Page 105 of Boston
“I have to go,” he said. “Cora is expecting me for dinner.”
“Yes, she’s texted four times.”
“How do you know that?” Boston asked, swiping his phone from his desk where he’d laid it face down.
“Because you have a special sound for her.” Julie grinned at him and abandoned her work completely. “Things are going well with her, right?”
“Yes,” Boston said, focused on his phone and not wanting to talk about his intimate relationship with their boss. He quickly typed, hoping to leave immediately after.I’m on the way right now. Do I have time to shower?
I don’t think I have any clean clothes for you at my place,Cora texted, and Boston’s mood lifted. This was the kind ofteasing he liked, and he could also admit that he liked that he could shower and change here and then go hang out with Cash later.
“Thank you for the brownie, Jules,” he said, and he moved around the desk and kissed the top of her head. “You’ve got everything you need. You’re keeping caught up?”
“Even if I wasn’t,” she said. “I wouldn’t ask you to help. You have way too much going on.”
Boston did feel extremely stretched thin, and he nodded, and headed for the exit. “All right. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Yep,” Julie said, and Boston hurried back to his apartment, showered and changed his clothes, and then ducked through the woods to Cora’s.
She met him at the front door in an apron long enough to cover her shorts, and a wooden spoon in her hand that looked dangerously like it had brownie batter on it.
“Hey, cowboy.” She licked the spoon, and Boston rushed her, slamming the door behind him as he took her giggling into his arms and kissed her.
“I have had the longest day ever,” he groaned.
“Yes, Momma said you got the drinking party.”
Boston collapsed on the couch, pulling Cora with him. She squealed and lifted the batter-covered spoon into the air so that it wouldn’t mash against her clothes or the couch.
“Boston.”
“Just lay with me for a minute,” he said. “I’m so tired.”
He’d lost his cowboy hat in the kiss, and he didn’t even care as he settled the pillow under his head and Cora curled her back against his chest.
“I got adrinkingparty today?”
“Momma says that e-commerce group comes every year, and those four ladies always come in early, and they sneak intonsof wine.”
“I didn’t think you could bring outside alcohol to Silver Sage.”
“Oh, you can’t,” Cora said. “I had housekeeping remove it all while they were out with you today.”
“Oh, boy.” Boston chuckled, imagining Shawna and Rebecca and how livid that would make them. And Andie? This wasn’t going to go well. “They’re not going to like that.”
“Momma says she’s dealt with them before, and she gave them her personal number, and said that they could call her if they had a problem with it, and they could pick up their bottles when they checked out.”
Boston snuggled his face into Cora’s hair and breathed deeply. He exhaled as he said, “You’re so soft and warm,” already halfway to sleep.
“You stay here,” Cora said, her voice tender. She sat up and then stood. Boston couldn’t open his eyes, but he sure enjoyed the trail of her fingers across his forehead as she pushed his hair back. “Dinner’s another twenty minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” he murmured, and he heard her footsteps recede…one, two, three…and then he was gone.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
Cora ate her baked egg pancake with a healthy sprinkling of sugar and a huge splash of maple syrup, along with a whole pile of strawberries and blueberries. In front of her, a game show played without sound on the TV. Boston had fallen asleep before she’d even returned to the kitchen to slice the fruit, and she didn’t have the heart to wake him.
