CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR Ginger
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Ginger
35 days to go
“ B ut you will still be here when I come home?” Mabel asks as I secure her first braid and start on her second. She’s all packed and ready to go to Ernie and Trudy’s cottage for the week.
“Yes. I’ll be here,” I say.
I can’t tell her that I’m also worrying about the impending “end of contract” that is approaching faster than I want it to. When Mabel gets back from the cottage, I’ll have a month until I’m due to leave.
“I’ll be here until after we pick all the peppers and the tomatoes, remember?” I remind her, figuring the easiest way to give her a timestamp is with our garden.
“Can we check them before I leave?” she asks, and I can sense her nervousness. Over the last few weeks, I’ve learned that, as tough as Mabel is, she seems to carry a lot of anxiety about leaving Cole for any length of time.
I squeeze her hand.
“Of course we can,” I say. “Would it make you feel better if I sent your Grammie Trudy a picture of the garden every day while you’re gone? Or I could even video-call you?”
“At the same time every day?” she asks, looking for that stability she craves.
“Yes definitely,” I say. “How about every day after dinner?”
Her response is a hug, and one I’m not totally prepared for as her little arms curl around my neck. I wrap her up and squeeze her tight.
“I will miss you,” she says, and warmth floods my chest.
She pulls back and grabs her Cowey, gripping him tightly to her. Something about this brave little girl makes me want to pick her up and put her in my pocket for safekeeping.
“I’m going to miss you too,” I tell her. “But when you come home, we’re going to do all sorts of fun things.”
“Can we swim?” she asks.
“Of course.”
“Can we eat ice cream and have extra chocolate sauce.”
I laugh. “Yes, baby. Now, let’s check on those peppers,” I say as I pick up Mabel’s bag and lead her out of her little ensuite bathroom.
We’re met by Cole leaning against the doorway of her bedroom. The sight of him sucks all the air from my lungs. He’s dressed in his sheriff’s uniform, ready for his once-a-month Sunday shift. It just so happens to coincide with our traditional Sangria Sunday and, even though it’s been a busy summer and we haven’t gotten together for it lately, tonight all of us girls are going. CeCe and Nash are leaving for their honeymoon in Alaska tomorrow and we’re celebrating Not Angels style, which means we’ll be dancing and drinking sangria all night while trying our best to stay out of trouble.
“I didn’t even hear you come in,” I tell him. His eyes say something I can’t place as he clears his throat.
“You ready, Half Pint?” he asks, scrubbing his freshly shaved jaw with his hand.
Mabel nods in response.
“You’re going to have so much fun with Lolli and Pops this week. They’re taking you to Waterworld and you can play with Sara Ann. She’s there for the whole week too,” Cole tells her.
“She is?” Her face lights up before she turns to me. “Sara Ann is my friend who lives next door when her mommy comes. Come on, Ginger, we need to check on the garden.”
Mabel skips out of her room, leaving me to stand here awkwardly while Cole drinks me in. I look away because there are still times when his gaze makes me nervous, like he’s trying to figure out what to do about our little domestic situation just as much as I am. And I’m not sure I’m quite ready to have him remind me my days are numbered when it comes to this little game of house we’re playing.
I move past the bed and grab Mabel’s bag, then make my way to the door. Cole is leaning against the doorframe and grabs my arm as I pass, pulling me in close and kissing me. Cole and I kiss, a lot. But this feels different … deeper and more urgent.
“Thank you,” he says when we break apart. He kisses me again, more gently this time, before saying, “For being so incredible with her. She really loves having you here.”
I look out to the living room where Mabel skipped off to only moments before.
Cole bends down to whisper in my ear. “And she’s not the only one that loves having you here.”
A shiver runs down my spine and I push closer to him. “You planning on showing me how much you love having me here when you get home, Sheriff?” I ask, before planting my lips on the base of his neck in a kiss. He smells so damn good I can’t help myself, flicking my tongue upward against his skin just once, like he’s my favorite flavor of ice cream.
He growls in response. “Fuck.” He squeezes my jean-clad ass with his big hands as he says it, lifting me off the floor slightly before releasing me. “I can’t get hard before I go to work, Ginger.”
I smirk, pressing my palm to his chest and looking him straight in the eye.
“For the record, being with Mabel is easy and …” I stand up on my tiptoes to kiss his lips softly. “I like you too, Cole.”
I slip from his grasp, throwing one last glance his way, before I head out to join Mabel in the yard.
We spend the next ten minutes checking all our plants in the garden.
“Should we tie these ones up?” Mabel asks as she spies two stalks of tomatoes that are leaning hard to the left.
“Yes, good idea,” I tell her, looking around me for our supplies. “Shoot. I forgot the twine.”
I turn to Cole, who’s standing in the doorway, his muscular arms crossed over his chest.
“Be a good teammate and get us the twine from my purse? It’s on the kitchen table,” I say with a wink.
“You almost ready to go, Mabes?” he calls a few minutes later when he comes back outside. “I have to go to work soon, buddy.”
“We just need to tie these and then she’s ready,” I answer for her, meeting him in the middle of the yard. “You’re the one who took so long.”
“There’s lots in that purse, Ginger. I had to dig around through lip balms, hand creams, bar menus …” Cole whispers with a grin.
I look up at him, and the smug facial expression he’s wearing tells me he saw the letter I wrote to myself on the bar menu in Vegas. The one where I declared I would quit Cole cold turkey. I mentally berate myself for never cleaning out my purse.
Shit .
Cole doesn’t say anything, he flips the menu over and notes where it’s from, all the dots connecting in his head as he stares deep into my eyes. I narrow mine at him in response.
“What?” I ask. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
A flush of embarrassment creeps up my neck.
“Just doing my best to turn you into a ‘puddle of scientific matter,’” he says with a grin, using my own words from the letter against me. I make a scoffing noise as I turn away from him.
“I wrote that as a joke,” I say, walking back to Mabel.
“No you didn’t, Vixen,” he notes confidently. “And we’re going to talk about that.”
“No, we aren’t,” I retort.
Mabel and I finish what we’re doing in the garden and, when I turn around to guide her to the door, Cole looks like a rooster puffing out his chest. Though the look he’s wearing isn’t cockiness as I move toward him. It’s … pride?
He knows I’m crazy about him and he seems to like it. I saw this look yesterday too; every time he glanced at me during Nash and CeCe’s wedding, as we danced through the night together, and especially when we got home and he took me twice before he got up and made us our coffee at five. There’s no denying these deep feelings between us.
I give in and smile at him, shrugging as I walk by. “Guess you know my secret,” I tell him, not even ashamed to admit it anymore.
We started this summer as friends with a clear plan to rectify a drunken mistake. But now? Now Cole Ashby is looking at me the same way I’ve been looking at him for years.
Fucking hell .
That sangria and my girls can’t come soon enough.