Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain #2)(124)

The knife stayed stuck in the cake for awhile and Tate and I didn’t test out Moist Factor Five Hundred until it was dark. Tate sat on the island wearing nothing but his jeans only half buttoned up. I stood between his legs wearing nothing but his t-shirt. We ate a huge slice he held in his big hand, using our fingers to feed each other. This meant frosting got all over our fingers but cleaning it up was just a bonus to an already delicious activity.

Shambles was right, Moist Factor Five Hundred was a hit. But it wasn’t Shambles secret cake ingredient that made it a hit.

It was my very own chocolate butter cream frosting.

Chapter Nineteen

Jonas

The door to the bar opened, most of my body locked but my eyes flew to it.

Nadine walked in.

I heaved a sigh of relief.

“Laurie, honey, you okay?” Jim-Billy asked and I looked at him.

It was Friday. I was on the day shift. Tate was gone, picking up Jonas. I’d been on tenterhooks since noon, like Tate could step on Scottie’s beaming pad and beam himself and Jonas back and right outside the bar. But now it was nearly three and they could be here at any minute.

I was not ready for this.

Tate had told me before he left that morning that he’d bring Jonas by the bar to meet me then they’d go off and do their thing then they’d pick me up and we’d all go to dinner. I’d wanted to make Jonas a welcome home dinner and maybe buy my way into his heart through his ten-year-old boy’s stomach because I didn’t figure Neeta was a master chef. Though, if I waited until after my shift, they wouldn’t eat until late so going out it was. The diner could cook faster than what I had planned.

I bought all the stuff for dinner anyway because I had Saturday off so I decided to make it then. I didn’t find out until I got in the bar that day that Krystal and Wendy had conspired against me. It was Wendy’s day off but she was coming in to take over for me at three thirty and Krystal had made last minute schedule changes so I had the whole weekend off.

I didn’t want the whole weekend off. I just wanted Saturday. I told myself that this was so I could give Tate and Jonas time together. It was really because Jonas scared me half to death.

The dinner I picked was a specialty of mine, my family loved it but Brad hated it, said it was over the top, said it was so many calories and fat it was impossible to count, so I only made it when I went home to Indiana. Pork chops stuffed with Rice-A-Roni accompanied by real bread stuffing like you make for Thanksgiving and green bean casserole (the gooey kind with the crispy onions in it and on top). This would be followed by red cake with that creamy, white frosting that took a powerful hold on my willpower not to eat it all before I frosted the cake.

I made the cake the night before using nervous energy to do it. Tate had been gone, called away for a few days to round up a bad guy. Luckily, this only lasted a few days. Unfortunately, we’d fought when he’d returned which was the night before, approximately three minutes after I put the final flourishes on the frosting on the cake.

We fought because, until that day, I’d worked nights so I spent the days while he was gone painting his room as a surprise.

It wasn’t me painting the room that pissed Tate off. When Tate came home and saw it, he liked it, a lot if the kiss he gave me was any indication.

It was the invoice for the blinds that Tate saw on the counter after we’d walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen that pissed him off. I’d had a local man come in, measure and I ordered new venetian blinds. Really cool ones made of a rich, dark wood. They cost a fortune but they would be awesome with the curtains.

Tate picked up the invoice, gave it a glance, looked at me and asked, “What’s this?”

“Um… surprise part two?” I answered in a question because the look on his face was a little scary.

“Lauren, f**k, did you not hear me when I said the blinds were gonna have to wait?” He spoke at the same time he agitatedly threw the invoice down on the counter.

“Yes, I heard you. You said that you couldn’t afford them. So, really, you kind of need them… um… in a way…” I was talking stiltedly because his face wasn’t getting any less scary and because he actually didn’t need them in any way. “So… um… I bought them.”

“Yeah, you bought them and I can’t afford them.”

I didn’t understand so I asked, “You can’t afford them?”

“Gonna be another hit to pay you back, Ace. Don’t need any more hits. My balance needs to start goin’ up, not sinkin’ down.”

“No, I mean, I bought them, for you.”

I thought this would go over well, since no one ever took care of him and Neeta had never given him anything but an orgasm. I’d given him those too and I was on a mission to suck him in as deep as I could get him so I had to pull ahead of all his history with Neeta and any other woman for that matter.

This, however, did not go over well.

“You bought them for me,” he repeated quietly but his voice was hard.

“Yes, I thought –”

He interrupted me. “No, babe, you didn’t.”

“Sorry?”

“You didn’t think,” he explained.

“I –”

“Got money,” he cut me off again, leaning a bit toward me. “Yeah, I know. It wasn’t in my face every time you put on clothes or spray on your fancy-ass perfume in my goddamned bedroom, I’d still know after you told me about your life with that f**kwad.”