I could feel Deacon’s heat at my back and his lips at my ear where he asked, “You my girlfriend?”

“Yes, just not the clingy, psycho variety, though I am the ornery, stubborn variety,” I replied and just got it out when his arm gave me a tight squeeze.

He liked that (well, the part about me being his girlfriend, he liked, though I had a feeling he liked the ornery and stubborn bits too).

He didn’t say it out loud, but he said it.

He let me go and turned back to the shelves.

But I liked what he said but didn’t say.

So I headed to where I needed to be, five feet away, where the canned diced chiles were located, and I did it smiling.

* * * * *

I sat with beer in hand resting on the arm of my Adirondack chair, Deacon beside me, our bare feet up on the railing and tangled, the only sounds in the gathering dusk those of the river rushing by.

In other words, life was sweet.

“Seriously, I’ve never had tacos that delicious,” I remarked to the trees.

“Told you it was good,” he replied.

“You did say that, but you didn’t say it was great.” I turned my head his way to see he was looking at the trees too. “How did you get the tortillas to do that?”

He looked my way. “Woman, you saw me fry ’em.”

I did indeed.

“Yes, but I’ve had fried tortillas and none of them were that awesome.”

His lips curved up.

“What did you do to the meat?” I asked.

He turned his attention back to the trees. “Used your chiles, added more cumin to the spice packet, the rest, I’d have to kill you if I told you.”

I aimed my eyes to the trees as well, but did it grinning. “I think you inject badass goodness into them somehow.”

He made no reply but I actually felt the humor drifting from him.

This made me happy.

I took a sip from my beer and found I was at the dregs, the part of the beer I refused to consume.

I dropped my hand and turned back to Deacon. “I need another one, honey. You want one?”

“Yeah, but I’ll get ’em,” he said, hands to the arms of his chair, pushing himself up.

“I’ll get them.”

He looked down at me. “Got ’em, Cassie.”

I smiled up at him, even happier.

Gutters cleaned. Someone to go grocery shopping with. One meal every now and then I didn’t have to cook (and it was a good one). Great sex on a more-than-regular basis. Waking up not alone but tucked close to someone who meant something to me. And when I needed a beer, I didn’t have to haul my booty in the house to get it.

Oh yes, life was sweet.

Deacon went into the house and came back with fresh cold ones. Then he sat at my side, lifted his feet, and tangled them in mine.

Definitely.

Life was sweet.

* * * * *

“Seriously, no,” I said low.

“Is this gonna happen every fuckin’ time?” Deacon asked back, openly annoyed.

“No, because we’re gonna get this straight now.”

The gutters were done on all the cabins, cleaned, and the areas that needed replacing were replaced. Now, Deacon wanted to start work on my roof.

And he was intent on buying the shingles.

I was of an opposite mind.

Thus, we were standing in my foyer, facing off again.

I’d let him buy the groceries, no argument, not even to bust his chops because I’d had my words about him wandering off again so I thought that was enough for one day.

But he bought the gutters, including the replacement materials we needed for the cabins.

I was getting the shingles.

“You budget for shingles?” he asked.

“I have money,” I answered.

“That wasn’t my question.”

“No, but you know that since I didn’t even know I needed shingles. But it doesn’t matter. You’re clearly worried about the state of my roof and I don’t figure you’d be this fired up to take care of it if that concern wasn’t valid. And I’d rather have a problem fixed before it becomes a real problem. You take care of problems, even if they require money. Which, as I said, I have. Dad won’t let me pay him back and that’s partly because he wants me to have savings for a rainy day. This is literally that: taking care of something for a rainy day.”

His eyes slightly narrowed before he asked a bizarre question. “You buy your ex out?”

“Sorry?”

“That guy you scraped off, you buy him out of his part of this business?”

“He didn’t buy in. It’s always been all mine.”

He nodded once. “Right, this works out with us, is it gonna stay that way?”

I snapped my mouth shut because I hadn’t thought of that.

“Cassidy, I got work to do to leave the life I lead behind. I haven’t even started that ’cause I needed to get where you were at with this. With us. We’re new. We’re good. We stay good, that work starts happening. And when that life is done for me, what do you want me to do?”

I didn’t understand the question. “What do I want you to do?”

“Yeah. Do you want me to work at your side or find somethin’ else that takes my time, ’cause, so you know, I don’t need money in a way I won’t until I die.”

That made my mouth drop open.

I closed it only to open it again to say, “Seriously?”

“The work I do gets paid a whack. The life I lead doesn’t have a lot of overhead. Been doin’ this shit a while. Got enough money to live good, not large, but comfortable. That said, not a man to put my feet up and I suspect that’s in a way that I’ll never be that man. You want me at your side and workin’ this business with you, I’m down with that, and I buy the shingles as part of that buy-in that we’ll discuss fully when we’re there. You’re not down with that, you want this to be yours and me to have no part in it outside comin’ back to you after my day is done doin’ whatever it is I’ll be doin, you buy the shingles.”

“This is a big decision to make at this juncture, Deacon,” I noted carefully.

“I get you,” he replied. “But you’re right. The state of your roof, I don’t like it. Shit could happen and that shit might happen when I’m not with you to help you deal. So I want it fixed. So this decision needs to be made now.”

“These cabins…” I paused, took a breath and explained, “These cabins mean a lot to me, honey. I’ve put everything into these cabins. I love these cabins.”