Page 41 of The Inevitable Us

We drift off and rest our eyes, my nose buried in her hair. I love the scent. Citrus of some sort. When the alarm on my phone goes off, reminding me it’s time to get dressed for work, I groan loudly in protest at getting up. I’ve never been this comfortable before. My couch in storage is too small to cuddle like this. When we buy our own place, I’m buying an oversized fluffy couch that we can stretch out on.

“When do you work?” she asks, looking at the keys.

“Four pm to four am today. Just go to bed when you’re ready, and I’ll crawl in with you when I’m done.”

She bites her lip, seeming uncertain. “Maybe I should just go home…I feel like I’m in the way.”

I lean down and kiss her lips. “Stay. Please. I want to have supper with you and sleep with you when I can. Tomorrow when I wake up, we can spend the day together. Want me to call in some food for supper? There’s not a lot of places to eat out close by, but there’s a diner out on the main road…I can call in a to-go order later?”

“I’ll go pick it up since you’re going to work,” she offers. “You have more downtime on your dinner break.”

I start to refuse, but she has a good point. And it will give her something to do so she doesn’t feel like she’s twiddling her thumbs.

“Can you stop by the hardware store too? It’s next door. I’ll call in the order and have it ready for you.”

“Sure. Need anything else?”

I lean down and kiss her lips. “Nope, can’t think of anything.”

I walk Rosalie to the SUV, putting the address in the GPS in case she gets lost. I lean down to kiss her and shut the car door behind me. Jackson is walking towards his car, not looking in my direction when I walk to the main house to begin my start of shift inspection. I glare daggers at him as he drives off, still refusing to meet my gaze.

“So, who’s the girl?” a female voice teases behind me. “She’s awfully pretty, Sawyer. Are you breaking hearts here already?”

I turn to find Taylee watching me, her arms crossed. She’s wearing a hot pink gardening apron over a white linen dress and holding a gardening trowel that is the exact shade of the apron in her hand. My eyes narrow at her. “Where’s Jay?”

She’s rarely without him by her side. He usually keeps her in check and out of too much mischief. “He’s picking up bunnies that survived the California forest fires in the jet. The carpenters are here building a hutch for them now.” She gestures over to a once open field where a half dozen carpenters are at work.

She sighs deeply. “I had to put off my trip to help get the new bunnies acclimated. Can you take care of arranging things?”

Thank fuck. No way did I want to leave Rosalie this soon into us. Or at all… “That’s my job, Ma’am,” I say in response. I know there’s no chance of her altogether canceling the trip, but the brief reprieve gives me more time with Rosalie to cement things.

I’ve assumed that Taylee has every imaginable animal until now. This is the second time since I’ve known her that she’s proven me wrong. The first is when she brought home a pair of donkeys cleverly named Steve-O and Johnny Knoxville that were seized from a petting zoo three states away. I don’t know how she finds these animals, but somehow, she does.

She looks back at Rosalie driving down the driveway. “She looks a little familiar; I can’t seem to place her, though.”

Nope, not happening. I don’t know Taylee well enough to trust her with the knowledge that Rosalie is Ethan’s daughter. Left up to me, no one would know. She’s safer away from the stalkers and crazed fans in Ethan’s world.

Knowing Taylee, she’s met Tessa and sees the resemblance. “She used to work at that coffee shop downtown. The one next to the feed store.”

Taylee narrows her eyes at my car with a quiet “hrmp,” and her eyes go back to me, gazing up and down. “I’m sure that’s it.”

Itakemysupperbreak at seven, earlier than normal, but I don’t want Rosalie to wait too long to eat. She has the small dining room table set with a plate full of fried chicken, sautéed squash, turnip greens, and cornbread from the diner. I can smell Rosalie’s caramel apple crisp cooling. She must have decided to bake.

For once my kitchen smells like home.

Ranger comes over to me, laying a paw in my lap for attention.

She gestures over at Ranger. “Does he need to go out?”

“No, I let him out a bit earlier when he wandered into the office. He just wants attention.”

She watches as he goes back to his dog bed and lays down. “I didn’t even know you had a dog. How long have you had him?”

“Not long. I thought he...”I thought he’d keep you safe when I’m not around.“I thought he’d be good company. My apartment was always too quiet.”

“He’s well trained to have had him that short of a period of time,” she says before serving herself a portion of squash.

I hold out my plate as she scoops vegetables and a portion of cornbread on the plate. “He was bred and trained by a friend of mine to work for the county. He didn’t make the cut.”

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