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CHAPTER

EIGHT

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S unday morning, we showered and dressed, and Reece took us all out for breakfast. My grits, biscuits, and sausage gravy, paired with fried green tomatoes, completely hit the spot. I went with oatmeal and scrambled eggs for Benny.

We ate and talked and laughed. A few people wandered up to the table when they saw Reece.

These weren’t necessarily fans, but people from the town who’d known him his entire life.

He introduced me as his girlfriend and Claudia as my grandmother.

Happy didn’t begin to cover the emotions running through me while I watched everyone interacting.

It felt like a real family—yes, I knew that it was temporary, but I loved being a part of a big family like this.

After breakfast, Reece took us on a small walking tour through the town. He carried Benny and I held on to his bicep, resting my head against it as we meandered along the street, every so often popping into a shop that interested us.

Everyone in town knew Char. People stopped us so many times to say hi that I started a tally in my head.

Fifty-seven people had stopped us before we headed back to the house.

Char seemed a bit tired, and we didn’t want to push our luck.

I told her that I had to put Benny down for a nap because Reece told me she’d fight it, not wanting to be the fun-sucker of the group.

She’d yet to mention her illness, so I wasn’t about to ask. If she wanted this weekend to not think about it, well, I planned to give it to her.

With this being our first meeting and my plan to cook Sunday dinner before we had to leave, I decided on something comforting but different than the meals Char had cooked for Reece growing up.

“I need to go to the grocery store,” I announced to the room.

“I’ll take you,” Reece replied. “Benny’s down, so it’s a good time.” He paid better attention to those details than most men paid to their own children. Our time together might’ve been fleeting, but I’d enjoy it until the end.

“Let me grab my purse,” I said.

He stopped me abruptly with his, “No need. You won’t be paying.”

Right. I knew that. It was just going to take a bit to get used to. I held my hand out to him and we started for the car.

With the rest of the family in the house, I needed to know a few things for my shopping list. “Does your mom like tiramisu?”

“It’s coffee, chocolate, and cream—what, do you think she’s a heathen?”

Laughing, I slapped his arm. “No need to get your panties in a bunch. It was an honest question.”

“She loves it.”

“Good. Then that’ll be dessert.”

He opened the car door for me and I slipped in, buckling my seatbelt as he shut the door and walked around to the driver’s seat.

“What are you thinking for dinner?” he asked while backing out of the driveway. I waited until he got us on the road driving before answering so he could concentrate.

“Oh, I have a great recipe. I never knew my biological grandmother because she died before I was born, but when I was a kid, my mom used to make this dish. It’s amazing.”

“Great, but what is it?” he asked sarcastically.

“Ye of little faith. Now I’m not going to tell you at all. You’ll just have to guess from the ingredients.”

“Woman,” he grumbled. Grabbing hold of the back of my head, he tugged me to him, planting a quick, punishing kiss on me. “You’ll pay for that one.”

Breathily, I answered, “I don’t think I will.” His kisses were the stuff of legend and still made my toes curl and my skin tingle every single time. My head knew he faked it, but my body couldn’t have cared less. And if being playful got me more of them, then that was what I intended to do.

“You’re really not going to tell me?”

“I told you, you’ll just have to guess or wait for the feast. Your choice.” Then I tweaked his nose for good measure. And I got the feeling that if I’d been anybody else, he’d have let me have it for that little move.

While we drove, I typed up a list on my notepad on my phone. This meal had epic written all over it.

Once we got into the store, I got right down to business. “We need cabbage.”

“You making slaw?”

“Not even close. Now, lead the way, good man.”

Snickering, Reece led us to the produce section. I grabbed a head of cabbage, an onion, and a bag of Yukon Gold potatoes to get us started.

By the time we got to the bottom of my list, I had to hunt down a box of Nilla Wafers since the store didn’t carry ladyfingers. No mascarpone either—not ideal, but I could make it work. Thinning some cream cheese with a bit of cream and a touch of sugar would get me close enough .

And while I was at it, I decided to skip the whipped egg whites. I knew that might ruffle a few traditionalist feathers, but I preferred whipped cream anyway—lighter, silkier, and without that weird meringue texture I couldn’t stand.

Before checking out, I sent Reece to find me a tin of good-quality cocoa powder and a bar of chocolate to shave over the top. It wouldn’t be textbook tiramisu, but it would taste damn good.

