Epilogue
“Are you slicing that cheese or eating it?”
“Both,” Sassy answered handily. She ducked to avoid her mother’s swipe. Stuffing another pinch of shredded cheddar into her mouth, she backed away from the prep count-er where she and Bly had been working for some time. “Come on. I’m starving.”
Bly shook her head, raising the mixing spoon gripped tight in her fist. “You never learn, Haseya.”
Perhaps not. But she loved the sight of her mother in her kitchen. Her smile faded swiftly as her mother’s eyes warmed in understanding.
There had been talk amongst her parents for weeks about her selling the house after the break-in. However, Sassy had finally made the two worrywarts see her side of things.
She’d had dreams for this house—dreams she hadn’t made happen at that point, and she wanted them to come true.
In the weeks after the flood, she had convinced Nick and Riot to move in with her.
On the outside, the transition seemed speedy.
Anyone who knew the two of them, though, had no trouble understanding why they’d done it.
Their bond was ironclad, they’d already built a solid footing on top of which they were now actively constructing a lasting relationship, and after everything that had happened between Ryder and the storm, Sassy found sleep difficult to achieve without burrowing into the safety of Nick’s arms every night.
They’d recently moved back into her bedroom now that the carpet had been replaced by warm-toned hardwood floors and the mattress even had been hauled off to make room for its new memory foam replacement.
They’d picked out sheets together. It wasn’t china patterns, but they’d taken the task seriously regardless.
Then they’d spent the next few days christening each new set of linens properly.
The idea of having her family over at the end of what had been the house’s extensive reno period had come after she and Nick put the last coat of paint on the living room walls. It had been part of her dream, after all, to have all the Coltons under one roof.
Nick had agreed the house was ready for company.
After they’d cleaned up the paint supplies, they’d collapsed on the couch, fought over the remote, playfully switching between the cooking show she’d started watching to glean culinary inspiration (they couldn’t very well eat takeout for the rest of their lives) and old sci-fi series reruns he enjoyed winding down to.
After spilling beer and popcorn, Sassy and Nick had spent the rest of the night…well, not fighting.
The memory brought her smile back in full force. She glanced over her mother’s shoulder to the woman stirring a pot of mashed potatoes on the stovetop. “How’s it coming, Aunt Sherry?”
Sherry held up her large stirring spoon with a cheery grin. “If it sticks to the spoon, it’ll stick to your ribs.”
“Just the way I like it,” Sassy said.
Ava came into the room, Gracie snug against her shoulder.
She set a bottle on the edge of the counter and began gently patting the baby’s back.
“Fed and changed,” she announced. Touching a kiss just above Gracie’s tiny ear, she rocked side to side.
“Chay set up the pack-and-play in your room for naptime. I hope that’s okay. ”
“That’s perfect,” Sassy murmured, leaning in to get a better look at Gracie’s heavy eyelids and contented expression. “Are you sleepy, baby girl?”
Gracie mimicked Sassy’s smile and cooed.
Ava laughed quietly. “She likes you. Maybe you and Uncle Nick can babysit soon.”
Sassy loved the sound of Uncle Nick. She enjoyed the fact that her family had accepted him into the fold.
Not one of them had questioned their leap into cohabitation.
None of them had seemed surprised, either.
Her parents in particular were thrilled, and Ryan had been claiming credit for the whole affair.
“Want me to take her?” Sabrina asked, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She had finished arranging fresh flowers in two vases—one for Fern and another for Margot. “You can take a break. Try some of that sangria Sassy made. It’s actually pretty good.”
“Hey,” Sassy said in mock-offense. “I make things.”
Ava chuckled as she transferred Gracie into Sabrina’s arms. She draped her baby blanket around her. “The last thing I saw you make was boxed mac-and-cheese.”
Bly picked up the conversation. “It burned.”
Sherry shook her head. “How do you burn boxed mac-and-cheese, Sassy? The instructions are right there in front of you.”
“I got distracted,” Sassy pointed out.
“By the packet of cheese,” Ava remembered, “which you consumed while the pasta burned.” She wrapped Sassy in a sidelong hug to soften the impact of her teasing. “Though I will say, I think you did the whole thing just to make me laugh.”
Sassy mimed zipping the corner of her mouth. At the time, Ava had been enduring the loss of a loved one. Sassy had known she couldn’t make her a gourmet meal. Hence, the mac-and-cheese incident. “We should take this pitcher of sangria out to the boys.”
“Excellent idea,” Ava agreed, pouring herself a glass. She poured one for Sassy, too. “Let’s see if their glasses are empty.”
