Lucky Baby (Crescent Cove 11)

She grinned behind the lip of her mug. “Too bad.”

I propped my elbows on the island. “Okay, so what are we doing? And are you ordering furniture for your guests? House seems a bit empty.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll put my dad in the upstairs bedroom. I’ll need to order a bedroom set.”

“We can check out one of the big furniture stores if you want. Unless you want something custom. That could take some time.”

“Yeah, I’ll look into it.” She made a note. “I’m hoping to keep the animals mostly in the barn-slash-rec room.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Do they know you call them animals?”

“Definitely.”

“Fair enough.” I nodded to her. “Tell me your thoughts and then I’ll tell you if it’s doable.”

“I need at least one bedroom on the main floor of the barn. My brother, Cohen, is staying with me for a while. He has a busted leg, so he can’t do stairs.”

I pulled out my phone again and started making notes. “Okay.” My brain quickly started whirling with ideas for the space.

“I mentioned toys. As you can see, I like electronics. My brothers need entertaining, and I figure once they’re gone, I can use it as a space for me that isn’t a garage.”

“Good plan.”

We haggled our way around a game plan. I made rough sketches and she redid each and every one. She had a good eye and knew what she wanted, even if she didn’t know how to put it all together.

But that was my job.

The pizza came and we demolished it as the sun streamed through the windows. She could eat me slice for slice. She picked all the toppings off with her short dark nails as she talked.

I never wanted to be a piece of pepperoni more in my life.

When the slice was a pockmarked shell of its former glory, she folded it and quickly chomped her way through the remaining dough and cheese.

I fed Butch a few pieces of bacon and sausage in between slices. I flipped the last quarter inch of my crust at my dog and she neatly nipped it out of the air.

“Tell me about Cohen.”

Her eyes shuttered and she crossed her arms. “Not much to tell.”

Hmm. That was interesting. I didn’t have the sibling dynamic to draw from, but she looked defensive. “There has to be something.”

She chewed on the corner of her lip. “He’s a fireman—smoke jumper, to be exact.” Her gaze drifted to the floor where Butch was looking for more scraps. “You know, you shouldn’t feed a dog scraps.”

“I don’t have dog food yet.” I tossed Butch another bit of sausage.

“Fair point.”

“You don’t have to talk about your brother if you don’t want to.”

“No. I mean, it’s fine. I just…” She huffed out a breath. “I haven’t seen much of him for a few years.”

“And now you have to take care of him?”

She played with the ends of her ponytail. “Yeah. I don’t usually have to worry about him. Even with his job being so extreme, Cohen has always been bulletproof. Ezra, my oldest brother, said Cohen wasn’t doing great.”

I had a feeling there was more to it. Broken bones didn’t put that kind of worry in a woman’s eyes.

“Okay, so we need to make sure you can distract him, right?”