TYLER

I’m not sure I’ve seen a sweeter sight than that of Margaret Marshall first thing in the morning as she stumbles into the kitchen. Her hair’s all askew, and she’s rocking it like a first-place trophy. One of my shirts is haphazardly buttoned over her body, and her eyes are wild, as if she can’t remember her own name.

I’d call that an accomplishment.

It’s the best sex I’ve ever had, that’s for sure.

“What the hell, Tyler?” she hisses, scanning the kitchen for any sign of Jess. “What were you thinking?”

Suddenly, my whistling stops and my hand pauses over the bacon I’d been preparing to flip. “What?”

“It’s seven fifteen! Why’d you let me oversleep?”

“The girls have forty-five minutes before they have to be to school. Don’t worry—Jess is still sleeping. I’ll wake her up after you leave, since I’m assuming you’re not ready to announce we’re dating to the girls.”

“I’m always up by six,” she cries, then lowers her voice. “Next time, wake me up! And no, I’m not ready to share this with the girls.”

“Next time?” I freeze, drop my flipper-thing, and stride across the kitchen leaving the bacon to burn. “Did I hear you say next time?”

She scowls, though her face softens as my hands reach for her, cradling those sweet cheeks between my palms as I drag her face upward to meet mine. I press my lips to hers, lightly for now, easing her into the daylight.

“Everything’s fine,” I tell her. “Emily’s watching Mila—she’s already up. Emily told Mila you were working. Emily actually just called to see if you were alive.”

“And what’d you tell her?” Maggie snaps, a cute little smirk on her face. “That I was drooling on your pillow? You should’ve woken me, Tyler.”

“Nah, I told her that you were comatose from amazing sex. Then, I explained in no uncertain terms that you were resting up for a third round.” I wink. “What do you say you make my prophesy come true?”

“Tyler!”

“Don’t make me a liar, Margaret Marshall.”

She blinks once, agog. “You didn’t say that.”

“No, but I did tell her you were alive and were eating breakfast with us. She said to take your time. Emily’s having fun helping Mila pick out her clothes.”

She groans. “Mila’s not going to go to school in leather pants and a tiara today.”

I raise one eyebrow at her. “Do you own a matching pair of leather pants?”

She picks up a napkin and crumples it into a ball before launching it at me. I dodge, and the napkin hits the frying pan where I need to flip the bacon anyway.

“Nobody told me you were this irritable in the mornings,” I quip, fishing the napkin out and proceeding to flip the bacon. “You should come with a warning label.”

Another napkin bites the dust as Maggie shoots it at me and scowls. By the time she’s done launching paper grenades in my direction, however, there’s a smile on her face.

“You know we serve breakfast downstairs, don’t you?” she says. “Complimentary.”

“From that chef.”

“Jax?” she asks, and I must make a face at the name because Maggie’s reaction is immediate. “Oh, my—is Tyler Daniels jealous?”

“What do I have to be jealous about?”

I turn away and focus on the bacon which, unfortunately, doesn’t need to be flipped yet. So I look at it like an idiot and pretend I’m thinking hard, when really, I’m trying to not focus on the way Maggie looks at Jax. As if he’s her confidant. A friend and brother.

I don’t want the brother part, but I want the rest of it. I want Maggie to come to me to talk, to run her ideas and theories and dreams across the pillow as we fall asleep at night, not sift them out over the countertop with that stupid chef.

“You know there’s nothing between Jax and me, right?” she asks quietly. “Never has been, never will.”

“I know.” I smack at the bacon a little bit for lack of anything better to do. “But you seem to like him.”

“Of course I do. He’s my friend. We’ve worked together for years.”

“Exactly.” I spin to face her. “He’s been here for you and Mila when I should have been here.”

“We both made our choices.”

I hiss out a breath. I shake my head, gripping the stove and hoping I don’t tear it from the wall. “I should have been here. I didn’t know, didn’t realize what I’d left behind until it was too late.”

“Mila has never been your responsibility. And we were young when we broke up—you wanted to explore the world, and I wanted to stay here—things happen. It is what it is, Tyler. Today’s a new day.”

