You sure you don’t need anything else? Kari texted, her hip resting against the handle of her grocery cart, eyeing the lines stretching from the minimally-staffed checkout stations into the aisles.
Nope. We’re good.
“The man wants to do Thanksgiving and he can’t even plan properly,” Kari muttered, stuffing the phone in her back pocket and pushing the cart to the self-checkout, mentally crossing her fingers that the finicky scanners would actually work. “Who plans to make pumpkin pie and doesn’t think to check to make sure there’s enough sugar?” Not to mention the five obscure but necessary ingredients he’d realized he didn’t have for the very special stuffing. And the other random things.
The grocery gods smiled on her. She only waited twenty minutes for a checkout station and didn’t have to get one of the harried-looking grocery employees to come over and help her with a scanning failure or other issue with the stupid machines. She stuffed her purchases into cloth bags and left, shoving her cart into the corral with a sigh of relief.
A grocery store on Thanksgiving afternoon was not exactly a low-stress environment.
A short drive home and she was pushing through her front door, the smell of roasting turkey floating from the kitchen. “Everything okay back there?”
“Fine.” The word was closer to a grunt, but somehow it made her smile. She lugged her purchases to the kitchen, finding Rob elbow deep in bread crumbs, sausage, cranberry, and she didn’t know what else.
“Your leeks, sir. And all the other stuff.”
“Perfect timing. You mind washing and chopping them? I need them for the stuffing.” He nodded at the big bowl in front of him.
“Not at all.” The gleaming, modernized kitchen was still enough of a novelty that mundane tasks seemed like a pleasure. And having an actual dishwasher was pure heaven. “Step aside, Mr. Dog.” Hugo moved from his position in front of the new, huge farmhouse sink, circling to the other side of Rob, alert for any sign of something dropping from the counter.
“He’s so attentive. He really loves you,” Kari teased as she rinsed the leeks, shaking them out and putting them on a cutting board.
“He loves sausage.”
Kari pulled a knife from the block. “He’ll be excited to see Mia in an hour or so. Won’t you, boy?”
The dog’s attention didn’t waver but his tail thumped once. Kari shook her head and chopped the leeks, dumping them into the bowl for Rob to mix in with the rest of the stuffing. Leaving him to finish preparing that dish, she went into the dining room, picking up the tablecloth she’d ironed earlier in the day off the chest and floating it over the table, replacing candlesticks after she’d squared the cloth off. Returning to the kitchen to get silverware, Rob was just closing the oven door on the stuffing and turkey. He straightened, rolling his shoulders and she fitted herself behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against the back of his head. His hands ran over her arms, coming to rest over her clasped fingers, squeezing gently. They stood there like that for a few breaths, a lovely, quiet moment to add to the chain of lovely moments since she had first let Rob into this room all those months ago to look at her faucet.
She took one more breath, enjoying, then straightened, pulling away from the warmth and solidity of Rob’s body. “Okay. Table setting.”
“No.” Rob turned, his fingers capturing hers, pulling her to him. “Kiss first.”
“Mmm. Okay.” The familiar, joyful heat that hadn’t faded in their time together bloomed in her chest as their lips met, first teasing, then settling into angled heads, pressure, and languor. She pulled back again. “They’re going to be here any minute. I got a text a few minutes ago that Sam and Graham were on their way to pick up Mia from the Metro.”
Rob rested his forehead against hers. “Okay. Rain check.”
“Definitely.”
The sound of the door opening and a clamor of voices made Hugo’s head whip around, his jaws shutting with an audible clop.
“She’s here, boy,” Rob said to the dog and Hugo took off at a run for the entryway. Rob dried his hands on a dish towel and walked to the living room where Mia, Sam, and Graham were taking turns hugging Kari. Mia dropped to her knees to receive a tongue bath from Hugo, who was making anxious little whining noises. She laughed and wiped her face on the sleeve of her coat, getting to her feet to wrap her arms around Rob’s middle. Hugo tried to join the hug, stuffing his face in between their legs.
“Glad you could make it, kiddo.” Rob stroked his daughter’s curly hair, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest.
“Glad to be here, Dad.” Mia grinned up at him, releasing him from her tight hug. “I see you have implemented your plan.”
“Yeah, we noticed the For Sale sign next door,” Sam said. “You have some splainin’ to do, Auntie dearest.” She poked her finger at Kari, who gasped and grabbed Sam’s hand.
“I have explaining? What is this?” She looked from the sapphire ring on Sam’s left hand to Graham, who was sporting a smug grin. “I guess I don’t have to ask if you guys had a nice time in Norway.”
Rob had wondered if Graham was going to use their vacation to pop the question. The younger man had been oddly keyed up prior to their trip. Well, as keyed up as quiet, pensive Graham seemed to get.
“He asked me to marry him almost as soon as we were in Norway. Well. After several hours on the train and an hour in a car. Then he asked me. At the hotel.” Sam turned to Rob, a sly smile on her face. “You’re selling your house, huh? That’s interesting. I wonder where you’re going to move to?” She tapped her chin with her index finger looking from Rob to Kari and back again.
“He’s pretty much been living here for a while now,” Kari said, shooting Rob a quick smile. “After a while it just seemed silly to have two houses.” It was true. While they worked on her kitchen, she had all but moved into his house after a week of traipsing back and forth for meals. That had worked so well and been so surprisingly easy that when her kitchen was finished, he found himself working on more improvement projects and spending more nights at Kari’s than he did at his own house. Eventually they had decided to run a full experiment: live in her house for a month and see what happened. And it had been glorious. After more discussion, he had decided to put his house on the market and move in completely.
“It’s okay, though. I have an excellent landlady to rent from.” Rob winked at Kari and she laughed.
“From being the person who called the landlady to solve problems to being the landlady herself, all in less than a year,” Kari said. “Let’s go finish off the meal and we can all get caught up.”
Rob trailed the group back to the kitchen, the room humming with happy chatter and laughter. He might be about to sell his house, but home was where Kari was.