his glass toward the center of the table. “We’ve gotta start with a toast to the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Though she lifted her glass to meet his, her smile wasn’t convinced. “Okay, so we already know you can melt the panties right off me. Why do you think I put this table between us?”
“I can work around it,” he said, scanning the setup. “I like dating with our bed ten feet away.”
Although Poppy had put the bed away, he knew how to take it down and how to lay her on it. “Because if the topic gets onto anything you don’t want to discuss you can distract me with seduction.”
“Not a bad idea,” he said, gulping from the wine glass.
“You don’t have to drink the wine,” she said. “We have a fridge in the closet now. There’s beer in there.” Dessert was too. “We can eat.” Lifting the silver lid from her salad, she didn’t expect him to be awed when he did the same. “Our entrée is in a warming thing in the closet. I know how to serve it… I might have to practice cooking at home before I get it right.”
“You made dinner?”
His surprise was so genuine that she should probably be offended. Trouble was, he was too incredulous for her to work up any kind of negativity.
“I helped,” she admitted. “It’s a start, right?”
“I’m proud of you, baby.”
And that pride was genuine too. “Mrs. Caswell was patient with me. She gave me some tips and promised to get everyone to contribute something to a recipe book for me.”
“That was nice of her,” Turner said, tucking into his salad. It wasn’t exactly hearty, but he didn’t complain. He never complained. “But you know, baby, I never expected you to spend your life chained to the stove.”
“I know,” she said, aware he’d never implied such a thing. “I’ve seen your family around the kitchen and how your mom is with the kids, guiding them, letting them take part. That’s what I want for our kids.”
“Mom will teach ours just like she does Faye’s.”
“When I said we would share parental and marital duties, I meant that would extend to the chores too. Yes, I want to contribute, I want to work, but there will be times when I can’t go out to work, what about if I have maternity leave?”
“If staying home and keeping house makes you happy, I’ll support you.”
“You support everything I say,” she said. Both a blessing and a curse, Poppy needed more than just compliance from him. “I was thinking about the Venture… Do you think you’ll give up any of your caretaking jobs now that we don’t have to worry so much about money? Have you spoken to Ritchie about maybe partnering with him on a second building?”
“Not yet,” he said. “It’s a nice idea though.”
“Because I was thinking, if you wanted, I could take care of the more day to day things, you know like the paperwork or rent collection, that kind of thing. I spoke to Faye about it earlier and she said she’d help too. We could take calls, maybe eventually, once we have a handle on it, we can order parts or supplies, whatever you need.”
As he chewed, he considered her. Poppy wasn’t sure how he’d react to the idea of them working together and with his sister too. It would make the progression of the business much more of a family affair.
“You and Faye run the office while Ritch and I do the labor,” he said, though it didn’t seem like a question. “I like it.”
That was such a relief that Poppy actually exhaled. Her whole body loosened. It wasn’t until her muscles began to ache that she realized just how tight they’d been.
“I don’t expect you to give up everything overnight. Faye was excited about joining the business though, she said she’d look at listings. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all you. You can decide where we buy, what we buy, how much work you want to take on. I don’t care if it’s a shell or ready to rent straight away. I talked to Tiller today about putting you on all of the accounts, so he’s taking care of that.”
“I don’t want your money, babe.”
She smiled. “It’s not about the money. It’s about us. We’re together. We’re going to get married and have a family. For something like this, the business, you know more about it than I do anyway. I thought Preston would