Instead, taking a page out of his book, I shared what I needed to say by leaning so far in to him, I was giving him most of my weight, doing it tipping my head back and smiling at him.

He took my weight and supported it by rounding me with his arms.

He also dipped his face closer to mine, doing this while taking in my smile, before saying, “Plans changed. Fuck then you feed me.”

That caused a tingle.

“I’m down with that,” I whispered.

Deacon grinned.

Then he dipped his head further and kissed me.

After that, he lifted me in his arms and carried me to bed.

* * * * *

Much later, draped part on, partly down Deacon’s side, my cheek to his chest, as I heard his breath start to even out telling me he was close to sleep, I whispered into the dark, “Did you like the pie?”

I got no words, but the arm he had curved around me squeezed me tight.

He liked the pie.

I smiled against his chest, tightened my arm draped over his stomach, and kept whispering.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

His body tensed for a moment before it relaxed and he murmured, “Sleep, baby.”

I sighed.

Then I said, “’Kay. ’Night, Deacon.”

“’Night, Cassie.”

I smiled again against his chest.

Then I closed my eyes.

Chapter Nine

Eleven

The next day, I was walking through Home Depot, trying not to let my head explode.

This was because I had been shopping in the garden center. I’d been grabbing plastic trays of flowers that I was going to plant in my window boxes and planters and I was doing this babbling my grand plans of bringing floral beauty to Glacier Lily. At the same time I was hoping out loud that we didn’t get a late spring snow which would mean I’d waste hundreds of dollars since all the plants would die and I’d have to do it again (something that had happened once before and it didn’t make me happy).

Eventually, I turned from selecting plants and jabbering and found Deacon, who’d come with me, had disappeared.

I was talking to no one.

The mini-welcome home party the night before had gone great. It was simple: sex, then Deacon eating reheated meatloaf and mashed potatoes, then more sex, and finally Deacon crashing because he not only drove to get to me without eating, he’d done it without sleeping, and this had taken two days. This last had alarmed me, but then again, he was a thirty-eight-year-old man. He might need a woman, but he didn’t need a mother. Therefore, I kept my mouth shut.

The party continued in the morning with more sex then bacon, eggs, and toast upon which I told Deacon that day’s agenda included me hitting Home Depot in preparation for bringing floral beauty to Glacier Lily.

Deacon had grinned (score two of the morning, score one being a nearly-upon-waking orgasm). Then he’d said he’d come with me (score three).

I had happy, hopeful visions of shopping with Deacon (something I looked forward to in a way that might seem weird to some, but being alone for years, it was not weird to me), coming home, and Deacon helping me with the flowers.

This had a dual purpose. That being me getting the flowers planted faster, thus having some downtime to be with Deacon, and also working alongside Deacon. I had hope, what with his comments about Grant being lazy, that he was not. That his assertion that if things worked out between us and he would be eighty and sitting next to me in an Adirondack chair meant he didn’t intend to spend the next forty-two years having me cook, clean, take care of the cabins, and him doing…whatever it was he did until he quit doing it and ended up doing nothing.

Essentially, I knew it was his day off. Or at least it was his downtime after being at it twenty-four fuckin’ seven for over a month.

But I still believed that working together could be fun. And if not fun, at least it was together and that in itself was good.

I continued to score through the morning with another orgasm Deacon gave me during the shower we took together and earning another grin when I was ready about five minutes after he was whereupon I announced as much.

“You’re ready?” he asked, not hiding the surprise in his voice, leaning a shoulder against the doorway to my bedroom where he was standing.

“Yep,” I replied.

“No makeup?”

Suddenly, I was uncertain if I was ready.

“Do I need makeup?” I asked.

“No.”

That came quick and firm, so I relaxed. “Then I’m ready.”

“Your hair isn’t dry,” Deacon pointed out.

“We aren’t in one hundred percent humidity, Deacon Deacon.” His lips started curving up at my response and I kept at it. “The mountains are arid. It’ll dry in no time.”

“So it dries as beautiful as it is with you doin’ shit to it?”

The warmth only Deacon could give me by being his brand of sweet came back. It felt good. So I just nodded.

That was when I got the grin before he said, “Then let’s go, Cassie.”

All went well from there. Me being back in his Suburban. Deacon swinging into the Mexican Jumping Bean without my even asking. Deacon being relaxed and calm while driving, even when some guy cut him off to take a right turn, this making Deacon brake when he wouldn’t have had to if the guy wasn’t being a jerk.

Now all wasn’t well.

Now I’d had to leave my trolley with my carefully selected trays of flowers and spiky and tailing plants that would so work with my vision of floral beauty at Glacier Lily in the garden center because I had no idea where my man was and the big flat trolley I had was too unwieldy to shove through the store.

Someone was going to snatch my plants, I knew it.

And where could Deacon be? I’d looked through all the aisles in the garden center (three times).

He was just gone.

I’d called his number, but he didn’t answer (as usual).

Hurrying through the humongous store, then going through the back aisles and doing it again, I saw him standing at the far back looking at ladders.

Ladders.

What the heck?

“Dea…Priest,” I called.

He looked to me but said nothing.

I stopped two feet away. “You left me in the garden center,” I informed him of information he well knew.

“Need a ladder,” he replied.

I stared at him, looked to the ladders, then looked to him again. “I have a ladder.”

“Not tall enough,” he stated.

I felt my brows draw together. “For what?”

“Gotta clean your gutters,” he declared. “May have to replace some of ’em. Ladder in your shed won’t reach.”