by Kait Nolan
“You designed this.”
He glanced over, brows arched. “Yeah, I did.”
“It’s beautiful.” The wrap-around porch offered stunning views of the lake beyond.
“It’s suits them. Which is half the fun of the job.” Parking behind the long string of cars in the drive, he reached over to squeeze her hand. “You ready for this?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
The sound of music and voices carried as soon as they got out of the truck. Tess clutched her tray like a shield as he escorted her to the house. Instead of going to the front door, he led her around back to where people milled around a lush courtyard that overlooked the lake. She recognized Cecily and Reed, and Cam was manning a massive grill in the outdoor kitchen, but everybody else was new to her. Greetings rang out as they approached, and Tess couldn’t stop herself from hesitating. Would they be able to tell she and Mitch weren’t just acquaintances? Was there a neon sign over their heads proclaiming them lovers? These were his friends and family, a huge part of those real lives they were trying to merge. What if they didn’t like her?
Mitch’s hand pressed to the small of her back. “It’s gonna be fine.”
Putting on her game face, Tess smiled and nodded as he introduced her to Tucker McGee and his fiancée Corinne Dawson; Liam Montgomery and his fiancée Riley Gower; Judd Hamilton and his very pregnant wife, Autumn; Piper and Myles Stewart, who had their infant daughter, Parker, in tow; and Tyler and Brody Jensen. The theme of the night seemed to be Happy Couple, Happy Couple. Brody, at least, was a name familiar to her. He’d been a project coordinator for Peyton Consolidated for years before coming back to Wishful. Tess had never met him, but she knew his work and knew her father held him in high esteem.
By the time they stepped into the kitchen, her head was spinning.
Norah turned from the counter and hurried around to give Tess a side hug. “Hey! Welcome! What have we here?”
“Roasted red pepper bruschetta with goat cheese. I’ve got all the components, but I didn’t want to assemble until I got here so the crostini wouldn’t get soggy. Where should I set up?”
“Right over here.” She ushered Tess to a clear spot at one of the counters. “Sorry about all the people. I know there are a lot of us.”
“I noticed. And let me get this straight. Mitch and I are the only not married, not engaged people here?”
Norah considered. “Well Miranda and Ethan haven’t made it yet and they aren’t engaged, but that’s really probably only a matter of time. So…yeah I guess so.”
“Okay, seriously, what do you put in the water here?”
Mitch laughed, and Tess wished they didn’t have to hide their own involvement.
Norah’s mouth quirked. “It’s funny you should mention that. The Casserole Patrol are on me to do a campaign alleging the fountain has matchmaking powers.”
“Ah, that may be my fault,” Mitch admitted. “It came up last week, and I needed to redirect the conversation.”
“Thanks for throwing me under the bus.”
“It was done with love.”
The easy affection among this group fascinated Tess. It spoke of comfort and long familiarity. She had friends, certainly, but she’d been so focused on work, on proving herself worthy of her position in the company, she hadn’t taken the time to build these kinds of connections. As she assembled her appetizer and listened to the two of them tease each other, she began to yearn for something beyond Mitch himself. There was just something about this town, these people, that was unaccountably appealing. She was starting to understand what had drawn her father here other than his wife.
The door to the backyard opened, and Piper came in. The baby in her arms gave a miserable wail. “Oh my Lord, sorry, y’all. She was fine until a few minutes ago. She’s been fed and changed.”
“Maybe she wants a nap?” Norah suggested.
“Nah, this one isn’t interested in napping. She’s too awake for that.” Mitch reached out to tickle the baby’s cheek.
The moment those big, blue eyes locked on his, Parker stopped fussing and reached chubby hands toward him. Then, as if he’d done it a thousand times before, he simply plucked her from her mother’s arms and settled her against his chest. “Hey there, big girl.” He began to sway with her to the slow country song playing on the sound system. Parker made a happy burble and flailed her arms before grabbing onto the finger he offered and beaming up at him. “You just wanted to dance, didn’t you?”
