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“A feast,” Annie said, laughing.

Dec poured some of the condensed milk into his coffee, took a sip and rolled his eyes.

“Heaven.”

“The coffee?”

“Well, sure. But mostly the condensed milk, that combo of sugar and cream… My mom used to bake Christmas cookies and one of the ingredients was condensed milk. I loved it.”

“The cookies or the milk?”

Dec grinned. “Both.”

Annie reached for the can and read the label.

“I bet you can get a sugar-high from this stuff,” she said.

She dipped her finger into the can and raised the finger to her lips, but Dec grabbed her hand and sucked her finger into the heat of his mouth.

“Super delicious,” he said. “And you’re the best sugar-high I can think of.”

She smiled, leaned towards him and rested her head on his shoulder.

“So your mom baked cookies?”

“Yeah. Well, when she had the time. She drove to work in Taos every day. It was thirty miles one way. Plus there was always a lot to do around our place.”

“That field of corn.”

He smiled. “Right. And we had a big vegetable garden. We kept chickens. And we had a couple of horses.”

“What did your mother do in Taos?”

Declan looked at Annie.

“She cleaned houses,” he said. “And motel rooms. Not any more, though.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been, you know, I’ve been able to help out a little.”

Annie nodded. Of course he helped out. She’d never met anyone with a bigger heart than her Declan.

“And your father? What about him?”

“My old man’s a great guy. He paints. He sculpts. Last time I was home, he’d taken up pottery.”

“An artist,” Annie said with delight.

“Only problem is, he’s not very good at the commercial end of it. I don’t think he’s sold more than a dozen pieces of his work in a decade.” Dec took her hand and played with her fingers. “Sounds like the setup for a five-handkerchief boy-girl movie. My mother cleaned houses and my dad’s a dreamer. Your mother was a debutante and your father ruled a kingdom.”

“Declan. You’re not going to tell me you think that matters!”

He kissed each of her fingertips.

“I’m not going to tell you that, no—but you have to admit, it’s a little unusual.”

“You’re what’s unusual,” she said softly.

“No way, honey. That title belongs to you.”

She smiled at him. He smiled back, leaned in, brushed his lips over hers and felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of foreboding.