They carried the drinks out to the porch where the grill smoked and smelled deliciously of pork rub and smoked baby back ribs. Sassy’s mouth watered as she set the sangria pitcher in the center of the outdoor table. “Where is everyone?”
Ava took her glass to the porch railing. “Oh. Oh, my.”
Sassy joined her. Her eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “There’s something you don’t see every day.”
The men had abandoned the sacred duty of manning the grill to engage in what looked like an intense game of Shirts and Skins with her uncles and Noah in shirts and the other men—Nick, Ryan, Jacob and Chay—without.
It had rained again recently, not enough to cause the river to spill its bank again and wreak more havoc.
But enough to muddy the yard. They were each coated with enough muck for Sassy to assume they had decided against touch football but had opted for the real deal.
Ava beamed when Chay spotted her on the porch and extended a wave. She waved back, sipping her sangria. “My money’s on one of the uncles breaking a rib.”
“Mine’s on burnt ribs,” Sassy chimed, watching Nick take a tackle into a mud puddle like a champ.
She was going to have to help him wash that out of his hair.
Dual showers were another benefit of coupledom she was enjoying immensely.
Just thinking about the both of them sliding up against each other under the steaming hot spray thrilled her. “Let’s go, Team Skins!”
Richie planted his hands on his knees, winded. “Betrayed by my own daughter.”
“I don’t know, Sassy.” Nick tossed the football into the air and caught it. “Your old man hits like a sack of bricks.”
“Old man,” Richie muttered. On the next play, he targeted Nick, tackling him into a particularly gooey patch of earth.
“Oof,” Ava said, wrinkling her nose. “Bly won’t let either of them inside.”
Sassy cackled as her father and partner struggled to stand in the slip-and-slide ooze. They toppled, going down in the mud once more. “You men need help?”
“They’re beating us,” Ryan complained, slicked with sweat and breathing heavy. He put his hands on his head. “Twenty-four to seven.”
Nick beckoned her. “Sassy. We need you.”
She debated, examining the messy yard, the messy men, and the messy dog prancing around them like it was the best day of his canine life. Riot barked, as if inviting her into the fray. She sighed and handed her favorite cousin her sangria glass. “Ava… I’m going in.”
“Oh, boy,” Ava said with a fond shake of her head.
Sassy stripped off her t-shirt, revealing the sports bra underneath. As she came down the porch steps, Chay, Jacob and Nick applauded while Ryan called out, “Secret weapon!”
“This gives you kids five,” her uncle Sam said, spinning the football between his hands, “but we’ll still kick your butts.” He high-fived his brothers.
“Bring it on,” Sassy invited. She clasped Nick’s outstretched hand and tugged him out of the mud.
His front buffered hers as he came to his feet and she steadied him with her arms around his middle.
Mud transferred from him to her, but she didn’t give a hoot.
He was dirty and sweaty, mud caked over half his face, and his tawny lion eyes shined at her under a halo of tousled dark hair.
“Dad, you’re going to want to close your eyes now,” she told Richie.
Then she linked her arms around Nick’s neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.
Her cousins made gagging sounds as Nick responded readily, his arms twining around her waist and pressing her against him until mud and urgency welded them together. She could never get enough of this.
She would never get enough of this. Him. What they’d made and would continue to make as their future spread out before them like a banquet.
Nick grinned as her fingers combed through his damp hair and her nails breezed across his scalp. “How am I supposed to concentrate on beating these guys when you’re here looking like…” He gestured to her sports bra and exposed navel. “Well, like my next meal.”
God, she liked the sound of that. “Save some for later,” she suggested, disentangling herself from him. She pointed to Ryan. “You throw. I’ll run it in. The rest of you hold back Noah. He’s carrying Team Shirts over there.”
“Insults!” Richie called from across the line of scrimmage.
“I’ve been running it in,” Jacob claimed.
“You’re on the line,” she said. She leaned toward him, eyeing the ranks of Team Shirts. “If Dad comes for Nick again, hold him off.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” Jacob hedged.
“He’s tougher than he looks,” she said. “And if he sprains Nick’s wrist again, Mom won’t let him play football anymore.”
“Got it,” Jacob said with a nod.
She patted his shoulder then set herself up behind Ryan’s quarterback position as the others crouched at the line. Ryan called out the play and she shimmied forward to slap Nick on the rump. “We’ve got this, Skins!”
Nick laughed. “Yeah, we do.” He glanced back at her, and his mischievous grin took her back to past games of Shirts and Skins—to joint science fair projects and high-speed bicycle races.
To kissing outside the honky tonk and countless meals shared.
The fun wasn’t over. It would go on just as they would. For that, she had never been more grateful.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Dangerous Game by Sandra Owens.