Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“I beg your pardon.” I poked a finger between his ribs and lateral thorax—jackpot tickle territory, medically speaking. “You weren’t complaining about my lack of gay experience in the shower this morning.”
He grabbed my hand to stop my assault. “It’s a gay hookup app. Flint. Was started by a group of firefighters in California, actually, during the Granite Hollow fires a few years ago. Anyway, doesn’t matter. I just remember hearing about it at the time because I was called in to help find a missing kid.”
“Did you find the kid?” I asked, already knowing from hearing many of his SAR stories that he had good ones and horrible ones.
“Safe and sound, asleep at a friend’s house,” Foster confirmed. “But back to Flint. Tilly used Alex’s profile—or, hell, maybe she made him a profile, I don’t know—and started conversations with people.” He looked around and lowered his voice. “Sex conversations.”
I bit my lip to keep from howling with laughter. “Okay? Why are you so upset about this? Do you want to tattle on my great-great-aunt? Or do you maybe want to leave it alone and let Alex reap the benefit of a little old lady’s sexual fantasies?”
We both stopped and winced at the notion before Foster’s body was wracked with a shudder. “I’d rather forget the entire thing.”
“Sounds like a plan, big guy. Let’s go get some food.” I started to move off his lap, but he held me tighter.
“Not so fast. I didn’t tell you the intriguing part yet.”
I gaped at him. “Tilly pretending to sext a stranger as my cousin Alex isn’t the intriguing part?”
He glanced around before brushing my ear with his lips again.
“Sheriff, those lips are doing things to me,” I breathed.
“They’re going to do things to you later if we can find a moment alone,” he promised.
“Continue.” I was hoping he’d continue the lips more than the story, but I was out of luck.
“I think the guy she was messaging was Chief Kincaid.”
I whipped my head around so fast I nearly knocked noses with him. “No!”
Foster looked smug as shit as he nodded. “Yes. Pretty sure, anyway.”
“Alex hates the chief! They’re mortal enemies.”
He shifted me on his lap until I was straddling the man. It might have been a little embarrassing if we hadn’t been at a wedding with a thousand horny young queer people… and if I hadn’t been one of them who seriously didn’t give a fuck as long as I was pressed against my favorite person in the world.
“I know,” he said. “But it reminded me of something Tilly told me last summer.”
He closed his eyes as if he needed to replay the tape of his memories to get it right. “She said something about how she’s been managing Marian men since before I was born…”
I nodded. “That tracks.”
Foster opened his eyes and met mine. “Then she nodded at Alex and the chief, who were arguing as usual, and said, ‘Case in point.’ Don’t you find that fishy? The woman is up to something. She’s meddling again.”
“She’s a meddler. Meddling is what she does.”
Foster’s face suddenly split into a bright grin. “You know what? She meddled in our relationship, and we turned out just fine. Maybe I’m overthinking this.”
I leaned in and kissed his impossibly beautiful lips. Lips that sang funny, made-up songs to Chickie about how good dogs don’t chase bad rabbits. Lips that tasted every terrible dish I tried to cook for us. Lips that murmured sweet reassurances to me in the middle of the night when I woke up from a bad dream. And lips that had told my parents three days ago in secret that he wanted to propose to me during the holidays.
“I’m not asking you for permission. I’m giving you the courtesy of advanced notice,” he’d said, according to Ella, who’d overheard it and hadn’t been able to keep her trap shut. “Because he’s already mine, and nothing you could say will change that.”
“I love you,” I said, the scope of what I felt for him stealing my breath away.
His grin softened. “Promise?”
I nodded emphatically. “Forever.”
“Mmm, that’s a good promise,” he murmured against my lips. “Say it again.”
So I did. And a year later, I said it again in front of a crowd of our friends and family.
While we stood on a South Carolina beach with bare feet in the sand… and Foster wearing a suspiciously familiar T-shirt.