Page 183

My heart leapt and that joy abounded, and I managed to pull away from his snare and stretched my hand out to Kai. That stitch of loss I’d felt over him subdued by this feeling of perfection.

“Well, you’d better come pay for it.”

“You got dollars, Daddy?” He tipped his adorable face up to Silas.

Silas ran a tender hand over the top of his head and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill. “Here you go, buddy. Take that to your Lena.”

Kai took it and tottered my way, his little nose curled up, and that beaming smile stretched across his mouth.

I picked him up, elation lighting me through, and I carried him around to the other side of the counter and sat him on top of it beside me.

And I rang up my very first customer.

I hummed into my champagne flute, swaying as the music played and people laughed and chatted.

The lights were on in the shop, but they were dimmed, and I had about a thousand candles burning. It cast the entire store in a mystic glow that felt surreal.

It was fitting since the day had been magical.

Customers coming and going, sharing the snacks and drinks that we had set out, a ton of product flying off the shelves.

The last Crimson Creek resident had paid and gone about fifteen minutes ago, and now, it had turned into more of a party. Only my family—including about thirty Crimson Crows MC members—were in attendance.

A sea of those cuts swarming my store. The three crows on the headstone and another dancing on the grave. All hard leather and bristle and intimidation amid the whimsy of the shop.

It was funny that it somehow fit.

I couldn’t help but peek at Trevan where he loitered across the rambling space near the window.

His typical post, though tonight, he was surrounded by three other Crows.

Too bad he was the only one I could see.

Jeans snug over his muscular thighs and chiseled butt. Wearing his cut, the same as the rest, though he wore a flannel underneath. Dressing up for the occasion.

Dark hair and dark tattoos and a dark soul that still glowed the brightest light.

I wished he had a clue of the way that I saw him. What I recognized in him.

The fingertip suddenly dragging over the corner of my mouth jarred me back from the trance.

“Um, you might want to stop drooling if you don’t want to tip your brother off to the fact that you got naked with Trevan Niles. And don’t you dare deny it. It’s written all over you.”

Brinley whispered the hushed words at my ear.

No one could hear us over the music that thrummed from the two large speakers that had been set up on either side of the room.

Still, she might as well have issued it into the microphone that was attached to one of them with the way heat streaked across my skin.

“See. The evidence is right there.” She poked that same finger into my cheek.

“Would you stop it?” I swatted her hand away and sent a covert peek around the room, making sure no one was within eavesdropping distance.

Silas was on the opposite side of the store, near the displays of cozy sweaters that ran up a narrow shelving unit between a bunch of stunning paintings of different landscapes around Crimson Creek.

Talking under his breath to Regan, a guy who was high up in the Crimson Crows ranks.

“Don’t worry, my husband is far too worried about the idiot running around town thinking he can spook you and back him into a corner than worrying about why your panties are on fire.”