Page 33 of Kiss Me Now
“What’s that?” she mumbled into my chest.
“Help me figure out how to apologize to Brooke?”
She slipped out of my hug to stand and hold her hand out to me. “Oh, that’s easy,” she said, pulling me to my feet. “As long as you’re ready to do hours and hours of back-breaking work.”
I grinned down at her. “Is a trip to your place ever complete if I don’t?”
“Come on, you stinker,” she said, keeping her hand in mine as she led me out of the French doors. “We’ve got some repenting to do.”
Chapter Twelve
Brooke
“Iwill not hide inthis house.”
I said it aloud, to no one. I just needed to hear it. It was late Saturday afternoon, and I needed some dinner. Or linner. I needed whatever it was you ate when it was hours past lunch and too early for supper.
I could eat one of my freezer meals. But what I really wanted was the meal I’d almost gotten to eat last night at Caps until Ian opened his big mouth and ruined everything. He was still doing it. Thinking about the dinner he’d deprived me of was ruining me for any dinner I might eat now.Darnthat man.
“You don’t get to ruin linner, Ian Jerkface,” I informed the kitchen before calling to place an order for takeout from Caps. Maybe I should stop and get a dog or cat while I was in town too, so I could at least pretend I was talking to another living soul instead of myself.
Maybe a cat? I’d never had an animal growing up. I wasn’t even sure which type of animal person I was. For all I knew, I might be a secret hamster lover. “Maybe I should start with a fish?” I asked the kitchen. It didn’t answer.
I peeked through the front window again. The BMW still sat in Miss Lily’s driveway, but I wasn’t going to hide inside just because I didn’t want to deal with her devil-spawned grandson.
Keys in hand, I marched out to my car but saw no one, and it was a relief to back out of the driveway without having to tell anyone to go away.
When I picked up my dinner from the restaurant and set it on the front seat of my car, the late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windshield. My soul rebelled at the idea of eating it alone in my poorly lit kitchen.
Pendant lights,I decided. The kind that lit everything but washed it in a soft, warm glow that spoke to the kitchen as the soul of a home. I’d have to ask Grace for a good electrician and spend some time with lighting catalogs, but the thought excited me. Replacing Uncle Fred’s outdated dome fixture would be one more way of making his house my home.
But for right now, I wanted to enjoy the outdoor time I’d missed in the garden with Miss Lily. I thought for a minute before putting my little SUV in gear and heading for Folly Creek. There was an informal park beside it, a few picnic tables on a small open patch of bank that locals had set out years before.
I parked and settled myself at the table nearest the babbling water then I tucked into the meal Ishouldhave had last night. As with everything else, Miss Lily had been right about the stuffed mushrooms. Well, everything but her grandson, Detective Disrespectful.
There were few things truly delicious food didn’t make right, I decided as I finished up the last bit of risotto. I was gathering up the trash to bring home and toss when the alert went off on my doorbell app, making my stomach flip. I had no doubt who was on my doorstep.
