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Rain walked into the kitchen. “Why isn’t there power?”
“I think when I tore out that last piece of paneling that I knocked some wiring loose.” Quaide’s grumbled revelation shed light on the mystery.
She swung toward her lover and her brows shot up at the dark scowl on his handsome face. “Are you sure it was you? Might have been a coincidence.”
“I don’t think so.” He raked his fingers through his hair. At some point, he’d shed his Stetson. She loved seeing him in the hat that suited him so well, but those long, capable fingers gliding through his hair left her body tingling with the electricity the house didn’t have at the moment.
Lark pulled out her phone. “I’ll place a call to the electric company.”
“Thanks, Lark,” Quaide mumbled. He scowled at the cooktop. “Now there’s no dinner either, thanks to that mistake I made.”
She shot him a look. “Again, you don’t know if it was your fault.”
Dove wanted nothing more than to soothe her angry bear of a lover, but she held back. What would probably do him more good was a good meal.
“I’m a problem solver. I got this. There’s a grill in the garden. I saw it the other day,” she said to Quaide. “Does it work?”
“Yeah, we used it a couple weeks ago to grill steaks.”
She reached for a clean plate and began placing the chicken from the pan onto it. “I’ll be outside with this. I saw a container of potato salad in the fridge. We can have that as a side. Best to eat it now so it doesn’t go bad.”
With the plate in one hand, she leaned on tiptoe to kiss the corner of Quaide’s firm mouth. She heard his low sigh right before she turned for the back door leading to the garden.
Bees hummed around the overgrown path and the scent of flowers flooded her senses. She wished she didn’t need to tend the chicken or she might putter around pulling weeds or raking just to take her mind off…well, everything.
One more day without reaching the Wynton Ranch and safety. Not that she was eager in any way to leave Quaide, but she did want to cut out the fear hovering over her. And Rain too. She must feel the heat, even if she never did anything but joke around and flit from subject to subject like a carefree butterfly.
That was just Rain. Dove loved that side of her so much, but after this was all over, they were going to have a serious talk about who she dated. If she had to survive one more enormous, stressful event in her life, she’d surely age from her thirties to her nineties in no time.
The chicken smelled rich and fragrant. She watched it carefully, flipping it several times so it wouldn’t burn while making sure that it was thoroughly cooked inside.
When the back door opened and Rain emerged carrying a stack of plates, she couldn’t stop her lips from dropping open in surprise.
Rain raised her full arms. “It was Lark’s idea for me to set the table out here.”
“The power’s still not on?”
“No.” She moved down the path to a weathered picnic table and set everything down. “It could be pretty out here if someone cleaned it up a bit and bought new furniture.”
“The table looks sturdy enough. It will last a lot more years.”
Rain gave it a skeptical eyeball. “It’s not nearly as pretty as some of the little bed and breakfasts that Dom took me to over the past year.” She stopped and went silent for a long minute.
Dove watched her sister carefully but gave her some breathing room. She could do a lot for Rain, but handling her grief over her boyfriend wasn’t one of them. Her sister would need to walk that path alone. Dove couldn’t even empathize with the situation when the guy had not only used Rain as a mule to launder money from his drug trade but had struck her too.
Her sister really needed some therapy after this. She made a mental note to bring it up as soon as they were safe and everyone who needed to be locked up were.
The door opened again, and Clay and Lark walked out carrying various other components they’d need for the meal. Finally, Quaide joined them last. His stare sought hers.
Her insides softened at the very sight of the man she loved. They’d get through this. The universe hadn’t thrown them back together just to tear them apart.
His lips relaxed into a tender smile before he walked over to her and removed the metal tongs she was using from her hand. He set them aside and pulled her into his arms.
“They’re doing it again,” Rain griped loud enough for them to hear.
Quaide issued a rough noise and deepened the kiss. Following his lead, Dove looped her arms around his neck and clung to him, pressing every inch of her body against his.
“Look away. Nobody needs to see that much PDA. Yuck.”
