Page 112 of The Bodyguard's Fall

I needed to break through whatever spell this was. For boundary purposes. He had just finished telling me the story about breaking his collarbone swimming in the Leelands’ pond with Ben and Jaxon when I broke in, just as he was about to take a bite of his garlic toast.

“I hate the limbo.”

He stopped, mid-sentence, the bread almost to his lips. “What?”

“This limbo. Don’t you hate it? This waiting around for him. What if we just wire me up and send me outside and get it over with?”

“Wire you up?”

“Yeah. Like in the movies.”

A small smile brushed across his lips before his face grew solemn. “I’ve wondered about doing more to draw him out somehow. But I’m not willing to risk you to do it.”

“And Autumn Ridge PD hasn’t found anything?”

Tate set down his fork and rubbed his face with his hand. “They’re supposed to be on the lookout for anybody they don’t know lingering in the area. But it’s peak tourist season right now. We have leaf peepers coming into town by the busloads. It’s not a top priority, unfortunately, but I’ve been checking in with them every day.”

We finished up our meal in a pensive silence. Together, we brought our dishes to the sink and loaded up the dishwasher. When I started filling the kitchen sink to hand wash the big pots, Tate put his hands on my shoulders and scooted me down. He handed me a white dish towel to dry while he took my place at the kitchen sink.

See?

How can a person go from watching Tate washing dishes at the kitchen sink…back to an apartment alone?

“Alright,” Tate said after draining the sink and drying his hands on the towel hanging from my shoulder. “We need cake.”

He walked into the pantry, pulled out a bakery box from Keller’s, and placed it on the table beside me.

“What is this?” I asked as he pulled the top off the box.

“We now have a song and a wedding cake. A couple weeks late, I know, but so far, I think I’m killing it in the husband department.”

My pulse leaped.

Tate lifted a round cake with fluffy white frosting covering all sides. On the top was a mix of sliced strawberries and what looked like little bites of cheesecake.

Biting back a laugh, I looked up at him. “Strawberry cheesecake?”

“Yup.”

“Was that flavor hard for you to buy?”

He grinned. “A little bit.”

“I thought it was too sweet for you.”

“Way too sweet,” he said, wrinkling his nose in a way that had me melting onto the floor. His eyes shifted up to mine. “But I’m getting kind of used to it.”

I held his gaze too long. Tingles erupted down my spine, and I had to look away. Tate got two forks and a deck of cards from the kitchen, handing me a fork while he sat down and began shuffling.

“Plate?” I asked, my mouth already salivating.

He tilted back in his chair, eyeing me with a gleam I knew well. “Not so fast. We’re going to play for it.”

“Play for it?”

“When you win, you get a bite.”

“You don’t want any cake?” I asked, giving him a teasing smile.