Tess’s heart gave an unexpected, gooey thud. She wasn’t a baby person and absolutely didn’t understand the women she’d met who’d been as intent on starting a family as she was to advance her career. But the sight of this big, sweet man dancing with a baby made her ovaries squeeze. It was almost, almost enough to have her imagining a different sort of life than the one she’d been busting her ass for.
He caught her staring. “What?”
Shaking off the thought as ridiculous, Tess shrugged. “I just didn’t expect you to be a baby fan.”
Piper laughed. “Mitch can charm women of all ages, whether they’re eight weeks or eighty.”
This seemed undoubtedly true, as Parker appeared utterly besotted.
I know how you feel kid. I know exactly how you feel.
Myles came inside. “She settle down?”
“Apparently she just wanted to flirt with Mitch,” Piper said. “You may have competition as her number one guy.”
“Never gonna happen.” As if to prove his point, Parker turned her head toward the sound of his voice and waved her arms. “That’s my girl.” Smoothly, he shifted the baby from Mitch’s arms into his own, where she snuggled in, content.
A flicker of something that might have been disappointment flickered over Mitch’s face. But he covered it with mock affront. “I’m wounded, Parker. I thought I was the only one for you.”
Piper shook her head. “Daddy’s girl for sure.” But there was such love under the chagrin as she looked at her family.
“How old is she?” Tess asked.
“Three and a half months. I swear, she’s the best oops ever.”
“She wasn’t planned?”
“Good gracious no. We’d been married like five minutes, and a baby this soon was so not our intention. But the Universe had other plans.” Piper leaned in to kiss her daughter’s cheeks. “Yes it did!”
Not knowing what else to say, Tess bit into one of the crostini. She was way outside her milieu right now and didn’t want to inadvertently stick her foot in it. As a staunch career woman, she absolutely couldn’t imagine that kind of an oops being a good thing. It was awesome that Piper and Myles had made the best of the situation, and clearly they doted on each other and their baby. But Tess doubted that she or anybody among her circle of friends would respond so positively to that kind of bomb. Still, watching them together set up a funny little ache in her chest.
She’d never thought much about kids and family. Marriage was something way out on the horizon. Kids were even further past that. She had goals, and she’d been on the fast track to meet them from the moment she graduated Yale with her MBA. There hadn’t been anybody she’d even momentarily considered a candidate for a husband. Truthfully, she’d thought maybe she was too much like her father for marriage.
But it seemed she’d been wrong about her dad. Maybe she was wrong about herself. Her gaze swung to Mitch. As he met her eyes from across the room, she thought maybe, just maybe, for the first time in her life, something was more important than her career. Which meant she’d better nail this proposal so she and Mitch got the chance to find out.
Chapter 7
“Does this sauce smell off to you?”
When Tess held up the spoon, Mitch obligingly took a sniff. “It smells heavenly.” He started to lean in to sniff her, but she screwed up her face in a frown, attention back on the sauce.
“Something’s not right.” She put the spoon in her mouth, considering. “Too much garlic? Or maybe I need a
touch more anchovy paste.” Grabbing a fresh spoon from the drawer, she scooped up more sauce, blew on it gently, and offered it to him. “Here, you taste.”
Tasting pasta sauce should not be this sexy. Mitch wondered if she realized how charmingly domestic she looked, fussing over an enormous meal in his kitchen. Did it make him a chauvinist if he imagined her with a little apron on to complete the picture? And maybe those power heels and nothing else?
“Delicious.”
She still didn’t seem quite satisfied, fluttering her hands in frustration. “Agggh.”
He snagged her neatly around the waist, lacing his fingers at the small of her back. “Baby, relax. It’s gonna be fine.”
“This needs to be perfect.”
“My family is many things, but perfect isn’t one of them. Are you more nervous about the presentation or about cooking for all of them?”
