Page 10 of Stitch & Steel
“Yeah. Like poker or gin or rummy or whatever.” She waved her hand in the direction of a deck sitting on a nearby bookshelf. “I figured, you know, if you’re staying a minute…”
I just stared at her.
She rushed to fill the silence. “It’s fine if not. You probably don’t even play. I just—God, forget it?—”
I cut her off, voice low and full of that dry edge she hadn’t figured out yet. “Bella, darling…”
She froze.
I stepped in a little closer, just enough to feel the shift in the air.
“Men like me don’t sip iced tea and play cards.”
Her mouth opened, cheeks flushed.
I let the tension hang, just long enough to make her squirm, then added with a smirk, “But maybe I’ll make an exception.”
Her shoulders dropped an inch, tension fading into something warmer. “Wow,” she said, eyeing me over the rim of her glass. “Was that a joke?”
“I think it might’ve been.”
She grabbed the deck from the shelf, hands finally steady. “Alright, tough guy. Let’s see if your poker face is as scary as your machete swing.”
I took the seat across from her, stretching out my legs, watching the light dance on her cheekbones.
I hadn’t planned on staying.
But somehow, this felt like exactly where I was supposed to be.
Bella dealt the cards like she meant business. She sat straighter now, back against the chair, one knee pulled up beneath her in that way women do when they’re trying to look casual and not like their world’s just been knocked sideways.
I let her win the first hand.
Okay, maybe she actually beat me fair and square, but I told myself I let her win.
We were halfway through a second round—her brow furrowed, biting her lip in concentration—when the screen door creaked open behind us.
“Bella Grace? You better not be using my good shears on the poison ivy again!”
Bella dropped her cards. “Gran?”
A moment later, the unmistakable sound of grocery bags rustling and soft-soled shoes on hardwood had Gran appearing in the doorway, cheeks flushed, a paper bag tucked under each arm.
She spotted me instantly.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Logan Carter, is that you in my kitchen again?”
I stood, dipping my chin. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You didn’t let her operate power tools unsupervised, did you?”
Bella groaned. “Gran!”
“I might’ve saved her from amputating her own ankle,” I said.
“See?” Gran beamed. “That’s why I like him.”
She plopped the bags on the counter and started unpacking like this was the most normal thing in the world—just a bikerin leather and boots playing gin rummy in her kitchen with her granddaughter.
