Then I said, “’Kay. ’Night, Deacon.”
“’Night, Cassie.”
I smiled again against his chest.
Then I closed my eyes.
Chapter Nine
Eleven
The next day, I was walking through Home Depot, trying not to let my head explode.
This was because I had been shopping in the garden center. I’d been grabbing plastic trays of flowers that I was going to plant in my window boxes and planters and I was doing this babbling my grand plans of bringing floral beauty to Glacier Lily. At the same time I was hoping out loud that we didn’t get a late spring snow which would mean I’d waste hundreds of dollars since all the plants would die and I’d have to do it again (something that had happened once before and it didn’t make me happy).
Eventually, I turned from selecting plants and jabbering and found Deacon, who’d come with me, had disappeared.
I was talking to no one.
The mini-welcome home party the night before had gone great. It was simple: sex, then Deacon eating reheated meatloaf and mashed potatoes, then more sex, and finally Deacon crashing because he not only drove to get to me without eating, he’d done it without sleeping, and this had taken two days. This last had alarmed me, but then again, he was a thirty-eight-year-old man. He might need a woman, but he didn’t need a mother. Therefore, I kept my mouth shut.
The party continued in the morning with more sex then bacon, eggs, and toast upon which I told Deacon that day’s agenda included me hitting Home Depot in preparation for bringing floral beauty to Glacier Lily.
Deacon had grinned (score two of the morning, score one being a nearly-upon-waking orgasm). Then he’d said he’d come with me (score three).
I had happy, hopeful visions of shopping with Deacon (something I looked forward to in a way that might seem weird to some, but being alone for years, it was not weird to me), coming home, and Deacon helping me with the flowers.
This had a dual purpose. That being me getting the flowers planted faster, thus having some downtime to be with Deacon, and also working alongside Deacon. I had hope, what with his comments about Grant being lazy, that he was not. That his assertion that if things worked out between us and he would be eighty and sitting next to me in an Adirondack chair meant he didn’t intend to spend the next forty-two years having me cook, clean, take care of the cabins, and him doing…whatever it was he did until he quit doing it and ended up doing nothing.
Essentially, I knew it was his day off. Or at least it was his downtime after being at it twenty-four fuckin’ seven for over a month.
But I still believed that working together could be fun. And if not fun, at least it was together and that in itself was good.
I continued to score through the morning with another orgasm Deacon gave me during the shower we took together and earning another grin when I was ready about five minutes after he was whereupon I announced as much.
“You’re ready?” he asked, not hiding the surprise in his voice, leaning a shoulder against the doorway to my bedroom where he was standing.
“Yep,” I replied.
“No makeup?”
Suddenly, I was uncertain if I was ready.
“Do I need makeup?” I asked.
“No.”
That came quick and firm, so I relaxed. “Then I’m ready.”
“Your hair isn’t dry,” Deacon pointed out.
“We aren’t in one hundred percent humidity, Deacon Deacon.” His lips started curving up at my response and I kept at it. “The mountains are arid. It’ll dry in no time.”
“So it dries as beautiful as it is with you doin’ shit to it?”
The warmth only Deacon could give me by being his brand of sweet came back. It felt good. So I just nodded.
That was when I got the grin before he said, “Then let’s go, Cassie.”