The past few days had been a whirlwind of fun and immensely good times. I’d been watching Hope all week while Kyson’s mother recovered from the flu, and he and Lincoln worked steadily on the bakery. Hope and I had spent a day with Evie and with Suda Kaye, and a lot of time just being girlie. I took her to get her nails done, and I allowed her to choose colors for both of us. So now I had yellow painted toes and hot-pink fingernails. Another day Jasper and I took her out shopping for more school clothes since Kyson noted she’d been growing out of everything.
I’d never seen a more thankful man when Hope and I came home with an entirely new wardrobe. Courtesy of me and Uncle Jasper, which he’d since been coined, much to his extreme joy. After finding out he’d earned a title, he went a little bonkers in a store called Justice that apparently was little-girl heaven. The two of them hit it off, especially when it came to fashion. I just enjoyed seeing them happy.
I hummed, enjoying the sounds of my new family having fun as I sautéed onions, green peppers and garlic, readying it for adding the tomato sauce and tomatoes I’d already stewed. Kyson came up behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist, plastering my back to his front where he then pressed a warm, thrilling kiss to my neck. He inhaled. “Smells good, baby.”
“Spaghetti sauce always does,” I murmured.
He bit down on my neck playfully then soothed it with his lips. “I wasn’t talking about the sauce, Isa.”
I shivered and he chuckled.
“Oh, man, we forgot the fresh sourdough bread,” Jasper grumbled from where he was digging through the remaining bags we brought over from our grocery-store haul. “We cannot have spaghetti without garlic bread. It’s sacrilege,” he whined.
Kyson laughed and patted me on the ass. “I’ll run out. There’s a store close.”
“I’ll go with you. Need to pick up some more beer.” Lincoln stood up as he’d just been taken out of Left, Right, Center by Evie, who whooped and hollered every time she won a poker chip.
“And wine! More wine, please!” Suda Kaye blurted, rolling the three dice, putting her hands in the air and screaming, “In your face, baby!” To Camden, whom she just kicked out of the game.
Camden chuckled, curled a palm around his wife’s neck and kissed her silly. When he was done, she had a dreamy look on her face.
I laughed and shook my head.
Kyson tunneled his hands into the back of my hair and turned my head so I was facing him. He kissed me full and deep then pulled away, tugging on my bottom lip. “The things I’m going to do to you tonight...” he warned and I sighed. He smirked, kissed me soft and let me go. “You got Hope, baby?”
“Always.”
He grinned. “Perfect woman.”
“Don’t I know it!” I teased back.
He grabbed his keys from a basket at the edge of the kitchen counter. “Come on, bro,” Kyson called out and Lincoln gave Jasper a kiss goodbye and told him to be good.
To which Jasper called out, “I’m always good! You know that better than anyone!”
Both men left chuckling and I continued to instruct Hope. For a child her age, she paid a great deal of attention. Maybe she would be interested in cooking as a career one day. Either way, I planned on teaching her whatever she wanted to learn.
“Okay, little miss, time for you to stir all of the ingredients together,” I said.
She got off her stool and I moved it in front of the stove. She stepped up and I wrapped my arm around her waist, keeping her a good distance from the hot burners.
“Now, you have to be very careful when you’re in front of a hot stove. It could burn you. Always be aware of where your body is and where your arms and hands are. You don’t want to accidentally reach for something and touch the hot pot with your arm. It will hurt.”
She nodded and backed into my front, keeping her distance.
I held the spoon with her as we stirred the huge batch of sauce we’d made. I wanted Kyson to have extra left over in case I wasn’t here to make dinner tomorrow. Not that I’d been anywhere else the past week. Kyson felt that the more I was there, the better, and he’d made it clear he wanted to have dinner nightly as a family.
I wanted to give Hope some time to really get used to me, but also have quiet time with her dad. As much as it concerned me that we were seeing too much of each other, Kyson did not feel the same. He believed they’d had enough time without a woman in their lives and there was no reason to go slow in this relationship.
“You’re doing a great job, Hope.” I allowed her to stir the sauce by herself but hovered my hand over hers to ensure she didn’t accidentally move the wrong way or lose balance.
“I like cooking with you,” she said.
I smiled and kissed her cheek. “I like it, too, little miss.”
Her small cheeks got pink when she grinned. “My best friend Selena cooks with her mama all the time. She says they make tamales from scratch. What does from scratch mean?”
“It means homemade. Like we’re doing with the sauce.”
“So I can tell Selena that I made spaghetti sauce from scratch with my new mommy, too!” Her voice was filled with excitement while my heart stopped beating altogether.
Jasper laughed and broke into our conversation. “Just wait until your new mommy teaches you how to make candy from scratch. You’ll be the talk of the school!”
I nudged his shoulder so hard he sidestepped and had to grip the counter to catch himself from falling. I glared at him, my mouth feeling tight and my skin hot. His face turned beet red and he frowned. He knew he’d stepped over an imaginary line and I could see he’d just realized his error.
“Oh, will you, Izzy? Teach me how to make candy?” She breathed with hope in her tone.
I closed my eyes and took a breath, trying to calm down from the my new mommy discovery. Kids said crazy things all the time. It didn’t mean she really understood what she was saying. Definitely something I planned to bring up with Kyson so he could explain things to her in his way.
“Of course I’ll teach you how to make candy,” I agreed, adding candy to the ever-growing list of things Hope wanted me to teach her to make.
“I have to pee,” Hope declared loudly so I let her go and she skipped out of the kitchen down the hall.
I turned to Jasper.
He held his hands up. “I’m sorry. I got carried away. It won’t happen again, I swear.” At least he looked properly contrite.
“We have to be careful. We don’t know what the future will hold and I don’t want to upset her if things take a bad turn.”
Jasper looped his arm around my shoulders. “Izzy, it’s not going to go bad. You and Kyson are perfect for one another. I’ve never seen you this happy. The man exudes pride every time he’s near you. His daughter loves you and you love her. What could go wrong?”