Heartland (True North #7) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,110

says. “Is Audrey around?”

“In here!” his wife calls. “Your son just ate the last pancake.”

“I’ll pour some more,” Daphne says, coming through from the dining room. “Where’s Chastity?”

The mud-room door bangs. “Right here!” Chastity calls. Then she steps into the kitchen looking flushed and happy. “Leah and Isaac say Merry Christmas.”

When she moves closer, I pull her into a one-armed hug. “Did you tell them you weren’t going to Wyoming?”

“I did,” she whispers.

“And?”

“Leah wasn’t surprised. I guess disappearing in the night kind of clued her in.”

“And can I assume my truck made it back safely?”

“Of course it did.”

I lean down and kiss her smile. And even though we’re standing in the middle of my family, she kisses me back.

“It’s weird how that doesn’t seem weird,” Griffin says.

“Oh, I’m used to it already,” Rickie adds.

We ignore them.

Chastity steps back eventually, though. “I brought your present.” She hands me an envelope.

“Thanks!” I give it a shake. “Well, it’s not a puppy.”

“A puppy,” Griffin snorts. “Nobody buy him a puppy unless he’s actually living in the same zip code with it.”

“Just wait until Gus learns to say puppy,” I argue. “You’ll fold faster than a bad hand of poker.”

Griffin grins over his coffee mug, because he knows I’m right.

I tear open the envelope and fish out two tickets to the New Year’s Eve concert I wanted to attend. “Aw, really? This is awesome. You want to go with me?”

“Well, it’s an easy decision now,” she says. “But I have a hard time saying no to you. So I bought them last week.”

There’s even more kissing after that.

And then pancakes.

Epilogue

Chastity

Valentine's Day is yet another holiday I didn't have for the first nineteen years of my life. “There were no heart-shaped candies at the Paradise Ranch,” I’d told Rickie and Dylan. “Can you imagine the mayhem if every man had to romance five wives on one night?”

The idea had made me snort-laugh in a very unladylike way.

But I guess Dylan took it as a challenge. When I wake up in his bed on February 14th, I’m alone. But I can smell the coffee brewing downstairs, and when I step into the kitchen, a giant bouquet of red and silver balloons blocks my path to the coffee pot.

“Oh wow,” I say, spotting Dylan’s and Rickie’s feet somewhere near the kitchen table. “This is so—”

“Gaudy?” Rickie supplies.

“Extravagant,” I insist, pushing the balloons aside. When I locate the table, Dylan is waiting there beside a sumptuous heart-shaped box of Lake Champlain Chocolates. And a dozen red roses. The tag reads: For Chastity.

“Oh, Dylan!” I gasp. “I’ve never gotten roses.” I step right over and sit in his lap, because there are only two chairs at the table. And because Dylan is my favorite furniture anyway.

“See?” he says, reaching over to give Rickie a poke in the arm. “Tone down the cynicism.” He nudges the chocolates in my direction. “I got this boyfriend thing all figured out.” He hands me his coffee mug, and I help myself to a gulp.

He does, indeed, have this boyfriend thing figured out.

Rickie just shakes his head. “I guess you had to go big on the flowers since you can’t take your girl out to a nice V-day dinner.”

“That’s okay with me,” I say, leaning back against Dylan’s bare chest. “I’m looking forward to tonight.”

“There will be, like, a hundred girls drooling over your man,” Rickie points out. “I predict an estrogen fest at the club tonight.”

“You’re coming though, right?” I demand. “Ellie is counting on you to sneak her in. How are you going to do that, anyway?”

“Piece of cake,” he says. “Just wait.”

The Hardwick Boys are playing their second gig ever at a Burlington bar—this one a few blocks away from the bar that Ellie and I were kicked out of in the fall. The room is packed with a Valentine’s Day crowd, but I’ve got a plum spot near the front. Griffin made a point to drive Audrey, Leah, and Isaac into town for the evening.

“Who’s babysitting?” I’d asked the moment they walked in. I feel a twinge of guilt as I ask the question. Leah and Isaac had stayed home on New Year’s so I could go out with Dylan to the concert.

“We hired a high school friend of Dylan’s to watch Maeve and Gus at our house,” Griffin says. “Her name is Debbie? I don’t know if you ever met her.”

“Um, yup,” I say. “I remember Debbie.”

“Both kids were asleep when we drove away.” Griffin shrugs. “Easy money for