She’s just wearing a towel when she walks out, her hair perfectly ringleted—my word—already. “Lilah is coming over to borrow a shirt that I’ll never see again,” she tells me as she leans against the counter next to me.
Most of her clothes are here now, considering we kept going and getting more and more.
I cage her in, and she grins when I kiss her. I’m still kissing her when we hear an obnoxious throat clearing.
“I knocked like five times. You two could come up for air on occasion.” Lilah Vincent.
Always a Vincent.
Soon, it’ll always be a Malone when we swap corners of the lake.
I’m not sure which is worse.
When I break the kiss, Kylie is immediately firing back, “Says the girl who just got in trouble having for sex with her husband in the back parking lot of the hardware store.”
Lilah bats a dismissive hand. “Benson’s hot when he gets jealous, and he always gets jealous in the hardware store because of all the guys who aren’t even really checking me out. All they have to do is sneeze in my direction and he’s got his hands all over me. Besides, we’re in the honeymoon phase.”
“Usually the honeymoon phase ends before the actual honeymoon,” I tell her.
Kylie is pouring some orange juice, still trapped in my cage.
“I need to finish my hair,” Kylie tells me, leaning up to kiss my cheek. “Just get whatever shirt you want, but return it,” she calls to Lilah before she heads into the bathroom.
I let her go, watching her until she’s out of sight, and I dart a look at Lilah. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Sure. What?” she asks.
I check to make sure Kylie can’t hear me, then I walk over, grab Lilah by the arm, and drag her quickly toward one of the back guest rooms.
“If this is a ploy to make it put the lotion on, you should know my husband is a total ninja—holy crap,” she says, her eyes widening when I jerk open the closet door that opens into a huge walk-in closet full of…boots. Lots of brand new boots.
“Cheese and rice on a bed of guacamole,” she says, not making a bit of sense as she looks over the obnoxious amount of boots I’m hiding.
“I bought all these for her during the year we were apart. I was going to give it to her as a grand gesture if she wouldn’t have anything to do with me once I found her. Now…I’m already building her dream cabin, with the intentions of giving it to her until she decides how serious she wants to be with me. I don’t want to throw these at her too. It’ll feel like I’m trying to buy her affections, and I’ve been down that road. It’d be stupid to repeat the same mistakes.”
Lilah turns to me, lips pursing. “You won’t ever be able to buy Kylie, Liam. She loves the cabin you’re building—that she thinks is for you, by the way—because of the thought that went behind it. She’d love the boots because of the thought that would have gone into selecting them. It has nothing to do with the price tag.”
I lean back, checking to make sure I can’t hear Kylie. “Just come by later and get them out of here. I’ll save them for a holiday or something. I just…just get them, okay?”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. You’re being ridiculous, but fine. Why are you acting so nervous?”
I smile tightly. “I’m just trying not to mess anything up. Last time around, we had three incredible weeks before I really fucking blew it.”
“And now it’s been three weeks again?” she guesses.
“You can see the reason for the slight panic attack.”
“As long as your girlfriend doesn’t show up from a business trip, you’ll be fine,” she assures me.
Of course she told Lilah.
“I can assure you I only have one girlfriend, and I’m not quite sure she realizes she’s my girlfriend.”
Lilah snorts. “Trust me, she knows. You’ll be fine, Liam. Stop worrying.”
“I never want to be the reason she has that look on her face again, Lilah. You didn’t see what it was like. Every bit of everything was sucked out of her that day. I’m still—”
“Trying to seek penance for something she’s clearly forgiven and moved on from? It took her less than two days to end up back in your evil clutches. Stop freaking out. You’re giving me anxiety, and I’m trying not to change anything about my body in case it somehow messes up the birth control I’m truly depending on right now.”
It takes me a second to follow all that.
“Just hide the boots. And I’ll get them when there’s a good time to give them to her without it looking like I’m showering her with gifts all the time.”