Only You (Adair Family #5)(66)

We wanted to send Shaw a message and both agreed it would be better that neither of us did it because we’d probably maim the bastard. Therefore, we’d sent some guys Walker knew to calmly but forcefully explain that Monroe Sinclair was officially off-limits, and if he so much as breathed in her direction, he’d be breathing through a tube next.

The thought of him hurting this precious woman was a vise around the beating organ in my chest.

“Are you okay?” Roe’s smile of welcome dimmed a bit.

I grinned. “You’re just too fucking cute in that hat. Lost my ability to speak for a minute.”

She rolled her eyes with a snort of disbelief that made her even cuter and turned to take in the Christmas street fair that had made driving down Castle Street a no-go for the day. “I wish they’d had this when we were kids.” Roe stepped off the pavement toward the hubbub.

I followed and gently took her arm to thread it through mine, tucking her into my side. Our height made it a wee bit awkward, but I couldn’t care less. The heat of her, the scent of her perfume, were worth anything.

Roe gave me a look as if to say, I know what you’re doing, but she didn’t pull away. That was definitely an improvement. My optimism rose.

“Let’s check out Sloane’s stall first. It was so nice of Regan to get her a stall last minute.”

It was actually Lachlan. Regan had tried and failed to get the town committee to allow a last-minute seller to join the fair, especially an “outsider,” so she spoke to Lachlan, who was on the committee as a prominent business owner. He’d not only convinced them, he had a friend on the local council fast-track a permit for Sloane.

Following Roe through the crowd, I noted some people doing a double take when they looked at me. I gave them a nod but hoped the influx of tourists outside of Ardnoch would not be a problem. Spotting a young woman I didn’t recognize surreptitiously trying and failing to take a photo of me on her phone, I tried not to tense. Who knew where that photo would end up on the abyss of the internet. We’d become a society repulsively comfortable with taking images or videos of strangers in private moments and posting them online for entertainment, a culture that had surely developed from our treatment of celebrities.

Glancing down at Monroe, I noted she was too preoccupied with perusing the wares at the stalls to have noticed. Thankfully.

“There’s Sloane and Callie. Her stall is so busy already.” Roe sounded thrilled for her friend, and affection flooded me.

I let Roe lead me to the stall, chuckling as she shoved our way to the front. Sloane and Callie both looked at us with beaming smiles. “You made it!”

“We did,” Roe said, eyeing all the baked goods. “How did you guys pull this off? Look at all this!”

“I’ll have two gingerbread men, four cupcakes, and four mini Santa cheesecakes!” the woman next to Roe shouted at Sloane.

Sloane gave us an apologetic look, but Roe waved her off and then slapped my chest dramatically as she cried, “Brodan, look at the Santa cheesecakes. Those are adorable!”

Her easiness with me reminded me so much of what it used to be like. I grinned like a madman. “They are adorable.” It was true. Sloane had piped cream cheese and added sugar-dusted strawberries to the top of each cake and then piped a dot of cream cheese on top of that, so the strawberries looked like Santa hats.

“Ooh, I don’t know what to get.” Roe bit her lip as her gaze darted over the stall like it was the most important decision of her life.

“How about we get a couple of everything?” I suggested.

Her eyes flew to mine. “We can’t do that. Who’ll eat it all?”

“You’ve met my family, right?”

Monroe laughed, her eyes crinkling at the corners, the sound and look of her so sweet, it took everything within me not to kiss the laughter right off her lips. She must have caught the heat in my eyes, because she flushed and she glanced away quickly. “Won’t your family visit the market themselves?”

“Aye, but at this rate, Sloane will be sold out before they get here.”

She considered this. “Maybe we should get a couple of things.”

A few minutes later, the stall had cleared a bit and I told Sloane, “Give me four of everything.”

“Four!” Monroe gasped. “How will we carry that?”

“I’ll keep it behind the stall for you,” Sloane offered. “You can collect it after.”

“See?” I grinned at the solution.

“I want a Santa hat now, though,” Roe murmured, looking like a wee kid.

I chuckled. “Don’t worry, you can have your Santa hat, my love.”

Sloane shot Roe a wide-eyed look before she began boxing up the treats. “This will be our biggest sale of the day.”

“I’ll help, Mom,” Callie said, reaching out to box more of the treats.

“Do you want to be a baker, too, Callie?” I asked. “Or have you caught the acting bug?”

She smiled at me. “I like being in the musical, but I think I like baking more.”

“That’s understandable. I’m an actor, and I like eating baked goods more.”

Callie giggled, and I felt Roe’s attention on me.

“What?” I asked her.

Roe snorted. “You don’t look like you like baked goods more.”