Page 77 of Rafe

“Blew out that diaper, but I think we’re good now.” Sloan met them in the middle of the room and took Rowan from Rafe.

“Oh hello, my baby. Hello,” she cooed, before she looked back up at Rafe. “Babe.”

“Babe.”

“Seventy-five cents if you’ll run downstairs and get me that mac and cheese. And one of those key lime bars.” Damn, her man could cook.

“I’ll settle for twenty-five cents and that thing you do with your thumb,” he countered.

“Oooooh, deal.”

“Hot or cold?”

“Hmmm hot. Thank you.”

“You got it.”

After Rafe disappeared down the hall, she sat on the bed with Rowan, rocking him back to sleep. She picked up her phone and checked her texts. Xeni’s aunt had recently passed away. Xeni just wanted to grieve, but speculation on the contents of her aunt’s will had her family at each other’s throats again.

She’d flown to upstate New York to scatter her aunt’s ashes by her favorite creek and to figure out what to do with her three thousand square foot Colonial. She’d been quiet in their group chat, but she’d been keeping Sloan updated in their own text chain. She’d been quiet most of the day, though. Sloan clicked on the “3” near Xeni’s name.

She almost fainted. She had to read the texts several times, but they still didn’t make sense and Sloan had no freaking clue how to respond. She lay Rowan down in the cradle of her crossed legs and looked even harder at the screen, like the words would magically rearrange themselves.

Rafe came strolling back into the room. “I think I’m ready for a dog,” he announced. In the back of her mind, Sloan could picture Rafe walking around the neighborhood, wearing Rowan in his chest carrier, the two of them being tugged down the street by some big, dopey mutt on a leash. She’d focus on how cute that vision was when she got to the bottom of her current mystery.

Rafe set down her food, then stroked her shoulder. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Um, Xeni just texted me.”

“How’s she holding up? Is she still cleaning out her aunt’s place?”

“I—I think so. I—she got married today.”

“What? To who?!”

“Some Scottish guy named Mason.”