Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“You missed a weird time at the lake,” Sam admitted, chuckling.
Gale nodded. “I have to tell you that spending time with your family was what I really needed to recharge the battery.”
“Well, I’d love to have you come back when I could see you too.”
“So is that an invitation?” He sounded serious. “I can come back?”
“Of course,” Sam assured him. “Whenever you’re on your way through, just let me or Jory know. We’d love to have you, you know that.”
He nodded, smiling wide. “Thanks, Sam. I mean it.”
Hannah relinquished the crepe-making to me, and I made ham and cheese, strawberries and marzipan, and even filled others with yogurt and sliced fruit. After breakfast, Sam and Gale went out on the deck with coffee while the kids cleaned up.
Around noon, Gale was going to head out, but Sam persuaded him to leave in the morning at the same time he did for work.
“Yeah, you don’t need to ask twice,” he teased Sam.
When Sam was getting ready to put shrimp and scallops on the grill, he came in, having left Gale out on the deck keeping an eye on the pork tenderloins that we always got at Costco.
“Gale really loves it here,” he said as I passed him the platter to put the pork on when they were done grilling.
“I’m glad,” I murmured. “And I understand why he doesn’t have a family, but I think having some kind of home base would be good for him.”
“Well, it ain’t gonna be mine,” he growled, turning for the back door.
“Stop,” I ordered, and he turned to look at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you know what he said to me?”
“Clearly not.”
“Don’t be funny,” he warned me. “He said that I have a really great life with an amazing husband and awesome kids, and the fact that everybody was so happy to see me made him very jealous.”
“He’s saying that, but he can’t be jealous. He doesn’t actually want your life.”
“Oh, I think he does,” he groused at me. “And he told me I was really lucky because you’re a very handsome man.”
“Awww, he thinks I’m pretty?”
He made a noise in his throat that was nearly a snarl.
“Oh come on,” I teased him.
“He said if anything ever happens to me, I shouldn’t worry because he’ll step right in and take care of you all.”
I scoffed, but when I saw the furrow of his brows, I stepped in close, hands on his hips, staring up into his beautiful slate-blue eyes. “You know better than that. You know you’re irreplaceable, and nothing will ever happen to you.”
“Hell no, it won’t,” he promised, taking my chin in his hand, glaring at me. “No one else gets you or my kids or even Jake.”
I couldn’t stifle the laugh. “Even Jake?”
“Just—you know what I mean. You’re mine. All of you. Period.”
“Without question,” I said, lifting for the kiss. “And you know that.”
“I do,” he husked before he kissed me breathless right there in the kitchen.
That’s it. I hope you all have a happy rest of the month, and I’ll see you in July.
JULY 2021
Hi, everyone, Jory Harcourt here with the He Said, he said. Hope July is treating you well. Mine has been good, except for the holiday. Probably like a lot of families, to celebrate being vaccinated and life getting back to somewhat normal, and masks being worn less, the Kages were having a big Fourth of July get-together with family as well as friends at Sam’s uncle Joe’s place in Chesterton, Indiana, near Indiana State Park, complete with fireworks. We wouldn’t have to spend the night since it was only an hour drive—forty-five minutes if Sam was behind the wheel—and his folks were excited for everyone to go.
Normally I cooked, but Kola had wanted to stretch his culinary wings this time, didn’t want any help or oversight from me, so we had aluminum pans full of—I really couldn’t say.
“You’re supposed to be able to use a spatula to cut lasagna,” Hannah commented as she placed the first pan on the banquet table under the enormous tent set up near the house in Joseph Kage’s backyard. “I mean, you’d need a chef’s knife or a saw to get through that top layer of cheese.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“We should probably precut it,” I suggested, “or people will walk by it, not wanting to hold up the line.”
“Okay, I’ll go inside and see if I can borrow a blowtorch or a chainsaw, all right?”
“Don’t be snarky, just”––I waved her toward the house––“go.”
“Hello.”
I turned to see a man standing there. “Hello,” I replied, smiling.
He offered me his hand. “I’m Vaughn Wexler.”
“Jory Harcourt.” I shook his hand; it was warm, and he had a firm grip.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he assured me.
The sincerity was nice to hear. He had a good smile, handsome man, probably around the same age as me, tall, lean, and the kind of guy who wore a beard and mustache well. His hair was not my dirty blond, but instead the golden blond I’d always wanted. It was the color Aaron used to have, but these days there were some silver streaks visible in the hair of the CEO of Sutter. As usual, though, they looked great on him. The same with Dane too, whose black hair was now streaked with dark gray, as well as at his temples, but instead of making him look old, it made him look like a runway model. Aja told me that at their last faculty mixer at school, some of her colleagues had walked into walls looking at her husband.