Sky handed him a black backpack. He loaded up two sticks with marshmallows and handed one to Sky. Joey sniffed at the sweets.
“Hey, what about mine?” Jenna wrinkled her brow.
“That’s what I’m here for, remember?” Pete began cooking Jenna’s marshmallow. So little time had passed since their first date, and it felt like a lifetime. “Sixty-seven seconds on each side, five inches from the fire, twenty seconds with the tip of the marshmallow aimed directly at the flames. I’ve got this, my little marshmallow princess.” He smiled at Jenna.
“Wow, that’s quite a process.” Sky ate her marshmallow without cooking it. She licked her fingers. “Best thing ever. Besides ice cream, that is.” She rose to her feet. “I’m going to go inside and settle in for the night. I guess I’ll see you two in the morning?”
You two. It was a given, and one that Pete was ready to solidify. “Take Joey with you. I don’t want you to be alone.”
“Really?” she said sarcastically. “Are you going to do this all the time?”
“What do you think?” He nodded at Joey.
“Fine. Come on, Joey.” Sky patted her leg, and Joey trotted along beside her.
“See you in the morning, sis.” Pete blindly fished around in the backpack, watching Sky and Joey walk inside the house. He knew he was overprotective, but he also knew he wasn’t about to change, and he was okay with that. Annoying his sister was a small price to pay for peace of mind.
“Here you are, princess.” He handed Jenna her marshmallow. “There are very few times in a woman’s life when she can don a tiara.” He gently placed a plastic tiara on Jenna’s head and moved a few strands of her hair over the band. “When you’re royalty, of course, but we might be waiting a while for that one. When you’re five years old and it’s your birthday, if you’re lucky, and when you are the marshmallow princess and your prince presents you with golden-brown marshmallows. Not golden, not brown, but golden brown.”
Jenna touched the tiara and smiled. “You got me a tiara?”
“I would have bought you diamonds if they sold them in the novelty section of Stop & Shop. Every marshmallow princess deserves a tiara.”
“That’s almost as romantic as the rock you gave me on our first date.” She pulled him down beside her.
Pete waited for her to finish eating the marshmallow, and then he put her finger in his mouth and sucked the sticky sweetness from it.
“Mm. I like where this is headed.” Jenna leaned forward and kissed him again, a passionate kiss that tasted of sugar and love.
Pete lowered her to her back and lay beside her, drawing one thigh over her legs. He caressed her cheek with his thumb.
“Today marks the first night in two years that I won’t have to worry about my cell phone going off in the middle of the night and having to race out to check on my father.” He paused, letting the weight of that settle into his own mind. When he’d taken his father to the rehab center, Neil had given him a condescending look and followed it up with one of the tightest hugs they’d ever shared. That look cut Pete to his core, and the hug shored him up again. “And it marks the first night of the rest of our lives. Jenna, I don’t want to just consider moving in together. I want your face to be the first thing I see in the morning, and I want you safe in my arms when you fall asleep at night. It took us a long time to come together. Let’s not wait any longer.”
“I have to give notice at my work and let my landlord know I’m moving out, and get all my stuff. I can’t just leave the school hanging.”
He knew this, of course. He’d never expect Jenna to be irresponsible. He touched his forehead to hers. “I don’t mean to rush you, but what are you waiting for?”
Jenna laughed and pushed him onto his back and climbed him like a mountain. “I was waiting for you to do more than ask me if I’d consider it. I thought that might take another five years.”
Pete wrapped an arm around her waist, and in one swift move he rolled her onto her back and pinned her to the blanket beneath him.
“Jenna Ward, will you move in with me? Now? This second?”
She laughed. “No.”
He dropped his head to her shoulder. “You’re killing me here.”
“If you think I’m getting up from beneath you to move stuff into your house, you’re totally wrong.”
He lifted his head and saw the tease in her eyes.
“Yes, I’ll move in with you, but I’m not missing one second of making out in the moonlight with my hunky hero. So moving will have to wait.”
“Baby, we might never get you moved in.” He sealed his lips over hers and disappeared into his luscious Jenna.
Epilogue
GONE WERE THE hot afternoons of summer, replaced with the crisp coming of fall. It was the end of September, and Jenna had moved in with Pete three weeks earlier. The school where she’d worked in Rhode Island had thrown her a lovely farewell luncheon, and her landlord was able to find a new tenant quickly and relieved Jenna of the last two months that remained on her lease. Her mother had been excited about Jenna and Pete’s news. She’d come full circle and was more like the mother Jenna had always known. Jenna would miss her today, but her mother and her new boyfriend, Carlos, were on a cruise to the Bahamas, and Jenna was happy that her mother had settled down and seemed happy again.
Pete’s father had done well at rehab and he’d been home for almost a week. Sky was living with him now and running the hardware store until he was ready to go back full-time. He’d helped Pete put the final coat of antifouling paint on the bottom of the schooner. Today they were taking it out for the first trip on the open water, and all their friends returned to the Cape to celebrate with them.
Jenna leaned against Pete’s kitchen counter, watching Leanna pull a tray of warm muffins from the oven. The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and felt like home with Leanna and Bella tooling around as they waited for Amy, Jamie, and Tony to arrive. After a summer of not seeing the guys, they were all excited to spend the afternoon together. Amy was over the moon. She’d talked Jenna’s ear off on the phone last night, gushing about seeing Tony again, and Pete was excited to show off his handiwork to the men of Seaside. Unfortunately, Kurt was in New York for the weekend meeting with his editor, Caden had to work, and Evan was busy with his part-time job.
Jenna’s stomach got all fluttery when Pete walked into the kitchen looking sinfully sexy wearing nothing but his favorite pair of Levi’s. Bella and Leanna called Jenna’s reactions to Pete, and his to her, their honeymoon stage, but as far as she could tell, Bella and Leanna were still in that stage, too, with Caden and Kurt, and she hoped it never ended for any of them.
Pete folded her in his arms and kissed her.
“Hey, you have guests here,” Leanna teased.