“I still have no idea what you’re making,” Reece said.

“You’ll love it. I promise. You’re sharing your mom with me, so I’m sharing my mom with you.”

“Fuck, Bree,” he whispered and the look in his eyes could’ve brought me to my knees if I hadn’t been holding on to the shelf. For as long as this thing lasted between us, I wanted to continue seeing that look.

It took an old woman passing us with her cart to finally get him to turn away.

He cleared his throat and started unloading our haul onto the conveyor belt.

Then Reece paid for everything. He wouldn’t look at me and I worried that I’d pissed him off.

But while we walked the cart out to the car, he stopped abruptly, pulled me into his arms, and kissed me.

The man confused the hell out of me, but I took from the kiss that he wasn’t pissed? Once back at the house and after we’d lugged all the bags inside, I gave Char her surprise.

“Baker has told me all about Sunday dinners with you, so we wanted to surprise you with a Sunday dinner of stuffed cabbage rolls and boiled potatoes, crusty rolls with a yummy brown sugar butter, and tiramisu for dessert.”

His mother gasped, clasping her hands together in front of her. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. Baker and I have this under control.”

“Love you, Ma. Keep Claudia company.” He followed me into the kitchen. Once we were alone, he said, “Right. Now how in the hell do we make cabbage rolls? ”

“Let’s get the dessert going first because we’ll have to preheat the oven and it’ll make it harder to whip the cream.”

With the two of us working side by side, along with his mom’s legendary KitchenAid mixer doing half the work, it didn’t take long to get the tiramisu layered, smoothed, and chilling in the fridge.

Then it was on to dinner.

We peeled and chopped the potatoes and got them boiling while we blanched the cabbage leaves and simmered the barley until tender.

The filling came together fast: ground beef, pork, thyme, marjoram, grated parmesan, diced onion, and the cooled barley.

I gave it a gentle mix and set it aside while we moved on to the sauce.

A cup of beef broth, a can of crushed tomatoes, and a good dollop of tomato paste went into the pot. Once it thickened and started to bubble, I stirred in a couple teaspoons of paprika and seasoned it with salt and pepper to taste. The smell alone was enough to make my stomach growl.

Back to the filling—I cracked in an egg to bind it all together, then started forming spoonfuls of the meat and tucking them into the center of each cabbage leaf, folding them up like neat little egg rolls.

One by one, I nestled them into a baking dish and poured the warm sauce over top, the rich red coating every seam.

Dinner was officially in the oven. And honestly? We made a pretty damn good team.

While the cabbage rolls baked, we had about an hour of downtime—just enough to whip up something special for the dinner rolls.

I took the room-temperature butter and stirred in a quarter teaspoon of vanilla, a quarter cup of brown sugar, and a pinch of cinnamon until it turned into the dreamiest, most decadent compound butter.

Sweet, creamy, and just a little spiced. It was the kind of thing that made plain dinner rolls taste like dessert. I planned to pop the rolls into the oven about twenty minutes before the cabbage rolls finished, just enough time for them to get golden and warm, ready to slather.

I set a timer on my phone which gave us time to talk. Reece leaned with his hands resting to the sides of him over the edge of the counter, but there was a heaviness in his eyes he hadn’t masked fast enough. I drained the potatoes and tossed them with butter and parsley, glancing over at him.

“You okay?” I asked gently, stirring.

He shrugged one shoulder, staring off out the window over the sink. “Yeah. I mean… mostly.”

“ Baker ,” I said, and when he drifted his gaze back to me, I gave him a look.

I mean, if he couldn’t talk to me, then who did he open himself up to?

Not the team. They were good men and I believed soul deep that if he opened up to Bishop or Jones, they’d become some of his best friends.

But he kept himself so closed off. Fake or not, he needed to unload, he needed a Bree enema and was about to get one.

He sighed. “It’s good to be home. Familiar. Comfortable. But seeing Ma...” His voice dropped. “She’s lost some weight. Her color’s off. She tries to play it down, but I see it.”

It was hard to miss, but saying that wouldn’t help the situation. I set the spoon aside and moved closer, resting my hip against the counter beside him. “I noticed too.”

“She was always so... solid. Tough as nails. Seeing her like that? It’s hard not to feel like I’m just waiting for something to break.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know how to sit still and not fix it.”