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“I know you’re not taking care of me and fixing things for me for the promotion. I was just kidding,” he says quietly. “And that’s not at all what—”
“Cut out that hanky-panky nonsense in public. People are trying to enjoy their ice cream for God’s sake.”
Whatever Palmer was about to say is cut off as we pull apart and both of us look up to find Murphy standing next to our bench, glaring at us as he sips a milkshake.
“Nice to see you, Murph.” Palmer smiles at him, his hands dropping from my face to rest on top of my bare thighs.
Murphy’s eyes glance down to where Palmer’s hands are, and he takes another slurping sip before growling a little, and then he pulls the straw out of his mouth to tip it and his cup toward Palmer.
“See you listened to what I said that night on the beach, stopped being an idiot, and realized she had a thing for ya,” he says, making my eyes narrow as I look back and forth between the two men.
“Excuse me. You two had a discussion about me without my knowledge?” I ask haughtily.
“Excuse me,” Murphy fires right back just as indignantly. “You two disappeared from the golf outing with the winner of the two grand. I had to drive out and find the damn pin marker with the name on it in your cart in the middle of a storm and then listen to the sounds of two cats dying inside that damn shed until I could get out of there, pour bleach into my ears, and then have Tess light them on fire.”
“Right then.” I nod, knowing my cheeks are as red as the picnic table across the aisle from us. “Splendid! We bid you ado, kind sir, until we meet again.”
Why my mortification has suddenly turned me into a character in a historical novel is beyond me. Murphy just looks at me like an idiot, because I am, then shakes his head and walks away from us while Palmer chuckles softly at my mortification that the man who’s like a grandfather to me heard us having sex.
Once he’s gone, Palmer grabs my hand and pulls me up from the bench, stopping long enough to give me a quick kiss before tossing our garbage in the can next to the table.
“All right, let’s go get some dinner.”
“I can’t believe you fed me dessert before dinner. It’s very scandalous,” I tell him with a smile, pushing that email out of my mind so I can just enjoy my first date with this man.
“I know I’m not allowed to apologize anymore, but I still feel like you sucked it up very nicely today, so I thought you deserved your cookies first,” Palmer says, kissing the tip of my nose before grabbing my hand, lacing his fingers through mine, and pulling me out from under the picnic table area and toward the sidewalk.
“I mean, technically you already gave me my cookies against that wall, ba-dum-tiss,” I joke, elbowing him in the ribs as we walk, and he groans and then chuckles at my lame joke. “Well, one cookie, if we’re really being technical. You must have been a little tired, huh? Not up for handing out more than one? Little stingy if you ask me.”
Palmer is suddenly scooping me up until my feet leave the ground and I have to wrap my arms around his shoulders and hold on, squealing and laughing as he swats my ass and spins me around on the sidewalk.
“Sweet cheeks, I’ve got dozens and dozens of cookies with your name all over them,” he whispers in my ear, making me tingle as he squeezes my ass one more time before setting me back down on my feet and grabbing my hands from around his shoulders to pull them down, lace his fingers through mine, and swing them back and forth between us.
He looks away from me for a second to smile, nod, and exchange a few words with locals who say hello to him as they walk by us, and they also throw a smile and a greeting my way, making my damn chest get tight again. The same things happened when we first got into town and started walking down this street. No one even batted an eye that after fifteen years of nothing but friendship, Palmer Campbell is suddenly smacking Birdie Bennett’s ass, and kissing her full on the mouth, and twirling her around, and holding her in his arms like he never wants to let her go in the middle of Summersweet Lane. Tourists don’t even pay attention to us. They take one look at Palmer and assume there’s no way he’d be here on this tiny island in the middle of nowhere, and go about their business thinking they just saw the perfect doppelgänger for Pal Campbell.
