“I thought I’d –” I started, Tate’s eyes came to me and I pressed my lips together and shoved my wallet back in my purse.

“Good call,” Wanda whispered to me and swiped Tate’s credit card.

We’d left Wanda and Maybelline behind with fond (loud) farewells and were walking through the parking lot to the Explorer, Tate guiding the loaded cart with one hand, his other arm around my shoulders, my arm curled around his waist when Tate spoke.

“You wanna explain about Wanda?”

“No,” I replied.

“You know her?”

“Not exactly, except she gave me a mini-counseling session when I came here with Wendy.”

“Come again?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I murmured.

Luckily, Tate let that go.

“You wanna tell me why you know everyone every place we go?” he asked.

“No,” I answered.

“How long you been in Colorado?” he went on.

“Um…”

“Babe,” he muttered and I knew he was smiling.

“I’m nice,” I explained and he didn’t respond so I continued. “And to be nice you have to be friendly so even if someone you don’t know butts into your conversation and gives you advice, you stay friendly. Wanda’s kind of nosy and somewhat inappropriate but she means well. And anyway, I’m nice and I’m friendly and I don’t know how else to be.”

He stopped the cart and me at the back of the Explorer and looked down at me.

“We get home, maybe you can be friendly to me.”

I felt a twinge in three places.

Regardless, I informed him, “You have to install curtain rods when we get home.”

“Right, then after I install the curtain rods, we can close the curtains and then you can be friendly to me.”

“No,” I replied. “I’m making a Moist Factor Five Hundred cake, I’ll be busy.”

“A Moist Factor Five Hundred cake?”

“Shambala told me one of his secrets. I’ve been dying to test it out.”

“Ace, we got five pounds of lemon shit in the truck. Do we need a cake?”

“Everyone needs a cake and I haven’t had a kitchen for months, except when I was home and then I didn’t get to enjoy it because my Dad was in the hospital after having a serious heart attack.”

“You a good cook?”

I shrugged. “Passable.”

Tate stared at me.

“I’m a passable cook but I’m a hell on wheels baker,” I bragged truthfully.

“So you like bakin’,” he noted.

“Love it.”

“Miss it?” he asked.

I nodded.

He stared at me again. Then he cupped my jaw with his hand, tilted my head back, bent his head and touched his lips to mine.

“Then you can make your cake,” he whispered.

“Thanks,” I whispered back.

He grinned. “After that, you can be friendly to me.”

The twinges came back double strength, he let me go, beeped the locks and pulled up the back of the SUV. We loaded up our bags, Tate let me in the cab, returned the cart, came back, climbed behind the wheel and we went home.

* * * * *

I was in Tate’s kitchen chopping cucumbers and tossing them in the bowl with the rest of the veggies I’d prepared for the salad we were having with dinner.

The Moist Factor Five Hundred cake was in the oven and the bowl of my grandfather’s famous mustard glaze I’d mixed together was fermenting in the fridge ready to put on the pork tenderloin which would go into the oven after the cakes came out.

I sensed movement and my head came up from chopping to see Tate walking through the dining room toward the kitchen, a drill in one hand, the handle of a toolbox in the other. I was so busy chopping, I hadn’t noticed I wasn’t hearing the drill anymore. His eyes came to me, I smiled at him, his face got soft in a warm way when he caught my smile and he walked right through the kitchen to the hallway leading to the garage.

I stared after him long after he disappeared.

I didn’t think I’d ever seen his face get soft like that but I figured I didn’t because it was definitely a look I’d never forget seeing.

I pulled myself together, dropped the knife, wiped my hands on a towel and walked to the bedroom.

The curtains were up. They were to-the-floor, dark denim with loops at the top that were hooked over rusty-looking thin, square rods that had killer jagged ends. Tate had two big windows in his bedroom, one facing the front of the house, one the side, the bathroom and walk-in closet took the back of the room. The curtains transformed it. The new sheets and comforter were one thing but the curtains offered a big slash of color, giving the room personality, making it homier and making the big room seem almost cozy.

All the room needed now was a paint job (the walls were a little tired and I thought a nice, warm, pale blue would be awesome, maybe with a terracotta accent wall); blinds (because with those dark curtains closed, it would be a blackout situation); and some pictures on the walls.

And I knew exactly what picture would be perfect.

I’d seen it through the window of one of the biker shops in town. A large frame around which was a sepia photo of two bikers riding side by side into town. There was no one on the straight road for as far as the eye could see except those bikers, they had their backs to the camera and to their side was the sign that was still there that read “Welcome to Carnal”. Even though the bikes were older, the picture taken probably decades ago, the long Main Street of Carnal lay in front of the bikers and it didn’t look much different. When I’d spied it, I’d stopped and studied it through the shop window. It was awesome and it would be perfect over Tate’s bed.

Buster pranced in and jumped up on the bed. She stood there, blinking at me, her tail swishing then she blinked at the curtains at the window facing the bed that had a view out the front of the house. Then she collapsed on a flank, stretched out her other flank and delicately licked her foot.

I decided to take that as approval.

Tate sauntered in.

“They look great,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he agreed, coming to stand by me.

I twisted my head to look up at him. “Now you need some venetian blinds,” I informed him. “Just in case you don’t want blackout conditions but still want to mute the light.”