“I got it,” I told her. “Just point me to the cups.”

She gave me a nervous smile, then glanced over at Dean.

“Marlana is new,” he said. “Marlana, this is Kiro’s son. You don’t have to wait on him. He’s nothing like his father.”

She glanced up at me, still looking nervous, then reached into the cabinet and got me a cup before hurrying back to her skillet on the stove. Poor woman had to deal with my crazy-ass father. No wonder she was a nervous mess.

I poured my coffee and walked over to the table to sit across from Dean.

“You want a newspaper? I think there’s one over by the front door. Marlana normally gets it and puts it there. Don’t know why we have one, since neither of us reads it.”

“I get it,” Marlana said, turning around and hurrying out of the room. I didn’t need the paper, but she was fast.

Dean shrugged. “She’s very eager to please. If Kiro doesn’t scare her off first.”

“My plan is to make sure his head is on right before I leave here.”

“Plans don’t always pan out. Remember, that man lives and breathes for that woman. He’s really losing her this time.”

My chest ached. All I could think of was losing Reese.

“Makes you regret falling in love, eh?” Dean said, looking back down at the magazine in his hand.

He was wrong. I’d never regret Reese. I would never regret those feelings. She had opened up my world in a way I had never imagined. She had changed my life. She had given me true happiness. I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t.”

Dean looked back up at me.

“Before Reese, I didn’t know that the world could be full of dreams. That you could wake up every day excited to breathe. That one smile from her could make me feel like a fucking king. Loving her is worth . . . it’s worth it all. Living in fear of love isn’t living.”

He frowned and put his magazine down, then continued sipping his coffee. He didn’t look like he believed me. In reality, he was as sad as Kiro. He didn’t know true, raw emotion. He didn’t know that one woman could make you feel everything.

I could tell he was thinking of saying something, but he changed his mind.

“Kiro won’t crawl out of bed for another two hours. I suggest you let him get up on his own. If you wake him, you’re just going to have a more difficult time.”

“Fine. I’ll eat and then call Reese.”

Dean set his cup down. “Marlana is making pancakes and sausage. Or she was, until she ran off to get your paper. At least look at the damn thing. The woman is too old to be running around so much.”

That was all he said before he walked out of the kitchen with a swagger that was similar to my father’s. I decided a long time ago that only rock stars knew how to walk that way.

Marlana came shuffling in and put the paper in front of me. “Breakfast ready soon,” she assured me, then went back to the stove.

I opened the paper, not giving a shit what it had to say, but, like Dean said, she’d gone and gotten it for me. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

Reese

I had called and gotten Maryann to pick me up an hour early yesterday so I wouldn’t be there when Captain returned. The more I thought about it, the more I wished I hadn’t told him about my dyslexia. What was it about him that made me blurt stuff out?

Mase had called me when he landed in Los Angeles. We talked during his ride to his father’s house in Beverly Hills. I could tell he was tense and nervous about what he was going to find when he got there, and I felt guilty about not being there with him.

To make up for leaving work early yesterday, I had come in early this morning. I had slept better than the night before because I was so tired from lack of sleep. If all went well today, Mase would be coming home.

Piper would also be back today, and I wanted to make sure everything was neat and ready for her. I checked on the horses and swept the floors of the dust that had blown in overnight. Then I headed back to my office.

The rest of the morning went quickly. I kept waiting for a call from Mase, but I focused on getting all my work done in case anything new came up today.

Right after Piper left for lunch, the door opened, and in walked a little boy who couldn’t have been more than ten. At first, I thought he was a student of Piper’s whose parents had gotten the time wrong. Until Captain walked in behind the kid.

What?

“Glad you’re here. Henry and I made the drive out yesterday to find you’d already gone home. Early.”

He had planned on bringing a kid to see me? I was confused. “Um, yes, I finished up early,” which was a lie. I felt a twinge of guilt.

“That’s all right. Henry and I made plans to come back here today. We even brought steak fajitas from the restaurant. Henry’s dad is the head cook at Stouts and Hawkins here in Dallas. He’s become my bud. I wanted to introduce him to one of my other friends.”

What was he doing? Bringing me food again and using a kid so that I would eat with him and be nice? Captain made no sense. He said he wasn’t flirting with me, but then he did things like this.

“My daddy makes the best steak fajitas,” Henry said proudly. He was a cute kid. “He made you special ones. With his secret sauce.”

“Oh, thank you. It smells delicious,” I said to Henry as Captain began laying the food out in front of me.

“Can we have a picnic? It’s more fun to eat outside. Besides, this place smells like horse poop,” Henry said, looking up at Captain and crinkling his nose.