He’d known she was anxious about the family dinner. He got it. The Campbell clan was…a lot. Especially for somebody who’d been an only child. Remembering what she’d said about cooking relaxing her, he’d made a bid to be host this week, so everybody was coming here. Tess had jumped at the idea of cooking and had, as far as he could tell, pulled out almost every pot, pan, dish, and cooking implement he owned—which, okay, wasn’t as much as a kitchen like his would suggest. She’d drafted him to wash and chop and be general gopher, while she made use of the food processor he’d never even taken out of the box to create the filling that was going into the little pockets of pasta she’d made from scratch. They’d worked easily together, laughing, talking. But the closer time came to the actual dinner, the more wound up she got.
“I’m not nervous.”
“Really? Because you look a little green.” She was, as his grandmother was apt to say, looking a little peaked.
“I still feel a little off from the jet lag. And I’m worried about getting everything ready at once. It’s been ages since I attempted anything so complex.” Patting his chest, she shoved back and went to check on the bread in the oven. “As to the presentation, I’d feel better about doing this in a boardroom instead of a dining room.”
“Do you want me to set up a projector with a PowerPoint on the wall?” He said it as a joke. The flicker of hope across her face had him laughing.
The doorbell rang.
“Damn it.” Her fingers briefly strangled a kitchen towel, her lips pressing into a thin line.
“They’re going to love it.” To emphasize the point, and because he knew he couldn’t touch her for the next few hours, Mitch kissed her one last time. A soft, lingering kiss that would, hopefully distract her from the nerves and tide him over until the hordes had departed. Tess’s eyes were glazed and her cheeks prettily pinked when he pulled back, her hand resting against his chest, over his pounding heart. Mitch lifted that hand to brush another kiss over her knuckles. “I’m gonna go let in the starving masses.”
They’d apparently caravanned out because everybody was piled on his front stoop. As soon as he’d opened the front door, they were pushing past him, talking and laughing at once, headed straight for the kitchen. Mitch hoped Tess was ready for them.
“Holy crap, man, your house smells fantastic,” Reed said.
“Smells like someone finally took advantage of the cook’s kitchen you built,” Cam observed.
“Wasn’t me. This is all Tess.” Mitch edged his way past them to begin taking drink orders.
“I think I had a foodgasm just from walking in the door,” Miranda announced.
“Is it too early to hope there are leftovers?” Ethan asked.
At the stove, Tess seemed to have regained her composure. Her cheeks were still flushed, but maybe they’d think it was from the steam. “I hope you all like it. Mitch was kind enough to let me co-opt his kitchen and conscript him as sous chef.”
“It’s about time somebody put my son’s kitchen to good use. Hey, baby.” Liz wrapped an arm around him and tugged him down for a noisy kiss.
“He told me how little he cooks. I told him that was a crime in a kitchen like this.” With chef-like efficiency, Tess removed the stuffed pasta pouches she’d informed him were not ravioli from the water and slid the next batch in.
Trey brought up the rear, setting down a few bottles of wine before circling around to hug her. “You made agnolotti!”
“Your favorite.”
“I haven’t had this since…”
“Mom.” Tess didn’t look at him as she continued bustling around the kitchen, pulling fresh bread from the oven.
Maybe her discomfort with his family had less to do with the size and more to do with her conflicting feelings about her father’s marriage to Sandy. Mitch hadn’t asked her what she thought about it. They’d been far too busy with other things this week. But perhaps she wasn’t as delighted about it as the rest of them were.
“Mitch, you want to get the salad and antipasti out of the fridge?”
Shaking out of his thoughts, he hopped to follow orders. “Yes, ma’am. Am I allowed to touch it now without getting my hand slapped?”
Expression serious, she went brows up and made an eyes-on-you gesture with her fingers. “To. The. Table.”
“Okay, okay. Slavedriver.” Catching the quirk of her smile, he called it a victory.
