Page 102 of Hot Cops

“And the third,” she continued for him, “was the two of you walking along the Inner Harbor for hours, just holding hands and talking, amazed by how much you had in common.” She said it in a dreamy, faraway voice, teasing him for what she perceived was a flaw. Only Sunnie would see romance as a shortcoming.

Of course, she wasn’t wrong about the third date, which just proved to him she’d been paying attention more than he realized to his relationship with Audrey.

Rather than give her the point, he joked, “I swear to God you were dropped on your head as a baby. It’s the only thing that could explain you growing up with Aaron and Riley and thinking romance is cheesy.”

She laughed. “Probably. So what was this magical fourth date?”

“We met you and Finn and a bunch of other Collinses at the pub for karaoke.”

“Oh yeah. I remember that night.”

“She fit in, thought all of you were awesome. We left at closing time and we were walking toward my car. She kept going on and on about what a great family you were and…I kissed her. And I knew—thought—she was the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with. She was fine with my job, good with kids, said she wanted to get married, rooted for all the same sports teams, watched all the same TV shows, and she loved all of you.”

“That sort of sounds like a checklist.”

It did, but he hadn’t thought of it that way until he’d said it all out loud. “I guess it does.”

“Wow. That might be the least romantic thing you’ve ever said.”

Landon nodded, feeling slightly off-balance. He’d spent months after Audrey left feeling as if he was trying to rebound from a broken heart. Now it seemed as if that depression was based more onwhathe’d lost, notwhohe’d lost. “I think it is.”

“It’s that marriage problem of yours.”

“Problem?” he asked.

“You want a wife and kids like…yesterday.”

“I don’t think that’s a problem, Sunnie.”

“Hear me out,” she continued. “It was just you and your mom, pretty much your whole life. That had to be quiet and lonely. Then you’d come over to our house, where it was noise and chaos and insanity, and for some weird reason, you liked that. A lot.”

“I did…do. I don’t think it’s any secret I look up to your dad. I look at his life and I know it’s what I want. More than that, he’s the kind of man I want to be. He was always really good to me, Sunnie. I was starving for a guy to pay attention to me, to toss the ball around, even just to give me hell for failing my spelling test.”

“You’re a shit speller.”

He grinned, even though he couldn’t quite figure out what her point was. “What’s wrong with wanting to live a life like Aaron Young?”

“Not a damn thing,” she said quickly. “If you manage that, you’ll have a pretty freaking great life. I just…” She sighed. “I just hope you let it happen naturally. I’m pretty sure my dad didn’t have a perfect wife checklist, and I can promise you, if he did, Mom didn’t check one single box. She struggled—hell, shestillstruggles—with his job, she’s way more social than he is, constantly dragging him to places he doesn’t want to go, and while they both wanted kids, Mom wanted eight, but Dad put his foot down at three. Personally, I blame Darcy. She was a handful.”

Landon gave her a look that said he wasn’t going there because they both knew the truth. Darcy had been the perfect baby.

Sunnie continued, completely oblivious to what she was doing—solidifying something that was becoming more obvious by the second. “Just make sure you pick a woman based on the right reasons. Audrey might have checked all the boxes, but I’m not sure that made her the one. You know what I mean?”

Landon nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.”

He loved Sunnie.

She was imperfectly perfect for him.

“Cool,” she said, clueless to what she’d just unleashed.

Landon glanced at the time on his phone. “We better get going.”

She took his hand this time, winking at what she considered great acting. He squeezed it fondly and they left the coffee shop.

Two hours later, Landon found himself sitting on a couch with Sunnie on the set of the morning show. She’d been right. He hated sitting in front of the cameras, under the lights. He felt like a jackass.

Landon had turned down countless requests for interviews, but he’d decided to bite the bullet on this one because he knew it was one of Sunnie’s favorite shows. And given the grin on her face, she definitely loved every minute of it.

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