Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey Page B

rattling around the place alone until tragedy gave them Emma. The girl had not only brought joy back into their lives, but had breathed life back into the house.
    It was the joy Cat chose to remember as Sean hopped out of the truck and jogged around to open her door. She smiled when he offered his hand to help her down. And she watched as he did the same for Emma.
    Her granddaughter hesitated for only a second, but Cat didn’t miss it. Then she put her hand in Sean’s, clearly flustered, and hopped out of the truck. Her feet had barely hit the ground before she pulled her hand away and turned to grab the luggage.
    It was going to be an interesting month. Cat wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but she knew one thing for sure—whatever they were up to, Emma and Sean hadn’t been sharing a bed and a bathroom for the last year.
     
    Sean didn’t think it was going too badly…until Emma set a steaming glass dish on a trivet in the middle of the table. It was a casserole. One with tufts of little green trees sticking up out of some kind of sauce.
    Broccoli. He hated broccoli. Loathed it.
    “Chicken divan,” Emma said, and only an idiot could have missed the note of pride in her voice as she put her hands on her hips, oven mitts and all. “It’s my best dish—okay, my only real baked dish—so I made it as a welcome-home meal.”
    Cat smiled and Sean forced his lips to move into what he hoped was a similar expression. A woman who was sleeping with and living with and planning a future with a man would know he didn’t like broccoli. And it was his own damn fault for laughing off her suggestion he write an owner’s manual of his own.
    She served him first, maybe because he was the fake man of the house, plopping in front of him a steaming pile of perfectly good chicken and cheese ruined by the green vegetable. He smiled at her—or maybe grimaced—and took a sip of iced tea.
    He could do this. He’d survived boot camp. He’d survived combat and the harsh weather of Afghanistan. He could survive broccoli. Probably.
    “It looks wonderful,” Cat practically cooed, and Sean’s stomach rumbled. Whether in hunger or protest he couldn’t say.
    Emma, of course, flushed with pleasure at the compliment. With a few wisps of hair framing her pink cheeks and her eyes sparkling, she was beautiful. Not beautiful enough to merit eating broccoli, but beautiful enough so he watched her for a minute as she served herself and sat down across from him.
    Then he made himself look back to his own plate. He’d given his word he’d make this charade work and Cat wanting to know why Emma fed her fiancé his least favorite food wasn’t a good way to start.
    He put it off as long as he could—picking out mouthfuls of cheesy chicken that weren’t too bad—but he couldn’t leave behind a pile of uneaten broccoli.
    Suck it up, soldier. The broccoli’s tree trunk or stalk or whatever people called it squeaked between his teeth, a little undercooked. Or maybe it was supposed to feel like that. Either way, he didn’t like it, so he chewed and swallowed as fast as he could. Then he dug up another forkful and did it again.
    He’d gotten through basic training by putting one reluctant foot in front of the other, and that’s how he got through Emma’s chicken divan. One squeaky, nauseating bite after another.
    “Sean, you said your aunt and uncle live near here,” Cat said in between a bite, “but Emma told me you have two older brothers and a younger brother and sister in Maine?”
    Silently thankful for any excuse to put down his fork, Sean gulped down some iced tea and wiped his mouth. “That’s where we’re from, but only Josh still lives in Whitford. He runs the lodge for the family.”
    “A lodge for snowmobilers, I think Emma said?”
    “Any winter activities, actually, but primarily sledders.” He was trying to get used to it, but it was bizarre how much these two women knew about him. “My great-grandfather started