until she found everything she needed, which wasn’t that difficult. Peyton had the bare minimum as far as kitchen supplies, basically just enough for one person to get by from day to day. That would do for now.
Butter melted in a skillet on the stove while the bacon baked in the oven below. The bread was sliced and in the toaster, the teakettle plugged in, and a bowl of beaten eggs waited to be scrambled.
She heard her phone ring from the living room floor and ran to grab it before it woke her sleeping cowboy. She picked up the phone but the screen was black. The ringing sounded again, and she realized she must have been holding Peyton’s phone and not hers. She dropped it on the rug and finally answered the correct phone, silencing the ring.
“Mami,” she whispered, running back to the kitchen before the kettle whistled or the butter burned. “This isn’t the best time.”
She poured the eggs into the skillet and moved them around with a spatula, making sure they cooked evenly and just enough so they were light and fluffy, not dry and stuck to the sides of the pan.
“Are you cooking?” her mother asked. “I can hear kitchen sounds. I thought you only drank those chalky protein shakes after a morning run.”
Dani rolled her eyes. The woman was the best cook Dani knew. Of course Mami heard kitchen sounds through a phone.
She set the phone on the counter, putting her mom on speaker.
“I didn’t run this morning,” Dani admitted, now plating the eggs.
She opened the oven to take a look at the bacon, decided it needed to get just a little crisper, and closed it with her hip.
“Didn’t run?” her mom asked. “Are you sick? Do you need my caldo de pollo? I have some in the freezer I can defrost. Or I can make a fresh batch. I’ll come over—”
“I’m fine, Mami. I just decided to sleep in for once.”
Silence rang out for a beat before her mother spoke again.
“Did you spend the night with the mayor?” she asked point-blank.
“Mami,” she said, louder than she would have liked.
Dani’d had the good sense to text Casey the night before and let her know she wouldn’t be coming home until sometime today. But Casey didn’t gossip, least of all to Dani’s mom.
“What?” her mother asked. “Uncle Jorge said he saw you on the motorcycle heading toward the Cooper house. Yesterday. You skipped your run. You’re cooking. I’m just putting all the puzzle pieces together.”
Uncle Jorge. Of course.
“Does Mayor Cooper like caldo de pollo with a little kick? So good for the cold weather. I’m taking it out of the freezer right now. You could bring him for dinner tonight. Jorge is fixing my doorbell. Well, he’s installing one of those fancy ones that has a camera on it. I was going to make him dinner anyway, so two more would be no trouble.”
“I like chicken soup,” a man said.
The groggy, deep voice came from behind her, and Dani spun to see Peyton standing in the entryway to the kitchen wearing nothing but the flannel pants he had on the night she’d responded to his accidental emergency call. His lean, muscular torso was bare, his chestnut hair rumpled and sleep-mussed.
“That’s it, mija,” Dani’s mother said, still on speaker. “He knows Spanish. He’s a keeper. I’ll see you two at six.”
Her mother ended the call.
The teakettle whistled.
Dani let out a nervous laugh and held up the two plates of eggs.
“Surprise!” she called out over the still-screaming kettle.
Peyton unplugged the kettle and turned to face her, a beautiful grin plastered across his face.
He took the plates from her hands and set them down on the island, then skimmed his fingers through her hair, pulling her to him with a bone-melting kiss.
Dani Garcia was bringing the mayor, Peyton Cooper—the man for whom she’d unwittingly pined for fifteen years—home. Tonight. For a family dinner.
What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter Ten
Since nothing was open at half past five on a Saturday afternoon other than the Meadow Valley Inn and the Midtown Tavern, Peyton crossed his fingers in hopes that the tavern could help him out.
Before he stepped inside, though, he paused, taking in the sight before him. Dani was right. Even though no lights were yet lit, there was an inflatable Santa on top of the Meadow Valley fire station roof, sitting on what he could tell would be a lighted engine once the parade was underway. Across the street, Trudy Davis stood