Oh Christ. “Look. Ask anyone. It’s no secret I’m super antisocial on set, but I was really disappointed we had to cancel our plans. I enjoyed talking with you, and I wanted more time with Hades and Persephone.” I admitted all this freely. It felt dangerous to be vulnerable with anyone, not just Stone, but I wanted him to hear it. “Would I knowingly contract poison oak to get out of work? Maybe. But I wouldn’t give it to someone else. Not ever.”
“So, you’re not a monster, you’re an idiot?” A small smile gave a grim twist to his lips.
“Okay, well.” I stood and patted the picnic basket on the table. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Come back here,” he growled the words.
It still felt safer to go. Did he really believe I’d be capable of hurting my cast mates?
“I gather you were making this video?” He picked up his phone and gestured me over to play the TikTok we’d shot earlier. He enlarged a part of the image. “That plant there? Take a good look. Leaves of three—”
“I know what poison oak looks like.” I took a seat opposite him. “Honestly, I should have spotted it right away. Thing is, Maddie and her friends normally pretend I don’t exist. So when she and her minions wanted me to drop what I was doing and join in, I expected some prank and—”
“That happen often?” He narrowed his startling blue eye.
“Not often. But it’s hard to know what’s coming with them.” Hazing, I knew, occurred in organizations all over the world. If I was bullied more because of my past, that was life.
Stone held a highball glass of amber liquid in one hand and scrolled through his phone with the other. A bottle of Maker’s Mark sat on the table.
“Did you get started without me?” I pointed out the booze.
He glanced up guiltily. “I was having a celebratory drink. Ariel had her baby, and I was looking at pictures.”
“She’s your sister-in-law?”
“Yup. I’m a brand-new uncle. Taggart’s alternating between overwhelmed and hopeful.”
“Tell me about that.” Most people wanted to talk if I stayed out of the way.
“Oh God. Well.” He took a sip. “Imagine you’ve spent your entire life gaining competence in your field. You’ve fought in a war. You feel pretty good about yourself. Then, you suddenly become responsible for a tiny, fragile, hopelessly inarticulate bundle of skin and bones and ganglia and for some reason you can’t fathom, the second you see this weak, droopy little body it becomes the most important thing in your life.”
I breathed in awe. “You’re talking about you.”
He glanced up, surprised, as though maybe he’d said more than he intended. “Look. Her name is Artemis. Isn’t she sweet?”
I looked at the angry red creature and knew I’d probably never be able to understand. “What’s it like the first few nights? What’s your brother doing right now?”
“Not sleeping. That’s for fucking sure.” He stared into the distance, but I knew if I turned, I wouldn’t find whatever it was he saw. He drained his glass. “Fatherhood is truly the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced.”
I studied Stone’s strong, capable hands. Let my gaze drift upward, past the corded muscles of his forearms and the breadth of his wide shoulders. Then I came to his face. Half his face was objectively gorgeous, and the other half carried those horrible scars…
A baby was the most frightening thing this man had ever experienced?
A baby brought this beautiful man to tears as he laid a delicate finger over her cheek on the screen?
Loving someone can be like toggling a switch—you’re strangers, and suddenly you know something about the person, and you simply love that thing so much, you love the person too.
I fell for Molly the first moment we met. I saw her kindness and her beauty and understood she would always speak to me from her heart.
I felt the same sudden intensity of emotion for Stone Wilder.
Straight Stone. Probably married Stone.
Stone, who wept over the birth of his niece.
Things looked pretty hopeless for me in the romance department, but that didn’t feel so important just then.
This man is tribe.
“We should eat.” I opened the hamper and found ribs and brisket wrapped in butcher paper. A bag of biscuits. Greens, corn on the cob, and a vat of beans. The food seemed to keep on coming, plus there were two bottles of Pritchard Hill cabernet sauvignon. I drank wine, but Charles and Molly knew wine. It was bound to be good.
“Hey, there’s even a pecan pie.” I glanced toward Stone. “You like pie?”
“I love pie.” He turned off his phone before knuckling the skin beneath his eye.
“Then what are we waiting for?” I picked up the things that needed a reheat and asked, “I can warm these if you show me where.”
“Full kitchen. Here, let me—” He pointed to the toy hauler and made to rise.
I laid my hand on his shoulder. “Enjoy the sunset. I’ll get things ready.”
He lifted his gaze to mine. “Thank you.”
“I want to see more pictures of Artemis when I come back.”
He laughed. “Sure.”
Inside, his RV held the not entirely unpleasant funk of clean dog and fastidious man. The windows were wide open, and there was a half-burnt, spice-fragranced candle on the counter that smelled like Christmas.
I sighed and opened the wine before rolling my sleeves up. As I looked for a glass, I tried to remember if you were supposed to let this kind of wine breathe. Didn't matter. Since everything in Stone's kitchen had been organized well, I found a glass and poured myself some wine.
Who cared if the wine needed to breathe? I needed to breathe, and that was pretty hard to do around Stone Wilder—especially after I noticed the gorgeous family portrait on his lock screen.
Apparently, Stone had a gorgeous, freckled wife and three stairstep kids.
What was I even doing?
Morrigan poked her head in the door. She watched me steadily. She probably thought I was rifling through her human’s private things. I guess I was, if private things included platters and bowls and silverware. She gave a sneeze and then tried to back down the stairs. Spoiler alert, dogs don’t go in reverse so well.
“Morrigan, did you fall down?” Stone chuckled. “Aw, poor baby, come here. You’re all right. You’re just embarrassed because you were trying to look cool in front of your new friend, huh?”
She barked. The wolfdogs answered.
“I don’t think he even noticed. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
This man is definitely tribe.
“Pigs n’ smoke it is,” I murmured into my wine glass. “Copy that.”
Chapter Seven
Stone
“No.” I laughed out loud. “Fifty-three times?”
“And counting.” Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Dad loves that movie. He cries every time.”
“You’ve actually seen The Muppet Christmas Carol fifty-three times.”
He nodded brightly. “We watch that like, five times every holiday season. When Gonzo says, ‘And Tiny Tim, who did not die,’ my dad goes off like a fire sprinkler.”