Lucky Baby (Crescent Cove 11)

Caleb laughed. “You get used to it.”

“Yay me.”

Luna laughed. “You guys are so cute.”

“We’re not anything,” I said firmly and huffed.

“Need something?” Lucky looked down at his plate. “You can have some of my bacon.”

From rude to sweet in the space of thirty seconds. Probably a new world record for him.

What I wanted was a water, but he’d probably backwashed half the glass with that big mouth of his.

As if she was psychic, Polly returned to the table with a round of waters a moment later.

“Thanks.” I reached for one and drank greedily, then filched a piece of his damn bacon.

Lucky didn’t say anything, just kept grinning like the lunatic he was.

“So, let’s make a quick list.” Luna reached around Caleb for the sparkly notebook on the windowsill. She opened it and pulled a pen out of her curls. I wondered what else was in there. “S’mores, beer, some virgin daiquiris for the pregnant lady.”

“You mean a smoothie?” Caleb asked and dropped a kiss on her neck.

“Shut up. Daiquiri sounds way more posh and not so boring.” She elbowed him. “Oh, we should ask Gage and Rylee to come. They live right near you. Rylee has been poking at me about doing something. She’s bored since Macy is in her Halloween zone.”

“That’s no joke. I ran into her current obsession.”

Luna gave me a blinding smile. “Bats, right? She keeps trying to get everyone to put them over their door.” She shook her head. “Living over the café has been eye opening.”

I folded another silver dollar pancake slathered in butter. “She hung one at the garage. Dare threatened to put a boot on her truck.”

Lucky snickered. “He likes his coffee too much to do that.”

“Truth.” I pointed at Luna with the rapidly cooling bit of perfection. “I found it over his office door instead. His kid hates it. Wes jumps every time he sees it.”

Lucky nudged me. “You have a twisted side.”

I shrugged and took another bite. Wes, Dare’s eldest boy, had gotten in trouble for picking on his little brother and had to sweep up at the shop every day after school. If anyone was twisted in this situation, it was Dare. Wes used his new task to avoid doing homework for as long as humanly possible, as well as an opportunity to drive his father nuts every chance he got.

Some days it was a shorter trip than others.

Luna made some scribbles with her pink pen, the fluff on top furiously twitching. “You’re friends with Gage, so you can ask him. My bestie actually lives pretty close by. I’ll ask her too. You don’t mind, right?”

Is she human? If so, yes. If’s she feline or canine or any other species, that works.

I opened my mouth to reply and swiftly gave up. Luna was already rattling off a bunch of things, and the little bonfire get-together was turning into an event.

Apparently, that was that. I was having lots of people over at my damn house tomorrow. Yippee.

I aimed a sidelong glance at Lucky, happily crunching on his bacon. He sensed my gaze and turned his head to innocently lift his eyebrows.

“Jackass,” I mouthed as he grinned.

Seven

The air off the water was brisk today. Good thing, since I was sweating my ass off.

It was day two of the full-on rip out of the barn. We’d managed to get most of the building emptied out yesterday. Since this job was an official Gideon project, thanks to the sheer size and timing of it, I was able to use Charlie and Frankie from my usual crew for the early part of the day. Then a handful of kids showed up after school.