Page 77 of Forbidden Flame

Chapter 17

Daphne

When Addy and Ember left, we ate dinner on the patio. I had no idea what Knox said to Cole, but I hoped he didn’t give him a hard time for hanging out with me. Even though I was friends with Sarah, Marley, and Ireland, there was still tension between the families.

For the most part, I only hung out with them at their invitation. I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, and I knew that Emmett had objected to my pies at the wedding.

But now that we were alone, I could forget about the feud and enjoy the evening.

“The sky is clear,” Cole said as we cleaned up the dishes and headed inside. “It’s the perfect night for stargazing.”

“Are we going to use a telescope to look at the planets? I do that with Grandpa,” Izzy said, dancing on her toes.

Cole winced slightly. “I don’t have a telescope. I have an app that tells us where everything is.”

“Grandpa said that’s cheating.”

I held my breath waiting to see how Cole would handle Izzy in this situation.

“Your grandpa might be right, but I don’t know the planets as well as he does.” Cole put the last dish in the machine and turned to face Izzy. “What do you say? You want to go stargazing in my truck?”

Izzy turned her pleading gaze to mine. “Can we, Mommy?”

I smiled at her eagerness. “Of course.”

“I bought fixings for s’mores,” Cole said, gathering a bag of marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate bars.

“We should have invited Addy and Ember.” Izzy’s voice was filled with uncertainty.

Cole chucked her under her chin. “Another time, okay? Tonight’s just for us.”

My heart squeezed. I loved that he wanted to spend time with just me and Izzy. Most guys would ignore that Izzy existed and only want to go on dates with me. But Cole found ways to include her. It made it hard not to feel even more for him.

I grabbed the sweatshirt I brought for Izzy, and we got into his truck to drive the short distance to the pond on their property.

Cole parked the truck so that it backed up to the water and next to a makeshift bonfire pit.

“You come out here a lot?” I asked as he gathered wood.

“We were here the morning of Sarah and Knox’s wedding. I’m surprised she didn’t complain that we all smelled of smoke at the wedding.”

I grinned. “I think she was so happy to be getting married.”

“It was nice to be included. The funniest part was that Emmett gave Knox marriage advice. I never thought I’d see the day that Emmett was in love.” Cole shook his head.

“He can be gruff, but he’s sweet with Ireland.”

Cole gave me a look. “Thank God for Ireland. She smooths his hard edges. You can always count on her to make him see things differently. In the past, he’d just get stuck on an idea, and he wouldn’t change his mind.”

I never thought I wanted a relationship. At least not until Izzy was older and I was more established with my business, but Cole made me consider it. I loved how he interacted with Izzy, and he encouraged me to be a better businesswoman.

Maybe I could influence him to have a relationship with his parents. I had a feeling he’d block any effort to push him in that direction. But wasn’t that what girlfriends did? But I was getting ahead of myself. No one had mentioned us being in a relationship.

“All right, you two, let’s cook some marshmallows. Then we’ll count the stars.”

Izzy moved next to Cole who was crouched by the fire. I sat on a log nearby.

Cole pushed the marshmallow onto the skewer, then handed it to her. “Hold it just like that. There you go.”

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