“But—”

“Give yourself a little break.” She hesitates as she watches me ease the bacon onto a napkin. “You’re a great father to Jess, and you stayed by her side which was the right thing to do. I could have gone with you—it was your right to explore the world. I would’ve held you back.”

“You wouldn’t have held me back; I should have stayed.”

“You could have,” she agrees. “Or I could’ve gone.”

“Do you believe in second chances?”

“I wouldn’t say we ever gave ourselves a fair first chance.” Margaret smiles. “Kids making out in the back of a car...that hardly seems comparable to what we have going here.”

“But it sure as hell was fun. What do you say we do it again sometime?”

She bites her lip.

“Don’t back away from me now.”

“Where are we going with this?”

“You know exactly what I offered,” I tell her. “I want it all, Margaret—I want us to be a family.”

“What about Jess? What about your company?”

I’m spared from the hard-hitting questions by the sizzle of bacon and the slight cloud of smoke appearing over the toaster. The next few minutes are spent in a burst of teamwork as Maggie and I move as one unit around the kitchen, struggling not to burn the place down.

“I have to wake Jess up,” I say, once we’ve got the plates settled on the table. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for breakfast?”

While I set the table, Maggie shakes her head. “I’m going to get dressed and find Mila. If she’s having Lucky Charms for the third time this week, then I’m going to add yell at Jax to my To Do list.”

“What are you doing tonight?” I grab her wrist as she steps toward the bedroom door. “Do you want—”

My phone buzzes, and I reach to pull it from my pocket. I mean to throw it down the toilet, but Maggie misinterprets my action as needing to answer the call. She leans in, gives me a peck on the cheek, and disappears into the bedroom as I fumble to silence the ringer.

She reappears a few seconds later, gives me a calm smile, and heads straight for the door.

“Maggie!” I follow her into the hallway. “You don’t have to go.”

“I need to get Mila anyway.” She nods to the still ringing phone, now on its second call. “You need to answer. Bye, Tyler.”

I watch her stride down the hall, letting the phone ring until the last possible second. Eventually, I answer it, and snarl a greeting. “What the hell do you need this early in the morning, Fletcher?”

“We’ve found a site,” he says. “Cross the street from that shithole inn you’re staying at. You noticed the bookstore there? It’s up for sale; same lady who owns the inn is looking to offload some of her properties, and that one’s a money pit.”

“I’ll need to look into it.”

“Hear me out,” he continues. “We build up a swanky boutique inn, charge a fortune to the leaf peepers and promise customized tours and whatever shit they eat up. We’ll have that little inn run to the ground within the year.”

“I told you—”

“I know what you told me,” Fletcher says. “But I did some digging. That’s what you hired me for, isn’t it?”

My chin has a hard line to it because it’s true. Fletcher’s a bloodhound, and I hired him to pick up scents of weak businesses. Businesses fit for purchasing located in places ripe for growth. Together, we’re unstoppable.

It’s not until today that I’ve regretted that decision.

“Hold off on it,” I tell him. “Just for now. I want—”

“We don’t have time,” he says. “We could get the foundation laid before winter if we move quickly. The workers can finish up the insides when the snow falls and we’ll have a brand new place by spring. You know how this works; we don’t have time to screw around.”

“I need a few days.”

“Fine,” he says. “But if you don’t do it, somebody else will.”

I hang up, fuming. Jess finds me that way a few minutes later when she tugs at my arm and asks what’s wrong.

“Nothing, honey,” I tell her. “Let’s grab breakfast.”

“Grab breakfast?” she asks. “But you cooked. Why’d you cook, anyway?”

I can’t exactly tell Jess I had wanted to impress a girl, so I settle for an unlikely alternative. “I was bored.”

“You’re never bored.”

“Are you going to eat it, or not?”

“The bacon’s burnt,” she argues, “and Jax makes good pancakes.”

“Of course he does,” I growl. “Get your things then, and we’ll head down to breakfast. By the way, have you seen the bookstore across the street?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever been there before?”

“For school, once.”

“Do you like it?”

“Of course,” she says. “It’s a bookstore. It has books. Who wouldn’t like it?”

“Exactly,” I mutter through gritted teeth as Jess disappears, confused, into her room. “And who wouldn’t hate the guy responsible for tearing it down?”