Page 55 of Love Me Sweet

Her answer was an elbow jab to his side.

He grinned. Over the past few days, things between them had settled into a comfortable routine. Despite the fact that they hadn’t slept together since he’d first arrived, Andrew felt closer to her than he had when they were sleeping together every night in Boston.

“Glad you could make it.” Cole clapped a hand on his back and smiled at Sylvie.

“Thanks for inviting us,” Sylvie glanced around, her eyes wide. “This must be one big book club.”

Meg slipped through the crowd to give Sylvie a hug. “Actually, the book club discussion is held in the kitchen after we eat. Females only. No males allowed.”

“Thank God.” Cole pretended to wipe sweat from his brow.

“There are a lot of men here,” Sylvie observed. “What do they do?”

It was the question on the tip of Andrew’s tongue. If Sylvie hadn’t asked it, he would have. He also wondered about all the children in the room.

“After we eat, the men are relegated to the Great Room to do, well, whatever they want to do. The children go downstairs. Whoever hosts is responsible for hiring the babysitters.” Meg’s gaze shifted from Andrew to Sylvie. “Keep that in mind when it’s your turn to host.”

Andrew saw Sylvie open her mouth, obviously to inform their host and hostess that he wouldn’t be around that long and she certainly didn’t have the space. But he spoke first. “Good to know.”

The ringing of a bell had them turning their heads.

“Time to eat.” Meg slipped her arm through Sylvie’s and led her toward the buffet tables.

“She needs this,” Andrew murmured, almost to himself. “This connection. It matters.”

“That’s the great thing about Jackson Hole,” Cole told him. “It doesn’t take long before you’re considered family.”

A family was something Sylvie had never experienced. If she’d stayed in Boston, he doubted she’d have found it there. His sister would have made her welcome but Corinne didn’t even live in the same country. His parents, while good people, weren’t the warm and fuzzy kind.

He thought of the argument he’d had with his father the night before Sylvie left. The old man had practically threatened to disown him if he married Sylvie. Though he knew his father wouldn’t have gone to that extreme, Andrew had felt the need to make it clear his loyalties lay with Sylvie.

It was too bad Sylvie hadn’t felt that same loyalty to him…

But the anger that had always surged whenever he thought of her leaving didn’t come. Instead, he was seized with a renewed determination to figure out just what had led her to leave him that particular night.

“I know you’ve been living in your friend’s place in Spring Gulch,” Cole said as they stood back and let the others swarm the food.

“It’s a nice enough place.”

“Are you thinking that’s the area where you’d like to build?” Cole rocked back on his heels. “Or are you looking at the mountains?”

Andrew hesitated. While he’d made no secret of the fact that he liked Jackson Hole, he wondered where Cole could have gotten the idea he was considering moving here? Not only moving here, but building a home.

Even as he pondered the thought, his gaze settled on Sylvie. He smiled when he saw her laughing with Poppy Campbell and Meg.

He pulled his gaze back to Cole, who was sipping a Dos Equis straight from the bottle. “My home is in Boston.”

“I grew up here,” Cole told him. “I got out as soon as I could and never planned to come back.”

“Why did you?”

A shadow crossed Cole’s face. “A couple that I was very close to were killed in a car accident. Meg and I, we weren’t together at the time, were given joint custody of their son, Charlie. His parents specified he be raised here.”

“Couldn’t you have gotten around that stipulation?”

“Probably. But in the end that stipulation ended up being the best thing for Meg, for me and for Charlie.” Cole took a long pull. “I’ve learned those crazy things often end up being unexpected blessings.”

Andrew’s thoughts went immediately to Sylvie. The way she’d left. They way he’d followed her here. The closeness that had developed between them.

Unexpected blessing?

Time, he decided, would tell that story.

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