Page 76 of Summer at Forget-Me-Not Cottage
Belle had been right to offer the flat to Nate. This way was much better than rushing into anything, even when Morgan had a whole cottage to herself. This kept it new, exciting, and now he wasn’t at his dad’s, they at least didn’t have to worry about being interrupted. It had been a bit like being teenagers again the times she went there to see him and they had to be on their best behaviour.
Nate put the dinner in the oven and prepared the salad while Morgan finished her hot chocolate in the lounge. Branston had curled up on the rug already, uninterested in expending any more energy. A lamp gave a soft glow to the room which had Nate’s bottle-green sofa and armchair as well as a couple of side tables in a rich dark wood that had made their way from Wales, taken from the house he’d sold quickly enough.
It looked homely in here already and Morgan spotted the new addition in the lounge as Nate came into the room. ‘When did you bring that over?’ It was the blanket box he’d made for his mum, blending in so well with everything else, she hadn’t noticed until she was facing this way. ‘It looks perfect in here.’
He wrapped his arms around her from behind, his damp hair against her cheek as he nuzzled her neck. ‘Take a look inside.’
She went over to the piece she’d helped to finish and opened it up. And there it was: the denim and caramel lambswool blanket her mother had adored, the one he’d taken to the dry cleaner for her yesterday as he’d insisted he was going that way.
‘I wanted to keep it here for you if that’s all right.’ He took her in his arms when she came back to him. ‘You can take it home to the cottage if you like but I thought maybe it was a part of you that you might like to have when you’re at my place.’
‘I think I’d like that.’ She kissed him once, looking deep into his eyes with the promise of more later when they both had some energy between them.
‘How about we put on a movie?’
‘You read my mind.’
He rested his forehead against hers. ‘It’s cold enough to sit beneath the blanket too.’
Smiling, she went and got the blanket from the box and took it over to the sofa. ‘This wouldn’t have been such an effective surprise in the height of summer.’
‘No, we’d have sweltered underneath that.’
‘I wouldn’t have cared as long as I was with you.’ She looked back at him with a knowing smile until he came over to her.
Nate pulled her down onto the sofa with him, both laughing, both of them still too busy with each other and suddenly not too tired at all when the oven timer pinged to tell them dinner was ready.
Neither of them were all that interested in the movie or the food. At least not for a while.
They had each other, both of them back in Little Woodville. And that was what really mattered.
