Page 15 of Secrets on the Mountain

I can't think of an argument to his logic, and also, I'm eager to join Cane in the kitchen and see how our first day as a family is going to go.

"Can I take a shower at least?" Asking the four-year-old for permission isn't part of our usual routine, but things are off for us and I want Donner to spend his first full day here feeling safe and confident.

My simple request is met with a pointed frown that tells me he's probably been awake for an hour already, patiently waiting till he saw the big seven on my phone's clock before waking me up.

"Let's go explore Cane's kitchen and see what we can find for breakfast. I'll take a shower later, sound like a plan?"

"Hurricane, Mommy," Donner corrects me, pulling my hand to drag me out of bed. "His name is Hurricane, remember?"

Despite the awkward introductions yesterday, Donner took to both Raine and Hurricane, immediately deciding that men with equally stormy names were meant to be his people. Raine taking him to see the horses didn't hurt either.

"I remember, baby. Mommy's known Hurricane since before you were born, so she can call him Cane."

I'm met with a skeptical eye as I let Don lead me out of the guest bedroom and into the kitchen.

I'm surprised to find the house still quiet. Cane was always up with the sun and usually had coffee brewed and waiting for me by the time I crawled out of bed.

The early morning sunlight seeps through highlights along the high ceiling, giving the kitchen and living room a warm glow that makes it hard to stay groggy for long as I bumble through the process of discovering where the coffee is kept and how to work the automatic machine.

"Do you think Cane has cereal?"

Donner climbs up on one of the chairs that flanks the wide, granite island, and stares hopefully up at a cabinet.

"I do not have cereal," Cane's voice reverberates off the walls, loud in the sleepy house and entirely too chipper for such a tender hour of the morning. "But I can make pancakes shaped like dinosaurs, how's that sound?"

Cane looks different than he did yesterday, as he closes the door of the room he just emerged from behind him. He's showered this morning, his dirty blonde hair still damp and uncombed, looking like it did after I'd had my fingers in it. He's dressed in worn jeans that fit loose at the waist and snug across his massive thighs and a navy-blue t-shirt that clings to his sculpted torso in a way that has me remembering exactly what those muscles feel like.

This morning there's a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as soon as he sees Donner and I in the kitchen. The furrowed brow has relaxed, and the stiff set of his shoulders has eased.

Heat blooms in my core and I try not to give away the way his molten stare flusters me as he joins us in the kitchen.

"Coffee for you-- in forty seconds." He flips a switch on the machine I was just trying to figure out, and it instantly begins to fill the house with the rich aroma of God's apology for making mornings come so early.

From the cupboard overhead, he hands me a heavy, ceramic mug with Moonshine Ridge's town logo stamped into a clay medallion on the front.

A minute later, there's enough coffee brewed to fill my mug and Cane has Donner helping him by adding a worrisome number of miniature chocolate chips to a bowl of pancake batter.

"I think I heard you saying you wanted to ride the horses yesterday, is that right?" Cane hands Don the whisk to mix the chocolate pieces into the batter while he heats the griddle on the stove top and searches a utensil drawer for a small soup ladle.

"Yeah, Raine said I had to ask Mom but she wasn't in a very good mood yesterday."

I find creamer in the refrigerator and let the caffeine work its magic, doing my best not to think about the bad mood my son is referring to.

Cane laughs and shoots me a knowing side eye and a grin that's about as far as where we started yesterday as the moon is from Neverland.

"Maybe you should ask her now," Cane says with a chuckle as he ladles pancake batter onto the griddle in an oblong shape.

Donner peers around Cane's bulky frame and watches me wearily as I sip from my coffee. Then he straightens back up and looks up at Cane.

"She not done with her coffee yet," my son whisper-shouts, schooling Hurricane on the best practices for how to deal with me before noon.

* * *

Hurricane

Junie pretends to hide her smile behind the rim of the mug when Donner warns me that asking her for anything during the first cup of coffee is a sure way to start the day off wrong.

I make a show of leaning over to look into Junie's mug, checking to see how much longer we have to wait. When I give her a wink, she blushes so pretty, it's hard to remember that we're nowhere near the point of early morning breakfast kisses yet.

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