Page 62 of After All

“Got it.”

They disconnected and Scott tried to focus on Chase. But the kid was doing a great job. And Scott’s mind wouldn’t stop. He hadn’t done any task force work for a while. And while he’d never had much of an urge to go to North Dakota before, now he couldn’t stop thinking about who in that little town he’d want to talk to, what he’d want to look at, and how damned much he wanted to clean up whatever was going on there. Cedar Downs might not be Sapphire Falls— the town he’d sworn to himself he’d protect no matter what— but he’d bet all of the cookies at Scott’s Sweets that people in Cedar Downs showed up for the high school football games whether their kid was playing or not, and that they had some big Christmas tradition in town, and that parents loved the fact that their kids could ride their bikes up and down the neighborhood sidewalks without fear.

Fuck. Every town should be like that. And the people who went in and ruined that sense of peace and safety and happiness should be brought down.

* * *

Peyton walkedin the door just after five. And just like that, Scott felt the churning in his gut stop. He’d been wound up ever since Lance’s call, but Peyton coming in through his back door like she owned the place, made it all better.

Scott turned from taking the homemade pizza out of the oven.

She took a deep breath of the oregano scented air and groaned. “Really?”

He nodded. “Really. How are your panties?”

She sighed. “So this is how it’s going to be.”

“Absolutely.” Yeah, he needed this. He needed her. To make him forget about the bad stuff out in the world for a while.

“Okay, then,” she said.

She came toward him and Scott tensed. Not in a bad, way but in a very good, instantly hard-as-a-rock, I’m-so-ready-for-this way.

But instead of wrapping herself around him, Peyton bent to grab another pizza pan from the cupboard. She transferred the pizza from the hot pan to the cold one, picked it up and started for the door.

“You’re kidnapping my pizza?” he asked.

“Nope. You sexied the kitchen up with oregano and pizza. So, I’m going tosweetenthis up by making it a picnic while we watch the sunset.”

He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d said she wanted to give the pizza to the squirrels in his backyard. “A picnic?”

“Come on, tough guy, you’ve been on a picnic before, right?” she asked with a mischievous smile.

Oh, yeah, he was all over this. “Actually, not since I was a kid,” he said, moving toward the cupboards where he stored his liquor. They might be going for a romantic drive to watch the sunset, but after the sun went down, the stars came up, and he had some ideas. “Have you been on a lot of picnics?”

He glanced at her when she didn’t respond right away. She was frowning.

“Now that you mention it, no,” she said. “Huh.”

He grinned. “You didn’t realize that you haven’t been on a lot of picnics?”

She shrugged. “The idea just came to me automatically. That’s kind of weird.”

It wasn’t one bit weird, but he wasn’t going to get into that. Peyton was still a little squeamish about things like being head over heels for him.

“I guess I’m better at the sweet stuff in person,” she said.

“What’s that mean?” he asked, moving to stand in front of her, a bottle of blue curacao in one hand and a bottle of peach schnapps in the other.

She lifted her shoulder again. “I kind of blew it with the sweet texts, but I think I can counter your sexiness in person.”

She’d done a hell of a job with the texting, but again, he wasn’t sure she was ready to hear all about how head over heelshewas either.

“You’re better at dirty texting?” he asked. He didn’t really want her to answer that. He didn’t want to know about her texting with other guys, dirty or otherwise.

But she shook her head. “I’ve never really done dirty texting.”

“Really?”

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