Page 6 of Hung Up on the Hacker

The kid’s eyes got big as saucers. “You mean… she can’t sing good like you can?”

“Can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” Cash informed her. “Your dad got all the musical talent in the family.”

“Not that it ever stopped Had from trying.”

Hadley crossed her arms with a huff. “What I lack in skill, I make up for with enthusiasm.”

Cayla snickered and shot a significant look at her daughter. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

“Maybe my genes will win out with the next one.” Holt grinned and tugged his wife in for a kiss.

“The next one?” Cash blinked and glanced at Cayla. “Are you—?”

She just smiled. “Not yet. But that’s the plan.”

“Wow. Congrats. Good luck with that.”

Another kid. On purpose. Cash couldn’t quite wrap his brain around it. He’d never thought about children. He wasn’t a guy who’d thought much about the future. Not beyond the end of the week. The month. The mission. For so much of his life, there’d been no guarantee that he’d have a future. But being with Hadley had made him dream about it.

He could see her in his future. Wanted her as his wife. But he hadn’t thought beyond that to what their life together would look like. Obviously, that wasn’t something he could decide on his own. He had to actually have a conversation with her. And there were all those pertinent details, like telling her he loved her and asking her to marry him, and so on and so forth. Talking about the future that they’d been very careful to tiptoe around all these months as she’d slowly, inexorably become entwined in his life.

He wondered how she’d feel about the idea of family. Of kids. Was she as leery of all that as he was? With what they’d both come from, he wouldn’t be surprised if she also felt a bit at war with herself over the subject. Would they be doomed to repeat the mistakes of their parents? God knew they’d had terrible examples. Or would they make better parents because they knew the things not to do?

It hardly mattered. The entire subject was very much getting ahead of things. They simply weren’t there yet, and he needed to slow his roll. But standing in this cozy kitchen, with his brother of the heart and his family, for the first time, Cash thought he wanted to look into all of it.

Hadley glanced up and down the hall of The Misfit Inn. Cash’s room was on the third floor—a fact she knew courtesy of the innkeeper’s excessively romantic, matchmaking teenage daughter, whom she’d met on a prior visit.

Thank you, Ari.

So long as she was quick, nobody would be around to see. Tugging a couple of bobby pins from her hair, she bent to the lock, sliding them in and carefully working the tumblers. Five seconds later, she slipped inside, quietly closing the door. Cash wouldn’t be far behind. She had maybe a five- or ten-minute lead on him leaving her brother’s house.

Slipping the pins into her pocket, she prowled the room. The queen-size bed butted up against the one flat wall. The rest of the room was octagonal, in the turret of the old Victorian that had been converted to a B and B. Lace curtains hung at the many windows looking out over what she knew would be a gorgeous view of the Appalachians once the sun rose. For now, the dark pressed in, lending a sense of intimacy to the space. It was a romantic room. One of the few in the inn with an en-suite bath. A clawfoot tub was tucked inside, next to a pedestal sink. Under other circumstances, she’d have run a bath and been waiting for Cash when he got back. But at the moment, they needed to clear the air. She had apologies to make.

Exhausted from keeping up the just-friends act all through dinner, Hadley dropped onto his bed to wait, snuggling into the soft down comforter and cozy pillows.

What felt like seconds later, a rough male voice rasped in her ear. “Who’s this sleeping in my bed like Goldilocks?”

She blinked her eyes open, realizing she’d fallen asleep.

Cash braced himself over her, his eyes full of amusement and heat. “Did you steal a key?”

Her lips twitched. “Who needs a key? I was taught to pick locks by one of the best.”

As that had been him, he was hardly in a position to argue.

He huffed a laugh.

Before he could pull back, she reached up to stroke a hand along the dark scruff of his cheek. “I’m sorry for walking out yesterday. It seemed a better alternative than raging at you.”

“I could’ve handled it better. Springing that on you right after you woke up, before you’d even had coffee, was not my brightest decision.”

To say Hadley wasn’t a morning person was a vast understatement. Her business stayed open late, so she started late, and she liked it that way.

“Notes for the future,” she quipped.

His gaze turned serious. “You want there to be one?”

Her heart began to pound out a drum solo. How could she say an unequivocal yes? No matter how much she wanted it, the idea of admitting it out loud absolutely terrified her. So she deflected. “I don’t want there not to be one. And I get where you’re coming from. Why we have to tell Holt. That’s why I came down. I thought if I was here, the explosion wouldn’t be quite as big. Because I really don’t expect him to take this well. That was part of why I didn’t want to tell him in the first place.”

---