Page 128 of The Bitterroot Inn (Jamison Valley 5)
Taking the picture from my hand, he inspected the piece. “They did a good job on the canvas. How did the others turn out?”
“Ah-mazing. I’ve hung all but five and the postcard display. Thank you for that. You didn’t need to get that too.”
“Sure I did.” He set dow
n the picture on one of the small tables. “That was your dream, right? You can’t have the pictures without the postcards.”
I smiled and looked at the wet spot on his baby-blue button-up shirt. He’d rolled up his sleeves in typical Hunter fashion to show those sinewy forearms and today he was wearing gray chinos instead of jeans.
My fingers brushed against the wet spot. “You look nice today.”
“Thanks. These were the only pair of clean pants in the house. I need to do laundry.”
I frowned. Before everything had gotten so mixed up, I had been doing Hunter’s laundry. You’d think that with doing my own laundry, Coby’s, plus everything for the inn, I would be sick of washing clothes, but right now, I missed doing Hunter’s laundry. I missed cooking for him. I missed how we’d take care of each other.
And now was my chance to do what I’d come here to do.
“I love you.” I looked up from his shirt into his beautiful caramel eyes, waiting for him to say it back so I could be done being mad.
He grinned. “I love you too.”
Huh. It worked. I owed Beau a batch of his favorite cookies. “You can go ahead and kiss me now,” I whispered.
Hunter’s smile came down slowly on mine. His soft lips brushed against mine in a lazy tease as he whispered, “Say it one more time.”
“I love you.”
“Glad to hear it, Blondie.”
Then right in the middle of the staff lounge with the door open for all those passing by to see, Hunter and I kissed like we were alone in my bedroom. When we finally stopped, I walked out of the hospital with the biggest smile I’d had in months and the first thing I did when I got into my car was text Beau.
You were right.
By the middle of October, over a month after my impromptu trip to the hospital to reunite with Hunter, life was good.
I was happily back to doing Hunter’s laundry and cooking. He was back to giving me nightly foot massages and orgasms. And Coby was just overjoyed to have us both.
Gosh, I’m happy. Like, really happy. Standing at the stove in Hunter’s dream kitchen, I stared at a simmering pot, unable to recall the last time I had been this happy. Not that I’d been unhappy before, but this was more than just easy contentment. This was the kind of happiness people craved deep in their soul. The kind people searched for but rarely found.
The kind that hadn’t come easy and made me appreciate it even more.
“Hey.”
I looked up from the pot and smiled as Hunter walked into the kitchen. “Hi. How was your day?”
Coby and I had come up to his house and gotten an early start on some laundry and cooking dinner.
“I’m good,” Hunter said though his eyebrows were furrowed. “Are you okay? You were all spaced out just now. Was it another flashback?”
“No, I was just thinking about how . . .”
Huh. Weird.
I hadn’t had one of my Everett flashes in months. Not since the night at my parents’ house, in front of Hunter. I’d been so busy that I hadn’t even noticed but I’d never gone this long without one before.
“Maisy?” Hunter asked. “What?”
“Oh,” I shook myself out of my head, “sorry, I’m good. It wasn’t a flash and I was just thinking it had been a long time since I’ve had one.”
