Page 20 of Return to You

“KJ was up at seven-thirty?”

“No. KJ was up at five-thirty. Both the boys were.”

She let out a harsh laugh. “Bullshit.”

He grinned; he couldn’t help it. That was the Ali he knew and loved. No one else dared to call bullshit on him, and even though she was wrong and his shit was no bull, he still loved that she’d done it.

“We went on a run. I talked to them last night about conditioning and they said they wanted to join me for my morning run.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Wow.”

Ali’s lips made a perfect O and the image had Kade picturing her doing other things with her smart-mouth besides give him grief.

“I don’t know what is more unbelievable, that KJ got up that early or that Ricky went on a run.”

Pride sprung in Kade’s chest but he squelched it. He hadn’t done anything remarkable. Not like Ali had.

He remained behind the dryer because he had another bit of information to divulge and he wasn’t sure how she would take it. He liked the idea of having a large, box of steel between them, just in case.

Treading so light he was sure not to break the eggshells he was walking on, he began, “I know that I don’t have any idea what you need, but after talking to the boys, we decided you deserved a day off. So Jess is going to be here in half an hour to take you out for a girls’ day.”

“A girls’ day? We’re twenty-eight years old,” she snapped back.

“You know what I mean,” he contended.

“And you know it sounds condescending.”

“I don’t get offended when I get written up as the Bad Boy of MMA. I don’t ask the reporters to call me the Bad Man of MMA,” Kade reasoned.

The corners of her perfect lips pulled up into a whisper of a grin. “Yeah, because that sounds like you’re some kind of child predator.”

“Exactly. So how does a woman’s day sound?”

Her small grin bloomed into a full-blown smile. “Like it should be on a commercial for menopause medication. Or adult diapers.”

That was one thing he’d always loved about Ali. She’d never had an issue admitting when he had a point, even if it contradicted hers. From the time Ali was old enough to talk, their dynamic consisted of mostly bickering and challenging one another. His favorite part was that neither of them had a problem admitting when the other got the best of them. If anything, they enjoyed being bested by a worthy opponent.

“So, Jess will pick you up for a girlfriend’s day in thirty minutes.”

“She can’t. I have Amos coming to the shop and I have to get—”

“I already talked to Amos,” Kade interjected.

“You talked to Amos?”

“Yep. He called this morning to say that he was sick and wasn’t going to be able to make it until Monday. I told him that was fine and that I’d go ahead and call Gil Simmons to get a bid on the work and since he still owed me a favor for setting him up with his now wife for junior prom, and I was pretty sure he’d cut me a good deal.”

Gil was Amos’s only competition in Whisper Lake. At least he had been the last time Kade had been in town. It was a bluff since Kade hadn’t actually set Misty and Gil up together directly. It was more indirectly since he’d dumped her the week before the dance.

“You can’t do that!” Ali shot back. “Amos has been our guy for decades and he’s sick.”

“He didn’t look too sick when the boys and I saw him packing his ice chest and rods in the back of his pickup before sunrise.”

Ali’s caramel eyes lit up with amusement. “He caught a bad case of gone-fishing-itis?”

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