Cam fell into automatic helper mode, taking the platters as Mitch passed them out of the fridge. They carried all of it into the dining room, where his cousin pinned him with a hairy eyeball.
“Dude, really?”
“What?” Mitch reviewed everything he’d said and done since the family arrived and came up with nothing untoward.
“Just, no.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He made an unhurried retreat back to the kitchen, feeling Cam’s eyes on him the whole way.
Ten minutes later, the entire crew was seated around the long, dining room table. Mitch took one end and Tess the other. Everybody fell on the food, with immediate compliments all around.
“Tess made the pasta herself,” Mitch told them.
“Seriously? That’s amazing. Where did you learn to do that?” Uncle Jimmy asked.
Tess darted a look at Sandy before bringing her focus back to Jimmy. “From my mother and my nonna. I’m half Italian, so it’s kind of a family requirement.”
“What a delightful family heritage,” Aunt Sandy said. “Mom’s been teaching us all the family recipes the past few years, too.”
“Except the secret to her chocolate pie,” Miranda groused. “You won’t let go of that one.”
“A woman’s entitled to her secrets,” Grammy insisted.
“Speaking of secrets,” Tess began.
Mitch paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. Had she decided to tell everybody about them?
“I had ulterior motives for getting Mitch to round you all up tonight. He’s been helping me put together a proposal for starting a small business incubator here in Wishful.”
That got everyone’s attention. Tess launched into the pitch, relaxing as she warmed to her topic. “Incubators aren’t anything new. They’ve been around since the 70s and 80s. But most of the top ones in the U.S. are industry specific. They’re certainly more common in more urban areas or under the auspices of universities. But we can help foster an entrepreneurial economy here in Wishful and beyond, encouraging diversification, not only among types of business but in business owners—providing mentorship and assistance for groups historically disadvantaged in the business world, like women or people of color.”
She’d been thorough, and it showed in her ready ability to answer the questions tossed out by her father, Aunt Sandy, Norah, and Cam.
“I actually have copies of the proposal put together, including an indexed list of all the vendor quotes, a compare and contrast between conversion of the existing space, and bulldozing and starting from scratch, with pro and con lists for both, as well as copies of the plans Mitch has drawn up for both. He talked me out of putting one at each place set
ting.”
Cam grinned. “Are they color-coded?”
Tess looked at him like he was an idiot. “Of course.”
Norah clapped her hands on a laugh. “Oh, Tess, you are my people.”
They launched into further animated discussion, and Tess lost that air of discomfort she’d had since everyone arrived.
Miranda leaned in. “What are you smiling about?”
“Just thinking there’s an extraordinary amount of devastatingly attractive brain power at this table.”
His sister rolled her eyes. At the opposite end of the table, Tess apparently caught his words because she smiled.
Miranda lowered her voice and leaned closer. “What are you doing, big brother?”
Mitch sobered and shifted his attention. “Trying to wipe your bad memories off the face of the earth.”
For a fleeting moment, her expression softened. “I appreciate it. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Yeah he knew that. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Keep it that way.”
He fought not to bristle, not to react at all. He’d known the family wouldn’t approve of his involvement with Tess. But he hadn’t expected them to keep warning him off when they didn’t even know something was going on. Damn it, he and Tess had something together, and they deserved the chance to see what it was.
“I’ll want to see the plans and look over the final numbers, but as far as I’m concerned, the project is a go,” Trey announced.
Tess pulled out her planner. Where the hell had she been hiding that during the meal? “This puts me here for…at least four months. Maybe six, depending on the contractor’s schedule once we get that hammered out.” She marked something on the calendar, and as she flipped to a fresh page, Mitch resisted the urge to whoop. “I’ll need somewhere else to stay. I’ve already checked, and the penthouse suite has another booking in three days.”
“We’d love to have you stay with us,” Sandy said.
Tess’s smile was a little too stiff. “That’s, um—”
