?”
“I’m grilling burgers. I figured she’d like that best. She’s really a homebody, you know, and after working at the lodge all day, she’ll want some time to chill.”
