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His family, aside from Mel, still thinks he was just a stock car racer, handyman, and troublemaker before he settled down and started using his mad language skills for the betterment of the high school kids of Bad Dog.
They don’t know that he’s a hero or that he single-handedly shut down the Sweetwater crime organization or that the reason The Cupcake Factory is under new management is because Cassie Ann fled the country, and her grandsons are in prison awaiting trial on a laundry list of criminal charges. They don’t know that Matty is now retired CIA, has a nice pension for a thirty-year-old, or spent years keeping secrets in order to keep them safe.
But there are no secrets between us, a fact he proves when he whispers as soon as the puppy bowl ends, “I have a confession to make. I found that thing you were hiding in the pantry.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask, trying to play it cool, even as my heart speeds. I know what he’s found, but for once I’m not sure what he’s going to say.
Most days, I feel like I’ve known Matty forever, like he’s always been a piece of me, even before we fell in love. But despite his wild, adventurous past, Matty’s a cautious person in many ways. He looks before he leaps, and this might be way too big a leap after only living together for a couple months. I might have intruded upon turf that isn’t mine to intrude upon.
“Yeah,” he says, his gaze locked on mine. “And so I called the number on top, the furniture place.”
“Uh-huh.” I press my lips together and nod, fighting to remain calm. If he’s seen the final product before I’ve had a chance to put on the finishing touches, I’m going to be sick to my stomach. I worked so hard to keep this renovation a surprise for the past month, in advance of a Valentine’s Day unveiling, and now… “Just tell me,” I blurt out. “If you hate it, it’s fine, I can put it back the way it was. Or whatever way you want it, just don’t leave me in suspense.”
He shrugs a non-committal shoulder. “I haven’t seen it yet. But the furniture delivery company has. So has the paint guy and the plumber and the woman painting the mural. That’s roughly half of Bad Dog that now knows the location of my top-secret prepper hideaway. Which means, it’s no longer a hideaway. It’s a hunting camp. A ‘weird and kind of girly’ one, if the plumber is to be believed.”
My jaw drops with an outraged sound. “What? It is not! It’s gender neutral. If anything, it’s more manly than girly. I wasn’t trying to take over, I was trying to make your space a more welcoming, comfortable place to call home. I know you hate the apartment we’re in right now and I thought…”
His brows lift. “You’re seriously considering moving out to the woods with me?”
“Well, not for forever,” I say, with my own non-committal shrug. “But maybe for a year or two, until the sex haze wears off and I come to my senses. I know you love it out there, and I love you and so I stuck my nose into your business. Again. If it was the wrong thing to do, I’m sorry.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” he says, rising with the kitten-topped pillow in his arms.
I blink up at him. “What? Now?”
“Now,” he says. “I packed a bag for both of us and since it’s Goober Mullens’ Day, I don’t have work tomorrow.”
I wrinkle my nose. “They still give kids Goober Mullens’ Day off from school? They proved that he didn’t actually invent the pogo stick. He stole the idea from that other guy who stole it from the German guy.”
“The Bad Dog school system doesn’t care,” he says. “They just want an excuse to take off work and eat candy covered peanuts and walk backwards around downtown all day.”
My brow furrow deepens. “And what does that have to do with anything? I never did understand how that came to be part of the celebration. I get that ‘goober’ is another word for peanut in some circles, but—”
“I’m taking your pillow, Mel, the cats are sleeping on it, I’ll bring it back. Thanks for a great party,” Matty calls out, miraculously not waking the kittens as he hollers and then strides toward the door.
“Okay, bye!” Mel calls out from the kitchen where she’s been whipping up batch after batch of delicious food all day. Having a professional chef as a future sister-in-law really is a huge bonus.
And shewillbe my sister-in-law. Even if Matty hates what I’ve done to his treehouse—and the fact that I’ve told everyone and their mother about it—he’ll forgive me. He knows that being nosy and a tiny bit bossy are my toxic traits, and he loves me anyway. And if I hadn’t been both of those things, he’d be halfway around the world alone and sad in a van right now instead of having the “best winter of his life.”
Those are his words.
Words I intend to toss gently into his face if he opens the treehouse door and starts screaming.
But when we tromp through the leafless winter woods around an hour later and the newly renovated exterior reveals itself to us like a fairy cottage in an enchanted forest, he doesn’t scream. He takes in the fence made of wrought iron leaves, the spiral staircase leading to the top, and the fresh coat of dark blue paint that pops beautifully against the gray sky and black roof, then turns to look at me with a delighted grin that goes straight to my heart.
“You like it,” I say.
“It’s beautiful. Like something out of a movie.”
I clap my hands together over my mouth, hiding my smile. “Wait until you see the inside. It’s the cutest thing ever, and I added a dishwasher.”
His eyes widen. “A dishwasher?”
“I’m only going to rough it so much, McGuire. I need a dishwasher. And a sewing room. I added one of those, too.”
He laughs. “Where?”
I point a bit farther back, behind the main structure. “In the addition. It’s just a shell and some plumbing right now. But there’s going to be a sewing room and guest suite two trees down, connected to the main structure with a swinging bridge, which is going to be adorable. Aaron’s friend Tony is working on it. He said it should be finished by the end of June, right when our six-month lease is up.”
