Page 8 of Take a Hike
Giving Charlie a grin, Fifi took off like a shot.
“Woo-hoo!” Charlie yelled, excitement thrumming in her chest. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that even Bennett was grinning. “Your wife knows how to have a good time.”
“I know,” he said proudly.
Two
“Now I know how a goldfish feels,” Charlie muttered, looking at the coffee shop glass door and window. Even though it was only seven o’clock, it was pitch-dark outside. “Don’t you have any blinds or shades?”
“Isn’t the darkness unsettling?” Lou pushed a table against another, adding to the four she’d already mashed into one big table. “Just imagining someone out there, watching us, running their fingers over a freshly sharpened machete…”
Charlie stared at her. “That just made the creepiness seventeen times worse.”
With a laugh, Lou walked to the door and pulled down the shade. “I convinced the owner to install these after my house was burned down. She’s kind of cheap, so I used my tragedy strategically.”
“Your house was burned down?” Charlie asked with interest as she walked over to the window and pulled down the shade, unable to stand even a few more seconds of being so exposed. “Vindictive ex-husband?”
Lou cocked her head as she studied Charlie. “Despite the statistics that say it’s always the husband, I actually wasn’t married at any time to the arsonist—although Ididhave a vindictive ex-sort-of-boyfriend who tried to kill me and Callum. Differentattempted murder though—he wasn’t the one who burned down my cabin.”
“You live a very interesting life.”
“That’s not always a good thing.” Lou grimaced at a memory, but a knock on the now-covered door snapped her out of her reflections.
As she bounced over to unlock it, Charlie frowned. “Now that the shade’s down, we can’t see who’s at the door. It’s like the Catch-22 of window coverings.”
Although Lou laughed, she did pull the shade over enough so she could see outside. “George, Ellie, and the little peanut. We’re safe—for now.”
Lou unlocked the door, allowing a dark-haired woman and a yeti-sized man carrying a toddler into the empty coffee shop.
“Charlie, this is Ellie, George, and the most adorable baby ever, Mila.” Lou held her hands out to the little girl, who lunged for her. As she scooped up Mila, Lou said over her shoulder, “I have to take advantage of all the snuggle time I can get before Callum arrives.”
“Callum?” Mila said hopefully, looking around.
“See?” Lou laughed. “I can’t even blame her for it. Callum’s the best.”
“That’s up for debate,” Ellie said, with an adoring glance at her super-sized husband, who gave her a tiny secret smile back. “I think George’s been awarded the title already.”
“I have a feeling no one’s going to win this argument,” Charlie interrupted before Lou could counter. She resigned herself to being around even more lovey-dovey people—as if all the Fifi and Bennett mushiness wasn’t enough. “I’m Charlie, Fifi’s sister.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ellie said with a sincere smile. “Where are Fifi and Bennett?”
“I’ve learned while traveling with the two of them that letting them have lots of couple time really cuts down on the PDA.” She made a gagging face but couldn’t hold it without laughing. “They should be here soon—unless they decide to never leave the honeymoon suite, and then it’s up to us to pull this off.”
Daisy arrived with her sheriff deputy husband, Chris, followed by a serious-faced woman and objectively hot man both wearing T-shirts matching the one sexy Kieran had on earlier. The two were introduced as Rory and Ian, and Charlie immediately pounced.
“Did the fire station get your coffee maker fixed?” she asked.
“No.” Rory frowned. “Everyone at the station is really cranky.”
“What about all the coffees I made?” Lou protested.
Ian gave her a level look. “I don’t think you understand howmuch coffee the average firefighter drinks.”
Unable to think of an unsuspicious segue, Charlie just jumped right in with the question she was dying to ask. If he’d just been another hot and grumpy guy, she could’ve easily dismissed him from her mind, but the way he’d been so careful not to harm her or that squirrel kept replaying in her brain. “Kieran Byrne—what’s up with him?”
Rory blinked at her, looking confused, but Ian smirked. The expression immediately elevated him to supermodel-hotness levels.
“Your husband is really hot,” she told Rory honestly.
