Picket Fence Surprise. Kris Fletcher

followed in her wake.

      “Pizzi! Pizzi! Daddy! Pizzi!”

      Heather patted her pocket. “I can’t believe I forgot. I placed the order before we started painting, just in case we got caught up in it, but I totally lost track of time and...”

      She was nervous. Because he had touched her? Because she didn’t want him touching her, even by accident?

      Or could it be the same reason his own senses had jumped to long-deprived life the moment his skin made contact with hers?

      “Mom! Are you gonna come pay? Because I’m hungry.” Millie appeared, clutching the pizza box in front of her. “Mr. Sorenson, you and Cady can sit at the table while Mom pays. And maybe you could help me get some, because I always grab the piece with the cheese that stretches and stretches and never breaks, so it pulls off the piece beside it. Do you like cheese? If you don’t, you can have the piece that gets wrecked.”

      “Thanks, Millie, but Cady and I should get going.” There. Contrary to what his grandmother had always insisted, he did have some manners.

      “Seriously, Xander.” Heather appeared at his elbow, tucking a credit card into her pocket. “Pull up a chair. Cady can eat pizza, right?”

      As if on cue, Cady slapped his thigh. “Daddy? I hungy.”

      “It’s still raining.” Millie pointed to the window. “And we got a big one so I could have leftovers for lunch, but there’s still enough for you to have some as long as you’re not too hungry.” She frowned, eyes narrowing behind her glasses. “You’re not super starving, are you?”

      “Millie!”

      “Not at all.”

      “Good. Then we’ll have enough. You sit there.”

      Heather shook her head. “You might as well give in, Xander. There’s no escape.”

      “In that case, let me get my little monkey cleaned up, and we’ll be glad to join you.”

      He swung Cady onto his shoulder and carried her to the sink, pausing for a second to wink at the rain hitting the windows.

      Thanks, Mother Nature. I owe you one.