Page 103 of Moonshine Kiss
I wondered if they’d been close, my mother and Scarlett’s.
Something nagged at me, and I went through the pictures again one at a time, willing it to the surface. But nothing materialized. Just a lingering sadness at what felt like a life wasted. She’d lived her days unhappy and overextended. And she’d died too young. She’d never see Scarlett finally get engaged to the debonair Devlin. Never bounce Jameson and Leah Mae’s babies on her lap. She’d never dance while Gibson sang at The Lookout. Never meet Jonah. Never see Bowie get married.
There was a knock on my back door, and Bowie waved tongs in the window before letting himself in. I slammed the folder shut and stuffed it under my laptop.
He gave me a look.
“Police business,” I told him, jumping up from my chair and meeting him in the middle of the kitchen. I didn’t know how Bowie would take it if he knew I was combing over his mother’s fatal accident report.
“Jonah’s veggies are done and I heard the oven timer for the pies,” he said, jerking his thumb toward his side of the house.
I yelped and jogged through the downstairs door into Bowie’s kitchen. He followed me, and when I leaned down to pull the pie from the oven, he ran his hands down my sides to my hips.
I jumped and nearly bobbled the pie.
“You okay?” he asked, amused.
I felt guilty, like I’d been caught doing something wrong. Maybe I had been.
“Fine. Great,” I chirped. I got the pies out of the oven and onto the stove top.
Bowie closed the oven and turned me around carefully. “I know what’s goin’ on,” he told me.
“You do?”
“You’re nervous about our first Thanksgiving together.”
“I am?” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I guess I am.” We’d spent every Thanksgiving together since the year Connie died. Our families deep-fried turkeys and swapped pie recipes and shouted obscenities at the football game on TV together. I couldn’t imagine a Thanksgiving without the Bodines bellied up next to me. “I hope you’re a good actor because you’re gonna have to be if we’re going to keep everyone from finding out that we’ve been spending our nights naked together.”
“Everyone’s gonna be too busy stuffin’ their faces to notice when I sneak you out to the garage to make out with you,” he teased.
“I was thinking about your parents,” I admitted. “This is your first Thanksgiving without your dad.”
Bowie blew out a breath. “Yeah.”
“How do you feel about that? Do you miss them?” I pressed.
He busied himself digging through a drawer for aluminum foil. “Sometimes. I mean, not my dad from the last years. But sometimes I miss them when we were all younger. When we all had…hope.”
It was my turn to approach him. I laid my cheek on his back and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I wish it would have worked out differently for them.”
He turned in my arms and wrapped me in a hug. “I do, too. But it didn’t. So all I can do is make sure it turns out differently for me. You’re part of that.”
My heart did a little tap dance in my chest. It wasn’t quite as scary now. The idea of a future. Bowie was already in my bed and at my parents’ table.
“What do you think about kids?” I asked him. “And before you get any ideas in your head, I’m asking for far into the future purposes.”
He laughed and slipped his hands into my hair. “I like kids. I’d like some with you.”
“How many?”
“Five or six.”
“Five or six? Do you want my uterus to fall out when I’m chasin’ down Rhett Ginsler on his damn lawn mower?”
“With five or six one of ‘em is bound to turn out right,” Bowie said with a straight face.
“You are an insane person. Is this why you’ve never had a relationship that lasted longer than three months?”
