Page 78 of Ardently Yours

He huffs and indicates the room around us. “I only use this space for dining when my parents are here, and I hate thesechairs. They’re ridiculous. In my world, offering you something more casual for our first meal together would have been viewed by most people as me saying you weren’t worth the effort.”

“Oh.” I look around. “Now I feel like a jerk for giving you scrambled eggs and juice in a plastic cup at my trailer. It wasn’t an insult.”

His lips quirk. “I know. Come with me.” He indicates the hand he’s holding out for me to take.

When I do, he leads me to the same double doors Martin walked through and pokes his head into the room beyond. “Same dinner, but make it a picnic. Usual routine.”

“Certainly.” I can hear Martin’s voice.

“Oh, and can you bring us a couple of margaritas?”

“My pleasure.”

Arden glances down at me. “Standard lime margarita okay with you, or do you want something different? Mango or strawberry?”

I lift my eyebrows hopefully. “Mango sounds amazing.”

“One mango margarita and one lime,” Arden calls.

Martin appears to unwind under Arden’s change in attitude, his voice louder and more cheerful than deferential. “Coming right up.”

Arden heads for the main doorway. Abruptly, I stop and tug on his hand. “Wait a sec.”

He stands patiently while I run back to the table, grab the bowl of bread, and return with it clasped against me in a football hold. “This bread isdelicious.”

He grins, then leads me through the corridor and into his private sleeping quarters. Nodding at my feet, he says, “Feel free to ditch the shoes if you want. You don’t need them.”

Gratefully, I slide my heels off and watch as he enters one of the walk-in closets, then returns a minute later in his trousers,shirt sleeves, and bare feet with an armload of pillows and fabric piled under his chin.

“Can you do the honors?” He indicates the doors that lead to a private deck.

We step outside onto teak flooring, my feet soaking in the heat from the recently setting sun. The night is balmy and a warm breeze lifts strands of my hair from my neck. Before us, there’s nothing but the black and silver glint of the Gulf at night, lit by a luminescent full moon.

Arden dumps the blankets and pillows onto the deck, then extracts a hammock from the pile and attaches it to the large metal hooks obviously placed for that purpose.

“For after we eat,” he says.

Then he strides to the doorway and hits a button that illuminates the deck with subtle lighting. Removing cushions from the outdoor furniture strategically built into the space, he tosses them onto the deck.

When I realize what he’s doing, I help. By the time we’re done, we have an oasis of cushions, blankets, and pillows, surrounded by warm light, a Gulf Coast breeze, and the gentle splash of waves against the hull.

No sooner has he drawn me down to sit with him, than Martin, clearly familiar with this routine, arrives. He secures a short table to the deck next to our nest of cushions, adds a tablecloth, and puts all the courses of our dinner on it, some napkins, and a container of cutlery. No fussing with one course at a time. Martin hands me my margarita, complete with umbrella and a twinkle in his eye. Then he passes Arden his.

“No need for anyone to come back to clean this up until tomorrow,” Arden says.

“Very good. Enjoy your evening.”

I wiggle my bare toes, hike my dress up over my knees, and sigh. “This is heaven.”

“If the weather allows for it, the kids and I usually eat dinner out here on vacation. Sometimes we use the regular table and don’t drag out the blankets.”

I take a sip of mango perfection. “I love it.”

He watches me with a small smile. “We usually eat breakfast and lunch in the dinette.” He clears his throat. “Sturdy leather upholstery. My boys were messy preschoolers once too.” He laughs. "Gabriel still isn't exactly neat.”

We dig into our meal, my steak and some weird unknown vegetable melting on my tongue. “This is really good. What is this white thing?”

Arden glances over at my plate. “Asparagus.”

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