Yours to Keep (Kowalski Family, #3)

Maybe she shouldn’t have come. Sure, they’d talked on the phone, but he hadn’t asked her out again. Maybe it had been too much, too fast, and rather than tell her he didn’t want to see her again, he thought he’d just play along until she went back to Florida.

She pulled her hand back and took a deep breath. She was being silly. It wasn’t some grand romance they were embarking on, anyway. They were good friends, that’s all. Friends with occasional benefits, as the younger generations would say. With no pressure, there was no reason not to casually drop in and say hello.

There was a tapping on the glass and she looked up to see Russell standing on the other side of the door, watching her. The amusement on his face made her laugh at herself as he pulled open the door and made the bell ring.

“That must have been quite the dilemma you were sorting through,” he said as she walked by him. “Maybe I shouldn’t have interrupted you.”

“I was being ridiculous. I’m glad you did or who knows how long I would have stood out there arguing with myself.”

“Were you winning?” The laugh lines around his eyes danced as he smiled at her.

“I was, actually.” She looked around at the shelves, which didn’t look much more empty than they had the first time she’d been in. “I had to come into town for sugar and I thought I’d stop in and say hello.”

“I left a message at the house. Wish I’d caught you before you drove over here.”

“The phone started ringing right after I locked the door behind me and it’s usually for Emma’s business, so I didn’t go back.”

“I was wondering if you’d want to take a ride down to Concord with me tonight. Get some dinner and see a movie maybe?”

He looked as nervous as she’d felt standing on his front step, she realized, and she smiled back at him. “I’d love to.”

“Should I pick you up at your house around five or…”

“That would be lovely. I’m not sure if the kids will be home by then. They had a couple of things to take care of before they could head to the big job for this week. Sean has to get that deck done, so they might work late.”

“How’s that going?”

“Honestly, if I was just meeting Sean for the first time now, I’d never guess they aren’t a real couple.”

“So your plan is working, then?”

“It seems to be, which is good because the clock’s ticking.” She sighed and glanced at the door. “Speaking of ticking clocks, I should move along if I’m going to get everything done before five. I’ll probably make up some dinner for the kids before I go. If left to her own devices, Emma would work that poor man into the ground and then give him a grilled cheese sandwich for supper.”

“I’ll see you at five, then,” he said.

She nodded and moved to open the door, but he caught her hand and stopped her. One long, lingering kiss later, the butterflies were dancing again. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”



“You’re not very good at this,” Emma said, laughing at the frustration on Sean’s face.

He pulled his hand out from under the back of her T-shirt. “You’re distracting me.”

“How am I distracting you?” She shook the bag at Sean, reminding him to pull two letter tiles to replace the C and the T he’d used to make CAT.

“You look totally hot. And you did it on purpose so I wouldn’t be able to concentrate and you’d win.”

Emma laughed. Sure, she’d thrown on baggy flannel boxers and an old Red Sox T-shirt after her shower just to seduce him out of triple word scores. “You not having a shirt on is distracting. And you keep pretending you want to rub my back so you can peek at my tile rack.”

“Nothing wrong with checking out your rack.” He craned his neck to see better and she shoved him away. It wasn’t easy playing Scrabble sitting side by side on the couch but, after a long work day, neither was willing to take the floor.

They’d found a note from Gram on the counter when they got home. She was going to dinner and a movie with Russell and they shouldn’t wait up. She’d also left a small casserole in the fridge with very specific instructions on how to warm it up. Cleaned up, well fed and facing a long, rainy evening together, they’d hit the game cupboard. And, ironically, Scrabble had been Sean’s choice.

“Did you call your brother back?” she asked while looking over the board. Ryan had called while they were intent on obliterating a nasty patch of poison oak for a family with several kids and Sean had sent it to voice mail.

“Not yet. I’ll give him a shout back tomorrow.”

“Are you avoiding him?” She dropped an O and T on the end of BALL and noted her points.

“Yup.” He rearranged some tiles on his rack, frowning. “They’re taking turns calling me to see if anybody’s won the bet yet.”

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