Page 51 of The Lighthouse at the Cove
Reid reached over and dabbed white icing on Piper’s nose.
Piper screeched and then brushed icing on his nose.
Kaiah laughed just as Reid took her arm, pulled her to him and rubbed icing onhernose. She gasped as she looked up at his handsome face. Suddenly, she was yanked back to the moment they’d stood together outside Piper’s classroom and his eyes had stayed laser-focused on her lips. The air around them had seemed electrified, and she’d almost been certain he was going to kiss her—and boy, had she wanted him to. But the moment had been ruined by the principal.
Now as she looked up at him, she couldn’t stop the joy—or the heat—flooding through her.
Piper appeared and brushed icing over Reid’s chin and Kaiah’s cheek before cackling.
Reid’s dark eyes danced. “You know what this means, Kaiah?”
“War!” Kaiah cried before they each grabbed a tub of icing and chased Piper.
For the next several minutes, they raced around the kitchen, flicking icing at each other and doubling over with laughter.
When the timer on the stove began to beep, Reid stood up and made a T with his hands. The pink icing dotting his shirt and face made Kaiah giggle. The image was such a contrast for the masculine firefighter.
“Time-out! We don’t need burned cookies.” He pulled on an oven mitt and opened the stove.
“Let’s get him,” Piper whispered.
Kaiah nodded and bit back a laugh. She and Piper snuck up on him, and after he set the cookies on the cooling rack and put the baking sheet in the sink, they pounced, caking his face with icing.
“Whoa! Whoa!” He hollered with a laugh. “I called time-out.”He wrapped his arms around Piper and lifted her up in the air while she shrieked. Then he eyed Kaiah. “You’re a bad influence.”
“It was her idea!” Kaiah squeaked.
Reid snorted and shook his head. “We need to get back to using the icing on thecookiesinstead of our faces.”
“Okay, Daddy,” Piper mumbled. She climbed up on her stool and returned to her artwork.
“Let me see your face, pumpkin,” Reid said before brushing a napkin across her cheeks and cleaning up the icing. “We sure made a mess.”
Piper lifted her chin. “But it was fun.”
“Yes, it was,” he agreed with another chuckle.
Kaiah ripped a paper towel off the roll and wiped her own face.
Reid appeared beside her. “You missed some.” He pointed to her cheek before he ran a paper towel under the faucet, wrung it out, and then gently wiped her cheek.
His gentle touch sent her heart jumping into her throat, and for a moment she lost herself in his bottomless brown eyes. When she realized she was staring at him, she broke eye contact and moved to the sink, washing her hands. “I-I’ve never been part of a food fight before.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“How come?”
“You have eight siblings, right?” he asked, and she nodded. “Someone must’ve started a food fight at some point.”
“All nine of us never lived together at the same time, and I can honestly say none of us started a food fight. It was noisy but never that rowdy.” She paused for a second, lost in a memory. “But I remember a food fight breaking out in the school cafeteria. Of course,Iwasn’t a participant.”
He tilted his head. “Is that right?”
“Uh-huh. I never got into trouble.” She reached up and wiped icing off his eyebrow, and she longed to move her finger down the length of his angular jaw.
“I believe you.” He tossed the paper towel in the trash can, glanced down at her shirt, and then grimaced. “I’m sorry for the mess.”
She took in the splotches of yellow and black icing on her purple top. “It was fun. Actually, this icing fight was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
