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“I’ve never had iced cappuccino.”
“You won’t regret adding it in,” Miles told Jake.
“Do you have skim milk?”
To her credit, Morgan smiled at Dawn again. “Sorry, not on hand.”
“Maybe just a half a cup—hot.”
“You’ve got it.”
“I’ll give you a hand.” As Nell rose, she patted Jake’s shoulder as a signal for him to stay at the table.
“She’s young,” Nell said when she and Morgan were in the kitchen. “Just a tad younger than her age.”
“She is, and didn’t mean any offense. She comes from money, you can tell—and nothing wrong with that.”
“Hope not, because me, too.”
“She’s had an excellent fine arts education, and is enjoying her last summer before she takes her first real job, at an art gallery, in Chicago—though she really wanted New York.”
“You got more out of her than I did.”
“She’s an easy read, and she’s a very nice girl—still a girl, but not a mean one. Neither she nor Liam will give each other a second thought when she moves to Chicago next month.”
“No, they won’t.”
“You and Jake, on the other hand, give each other a lot of thoughts.”
“More than I wanted to, until I did. For a cop, his edges are pretty damn smooth, and end up smoothing mine.”
“Plus, if you’ll excuse me for noticing, he’s got a great ass.”
“He does. It’s hard not to notice. Okay,” she said when Morgan pulled the cobbler out of the warming oven, “that looks great. Just like my mother’s.”
“She step-by-stepped me. Yours looks great. What is it?”
“Cherry Dump Cake—don’t be put off by the name. You dump cake mix over cherries, add a little this and that. Bake it, and done.”
“I could do that. I could actually do that.”
“I’ll text it to you. Are those… those are coffee ice cubes? That’s brilliant. Give me one.”
Morgan obliged her, and Nell sucked it like a popsicle. “God, I could mainline these. Why didn’t I ever think of doing this? I’ll get the desserts. You deal with the coffee.”
Successful desserts led to lingering before the good-nights. Stars swept across the sky when Morgan sat out with Miles.
“How’s that hump?” he asked her.
“Smooth and level, thanks. It was fun. Was it fun?”
“It was. Even the new and soon-to-be-forgotten girl had fun. You could have squashed that for her. You didn’t.”
“She didn’t mean to be critical. She was surprised. It never occurred to her a grown woman—several years older than she is—would choose to live with her mother, much less her grandmother. Liam obviously didn’t fill her in.”
“It’s your business, not hers, so no, he wouldn’t.”
“I appreciate that. And I appreciate you putting up with me today. I know I was a pain in the ass.”
