Hard Edge - Tess Oliver Page 0,55

Mom’s and do the same thing.” I laughed. “Damn, that sounds familiar.” I hadn’t meant it to be a dig, but by the look on his face, it seemed, he took it that way.

“It was a joke, Dad. I’ll be back later to trim all the hedges.”

“Are you sure? You don’t need to if you have things to do at your mom’s.”

“I don’t mind. It keeps me busy.”

He walked back to the porch with his newspaper tucked under his arm. “I’ll see you later then, Cade.” He stopped on the top step. “By the way, there’s some really nice pictures of Grady in the box. I think Sally will let you take a few if you’d like to have them.”

“Absolutely, Dad.”

Chapter 25

Kenna

Mom and I had spent the first two days of my return talking strictly business. She had some marketing ideas, and I gave her feedback. I had to admit it was fun as heck watching the mom I knew, who’d spent most of her waking hours taking care of house and family, morphing into a kick-ass business woman. And as much as she loved her new hat, my dad also seemed to enjoy his industrious new wife. After years of leaving at five in the morning and returning a good twelve hours later tired and grumpy from the stress of a work day, he was enjoying all his spare time. He’d even set up a furniture making workshop in the garage. Although Mom complained that the only thing to come out of the workshop so far was a lot of noise and mess. But they had settled completely and happily into their new roles and entirely new lives. It gave me hope that Caden and I could figure out a way to make things work too. Anything seemed possible when two people really cared about each other.

Mom set another margarita on the packing table. She’d spent the morning experimenting with tequila and rum flavored truffles and we’d both reaped the benefits of her research by using the leftover tequila to make margaritas.

I sipped the drink. I was well on my way to being majorly tipsy. If there was such a thing. Being Mom, she was going pretty light on the alcohol and heavy on the sweet syrup, but after three glasses, the tequila was starting to move into gear. For Mom too.

She stopped at the stove and stared down at it. “What was I just about to do?”

“I don’t know, Mom, but maybe you should stay off stove duty until the drinks start to wear off. You could come help me tie off packages.”

She waved away the idea. “No, I just remembered. I need to take inventory of my supplies. I’m going to have to order bittersweet chocolate soon. It comes all the way from Germany and takes a good three weeks to get here, so I have to plan ahead.”

I placed the cover on the truffle box I’d just filled. “It occurs to me, Mom, that you could lower some of your overhead by buying less expensive, less exotic ingredients.”

She swung around and stared wide-eyed at me as if I’d just told her to commit murder.

“Or not,” I said, quickly.

“My candy is popular because it is of the highest quality. I can’t put out anything less.”

“You’re absolutely right. Terrible suggestion. That’s just the logical law student in me talking. Ignore the last few seconds. They never happened.”

Satisfied that she’d stopped my inane suggestion in its tracks, she continued on to her pantry to take inventory.

My fingers and both hands were in the midst of tying a bow, and it had to be perfect to meet my mom’s high standards, when my phone rang. Just seeing the name Caden on my screen sent my heart skipping ahead. The tequila swirling in my head was going to make a pretty bow impossible anyhow, so I let go both sides of the ribbon and answered it.

“Candy central, how can I help you?”

“Well, now that you ask, there is something you can do.” Caden’s deep voice always sounded extra sexy over the phone. Almost as good as it sounded over a pillow in the morning.

“And what is that? Although, I have to warn you I’m a little off kilter on account of the margarita sipping and booze-laced truffle tasting. So brain surgery and flying an airplane are out.”

“Actually, tequila will only make my request that much better. I’m at my mom’s, and I’m sitting in what used to be my