Travis's Gift (Riley's Pride #3)- Sandra R Neeley Page 0,20
he added, looking up at Maia’s disbelieving expression. “She’s a friend, a close friend, and I’ve held her while she cried over him so many damn times. And yeah, maybe I’ve been getting a little too close to her. Been spending too much time with her, but I know the difference between becoming comfortable with her and being in love with her. Don’t get me wrong. I love her, I do. But I love her, I’m not in love, there is a difference. I miss her. I miss someone to watch television with, someone to eat dinner with. You know?” he asked, looking at Maia.
“I do know. And you’ll meet that special someone. You’ll run into her in town, or on the job, or in the diner one day when she stops for gas. It’ll happen,” Maia encouraged.
Lucas nodded. “I didn’t know that was what I wanted. I never, ever wanted to be mated before. In fact, I ran from it any time it looked like some female was trying to tie me down.”
Maia smiled. “Funny how the things we thought we’d never want are the things that end up meaning the most to us.”
“True,” Lucas agreed as he took another bite of his gumbo.
“You’re always welcome to have dinner with us. I don’t want any of you eating alone in your living rooms while staring blindly at the television. Come here after work each day. Just wash up and come on over. You hear?” she asked.
Lucas nodded. “I do. But I don’t want to be a nuisance,” he said.
“You’re not a nuisance. You’re part of our Pride. Until you find your mate, you will spend your evenings with us, you will have dinner with us. Now, if you want to have some alone time, that’s fine, too, but try to make it about fifty-fifty so I’m not out tracking your ass through the property at night to make sure you’re okay because I’ve not seen you in a couple of days,” Maia said with a grin and an eyebrow raised.
“Yes, Reigna,” Lucas answered chuckling.
~~~
Travis pushed the shopping cart behind Libby as she wandered the aisles of the grocery store. He smiled, content to simply follow his woman as she made her selections and placed them in his cart. She chose bananas, cocoa, nuts, chocolate chips, flour, sugar, food coloring, crystallized sugars and candy pearls for decoration, different flavors of coffees and all the ingredients to make a variety of banana bread, cookies, and sweet treats to go with the hot cocoa and the coffees they planned to offer. She even managed to find red and green marshmallows. When they moved to the checkout lane, she stood beside the cart, going over everything she’d placed in it to be sure that she’d not forgotten anything.
“I feel like I’m forgetting something,” she said to herself, more than to Travis.
“Whatever it is, I can run pick it up when you figure it out,” Travis said.
“We’ll need candy canes, too,” she said.
“Got them,” Travis answered.
“We did?” she asked, looking up at him.
“We did. Got them at the department store when we got the table cloths, five hundred cups - did we really need five hundred? — paper plates and napkins, all the glitter, ribbons, orange twine, sequins, and glue they had, and all the tempera paints and paintbrushes to go with them.
“Wipes! We’ll need wipes for when the kids get paint on their hands or their clothes,” Libby said.
“I got it,” he said, letting go of the basket.
“No, I’ll go. Could you start putting this on the conveyor?” she asked.
“Sure,” Travis answered, stepping around the basket to start putting their selections on the conveyor for the cashier to ring up.
A quick few minutes later and Libby was back, her arms loaded with non-bleach wipes so they’d be safe to clean the kids’ hands and clothes when they painted their ornaments.
After paying and loading it all in the back of Travis’s truck, they finally headed back to Travis’s house. They’d only driven a short while when Travis brought up the subject that she couldn’t get out of her head. His kiss in the feed store.
“Are we not going to talk about it?” he asked.
“Talk about what?” Libby answered, playing stupid.
“Our kiss,” Travis said.
“You mean your kiss,” Libby said.
“Our kiss. You kissed me back,” Travis answered with a tease in his voice.
“You were just putting ‘Little Miss I’m Better Than Everyone’ in her place,” Libby said softly.