Page 13 of Devoured By the Forbidden Mountain Man

She shut down the computer, but her smile stayed with her as she pulled on a cream-colored coat. I waited while she wrapped a deep burgundy scarf around her neck, then held the door for her.

The wind caught us as soon as we stepped outside. Georgia tucked her chin against the scarf and hurried beside me across the damp gravel. She was short enough that I had to shorten my stride, something I noticed because I hadn’t needed to think about matching anyone else’s pace on this property in years.

Inside the house, warmth met us along with the smell of coffee. Yesterday’s grocery bags were gone from the counter, and actual food occupied the refrigerator instead of stacked takeout cartons. Chicken leftovers sat in a covered container beside eggs, greens, and breakfast basics. Butter had somehow acquired a proper place in the door.

Georgia noticed me looking.

“Your refrigerator survived the night,” she said as she removed her coat. “I know you were worried.”

“I was managing. There were eggs.”

“Six,” she said. “And mustard. Whether that’s enough depends on how many breakfasts you were planning to have.”

Her tone was teasing rather than combative, and she crossed the kitchen as if continuing a conversation we had already been having for days instead of one that had begun yesterday. She found the bread without asking and set two slices beside the toaster while I cracked eggs into a bowl.

The domestic ease of it was stranger than the kissing.

That realization nearly cost me a piece of shell in the eggs.

Georgia leaned against the counter beside me. “You’re very serious about breakfast. About everything before seven, really.”

“Not everything.”

Her gaze came up.

For a second neither of us looked away.

Heat gathered low in my stomach, immediate and inconvenient. I remembered the press of her body against mine in this same kitchen, the soft sound she’d made when I tightened my hand at her hip, and how easily I could have kept going if she hadn’t stepped back.

Georgia’s lips curved as though she knew exactly where my head had gone.

Then the toaster popped.

She reached for the bread. “Good thing we have work to do. I like my new job.”

I poured the eggs into the pan. “That sounded suspiciously pleased for someone who hasn’t been employed twenty-four hours. You still haven’t bought the stapler you’re taking credit for.”

“I made a note.”

I laughed and shook my head.

We ate at the kitchen table while dawn slowly brightened the windows. The meal was simple—eggs, toast, coffee, fruit Georgia had bought the previous evening—but it felt more substantial than most mornings I spent alone with protein and caffeine before heading into work.

She sat across from me with one leg folded under her chair, both hands around her mug. The green sweater fit close enough that keeping my eyes on her face required intention.

“Tell me again what Gavin said about Meredith,” I said once we had both made a decent dent in breakfast. “Not what you know now. What you remember from before Brad died.”

Georgia’s expression changed. The humor didn’t disappear so much as move aside.

“He never sat me down and told me a story about her. Gavin wasn’t like that.” She rubbed her thumb along the side of the mug while she searched her memory. “He came home late one night and mentioned a server at the Lantern House whose boyfriend was treating her badly. Later he asked whether I knew her. I didn’t, but I remembered her name because he brought her up more than once.”

“Did he say Brad was violent?”

“Not directly. Gavin usually softened things when he talked to me, especially back then.” Her mouth tightened. “He’d say a guy was an asshole when he meant something worse.”

I understood enough about the Dean family history not to make her unpack that distinction over breakfast.

“What made the name click yesterday?” I asked instead.