Page 6 of Family Bonds- Emma & Warren

Her cousin would get a kick out of it.

She was seated at a table devouring her dinner when there was a shadow over her shoulder, then the chair pulled out.

Hunter took a seat. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

“Breakfast,” she said. “Or brunch. I’m not sure what you want to call it. I had two pieces of leftover pizza. Who would have thought working the bar would burn so many calories?”

“You burn calories because when you’re not sitting down in front of your computer, you are all but hopping in place.”

“That’s how I get my steps in,” she said, holding up her fitness band. “Otherwise it beeps at me to get off my ass. Kind of an annoying little bugger.”

She set reminders on it so that she didn’t turn into a slug since she could find herself sitting for hours on end with the only movement of her body being her fingers pounding on a keyboard. Too bad she normally snoozed the alarms.

“You could silence it,” Hunter said. “Like you do everyone else that calls or stops over when you don’t want to be disturbed.”

“I don’t do that as much anymore,” she said. “But you never come visit me anyway.”

Not many did because they understood how she was. Her mother normally checked in with one phone call a week; otherwise she got texts from the rest of her family.

But they weren’t always on the island and she didn’t like to leave it.

Or her house.

Hell, half the time she didn’t want to leave the sunroom that she wrote in.

“You only let people on the property if they’ve got kids with them,” Hunter said.

“Then stop over with Ben or Jack. Chelsea knows to come with Taryn.” Chelsea was married to her brother, Roark.

“I think the only person you would stop everything you were doing for is Grace,” Hunter said of their other first cousin. Grace was the executive chef for The Retreat.

“Duh,” she said. “Who wouldn’t let her in? She always shows up with food.”

She was gobbling up her dinner as fast as she could.

Ten minutes left before she had to be back on shift after glancing at an outdoor clock.

Did it matter if she was a few minutes late? It’s not like she was getting paid for this and they all understood her motivation.

She’d even give her tip money to the rest of the staff working for them to split for having to pick up her slack or mistakes.

“You’re going to choke,” Hunter said, laughing. “And give the cafe a bad name.”

“Or people could think that the food is so good that I can’t resist.”

“You can’t resist because you don’t cook,” Hunter said, standing up.

“That too,” she said. “Do you want to go introduce yourself to the big sports guy over there?”

“I’m on my way,” Hunter said.

Her cousin always did those things. Made himself known to important people on his grounds. He wanted them to feel special.

Emma was betting Warren Showers felt special every day of his life.

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BORING LIFE