Page 20 of At First Flight (Coral Bell Cove #1)

I should step back. I don’t. And neither does she.

We stand there, close enough to count the faint freckles on her nose, her gaze flicking to my mouth for a fraction of a second too long. But then the baby monitor crackles to life with Evelyn’s soft, sleepy murmurs, and the spell breaks.

Lila steps back, brushing her hands on her jeans. “Duty calls.”

“Yeah,” I say even though part of me wants to keep her right here. Just a little longer.

She turns toward the hallway, pausing just long enough to look over her shoulder. “Thanks for the help, Dean.”

Anytime , I almost say.

But she’s already gone, the faint scent of sugar and soap lingering in her wake.

And me? I’m still standing in the kitchen, gripping a dish towel, heart pounding like I’ve just stepped off a ledge.

The house is finally quiet. It’s the kind of silence you only get after bedtime with kids—the echo of laughter still clinging to the walls, dishes stacked in the sink, and the hum of the dishwasher the only sound breaking through the calm.

I should be down the hall. Technically, I’m still logged into an investor meeting I bailed on twenty minutes ago. But I made my excuses, closed the laptop, and came downstairs instead.

And there she is.

Lila.

Sitting at the kitchen table in an oversized navy blue sweatshirt, she has her sleeves pushed up and her hair falls loose around her face. She’s got a mug of tea tucked under her chin and her laptop open in front of her, brows slightly furrowed as she types.

I lean against the doorway and watch her for a second, unnoticed. A small crease appears between her eyebrows when she’s concentrating. She bites her lip when she's rereading something. Every now and then, she glances at her notes with a soft sigh, then goes right back to it.

Even when she’s working, she’s calming to be around. I walk over and pull out the chair across from her. She looks up, startled.

“Sorry,” I murmur. “Didn’t mean to interrupt the scientific breakthrough.”

She huffs a soft laugh, closing her laptop halfway. “Hardly. I’m just reviewing a proposal I put together last year, thinking I could recycle part of it for another request.”

I raise a brow. “Anything I can help with?”

She tilts her head, curious. “Do you know much about immunoglobulin E antibody-mediated food responses?”

“Not a damn thing.”

She laughs again, and God, that sound burrows somewhere deep in my chest.

“But I do know a thing or two about putting together a pitch. If you want someone to bounce it off.”

“I might take you up on that,” she says, fingers sliding over the rim of her mug. “It’s just… hard to focus sometimes. Hard to make it all fit.”

She doesn’t say what exactly she’s trying to fit together, but I know. Work. This new life. It’s a lot.

So I nod and don’t press. “How about I grab my laptop and work here with you?”

Her eyes widen slightly, surprised. “You want to work… at the kitchen table?”

I grin. “I’m not so high-and-mighty that I can’t trade a leather chair for a little wood. Besides, the view’s better down here.”

She ducks her head at that, cheeks turning pink. But she doesn’t tell me to stop. Doesn’t tell me to go.

Instead, she nods.

I dash into my office to grab my laptop, then return to settle across from her. We fall into a rhythm for a few minutes— keys clacking, mugs refilling, companionable silence stretching like a blanket over us both.

At one point, Lila pulls her knees up into the chair, leaning forward over her notes. A strand of hair falls over her cheek, and I have to physically restrain myself from brushing it back.

She catches me staring.

“What?” she asks, but it’s soft, not accusatory.

I shake my head. “Just… you’re really good at this.”

“At what?”

“This whole… being here. With the kids. With me.” I shrug a little. “It’s like you’ve been here forever.”

Something flickers in her expression—hope, fear, maybe a mix of both. She opens her mouth, then closes it again. I let it sit. I don’t need her to say anything she’s not ready to say.

She changes the subject. “Oliver asked if you and I are getting married.”

I laugh, leaning back in my chair. “He did?”

She nods, smiling now. “I told him I didn’t think so.”

My stomach twists a little, but not in the way I expected. Not with regret. Just with that strange ache of wanting something you can’t quite name.

“What would you say if I told you he wasn’t the only one wondering that?”

She blinks at me, the smile fading into something more serious.

“I’d say… fools rush in.”

“Every man hath a fool in his sleeve,” I quote.

Another quiet stretch.

She closes her laptop, pushes it aside, and folds her arms on the table. “Do you miss it?”

“What?”

“Your old life. The money. The jet-setting. The power.”

I consider the question. “I miss the simplicity of having a plan and knowing where I was going next. But I don’t miss the cost of it. I don’t miss feeling like I was building something and still had nothing real to come home to.”

Her gaze softens. “You built something with them, Dean. Even before I showed up.”

“Yeah,” I say, voice rough. “But it didn’t start to feel right until you came through that door.”

She blushes again, looking away, but her smile says it all.

We don’t stay at the table much longer. It’s late. The tea’s gone cold. She stretches and yawns, mumbling something about needing sleep. I walk her to the bottom of the stairs, and both of us pause, not quite ready to say good night.

“Thanks for the company,” she murmurs, turning to go.

“Anytime,” I reply.

And I mean it. Because the longer she’s here, the more I realize I don’t want a life that doesn’t include her in it. Even if, for now, it’s just quiet nights and shared glances across the kitchen table.