Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)(61)

Gabe had filled Addison in on the full story, and it had warmed Addison’s heart. But this nagging feeling wouldn’t go away. “Do the flashlights make him feel braver?” Addison asked.

Stella nodded.

“Is he afraid of the dark?”

“Sometimes.”

“And he wants as many as he can get?” Addison asked.

“In case one runs out,” Stella said. “They’re little.”

“You can replace the batteries in most of them,” Addison said. She didn’t mind getting Cooper the alligator flashlight, but something was bugging her about Cooper’s collection.

“But he can’t change them by himself,” Stella said.

“His dad or his uncle or his grandma or I would help him,” Addison said.

“But they’re not always with him.”

“And Cooper is worried about needing a flashlight when his dad and the rest of us aren’t around?” Addison asked.

Stella nodded. “Right.”

Addison didn’t like the idea that Cooper was feeling worried that he might need a flashlight when his family wasn’t around. She wondered where that was coming from and if there was something she could do to make it better. She looked down at the flashlight she held. Well, at least she could buy him a light that would also remind him that he’d overcome his fear and touched an alligator today.

“You keep your allowance, Stell Bell,” she said. Addison paid for the flashlight and gave it to Stella to give to Cooper. Her daughter went running out the front door to where Gabe and Cooper were standing talking to Sawyer.

Through the window, Addison watched Cooper’s face light up and Stella’s huge grin as she gave her friend the gift. Addison’s heart expanded. Maybe Cooper was a little afraid of the dark, or afraid of the dark when his family wasn’t around anyway, but that was a normal fear, especially for a five-year-old, and if that little plastic alligator made him feel better, then she was glad to be a part of it.

Gabe held his hand out to her as she joined them on the sidewalk out front, and they laced their fingers together.

“I’m glad you guys came back,” Sawyer told them, clapping Gabe on the shoulder. He held his hand out to Cooper, who shook it. “Keep coming back. Pretty soon you’ll be doin’ the tour with me. You know a lot about gators.”

Cooper’s eyes widened, but before he could say that he had no interest in something like that, Stella took Sawyer’s other hand and pumped it up and down. “I’d be a great airboat driver,” she told him.

“Oh, I can tell that,” Sawyer said. “You and Coop can take over the business for me when you’re older.”

“Really?” she asked, her voice full of awe.

“You bet.” Sawyer winked at her. “You’re a good team.”

Stella beamed at Cooper. “We are. He’s going to be my brother.”

Addison coughed, and Gabe chuckled. Sawyer looked up with a grin. “Well, that’s good news. If I’d known, I would have let you throw an extra chicken to the gators.”

Gabe laughed. “Thanks. Maybe we can do that next time.”

Sawyer nodded. “You got it.”

They headed for the car after that. Addison wondered if she and Gabe should address the brother comment. But she wasn’t in a hurry to tell the kids that wasn’t true. Interestingly. She and Gabe could discuss it and decide what their response would be.

And she didn’t miss the fact that this kind of stuff was exactly why she’d been avoiding a serious relationship, particularly with a man with a kid.

She let them into the house forty minutes later.

As the kids ran down the hall toward the kitchen, Addison started after them, but Gabe grabbed her wrist and pulled her around to face him.

“Maybe we should do a little laundry before Coop and I go home.”

She looped her arms around his neck. “Hmm, I am feeling a little dirty, now that you mention it.”

His hands cupped her butt—a favorite move of his—and he put his lips against her neck. “You’re sexy as hell when you’re being a mom, but I would love to make you forget about everything but you being a woman and me being a man for a little bit.”

A shiver of desire went through her. She and Gabe had been getting closer, and she’d learned so much about him just being around him and his family, but they hadn’t been physical since they’d had a quickie against the door in the storage room at the community center after the meeting the other night.

“I miss stretching out in bed and being able to get at all of you and lying in your arms all night afterward,” she said, tipping her head back as he kissed his way down her neck.

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, his blue eyes dark. “Say the word and I’ll put a ring on your left hand and make Cooper officially Stella’s brother, and we can have that every single night.”

The shiver of desire turned into goose bumps, and she had to press her lips together to keep from blurting out, Yes, let’s do it tomorrow.

She swallowed. “Noted,” she said. Breathlessly.

He looked part relieved and part turned on. “I still need you in the laundry room tonight, Ad.”

She nodded. “Also noted.”

He kissed her again, hot and hard, and then took her hand, and they headed to the kitchen to feed the kids.