What was wrong with me? It wasn’t like I had a claim on him, I didn’t live here anymore.

“It’s not Tillie’s granddaughter,” Baylor bit out.

I was guessing that it was a good time to put Baylor’s brother out of his misery. I smoothed down my uncombed hair, tucking it behind my ears, wishing like hell that I had remembered to bring a ponytail holder. I rounded the corner and stared at the backs of Baylor and his brother, who if I already wasn’t aware they could definitely be construed as twins. “Ahem,” I cleared my voice and smiled at Baylor when he turned around to see me standing there. Then I looked to Bentley, who at one time in my life was like a younger brother to me and took in his aghast expression. Bet he wouldn’t have ever guessed it’d be me standing there in one of his brother’s shirts with nothing but panties on underneath…shit, I forgot.

Bentley almost craned his neck, “Eden?” he asked with blatant surprise in his voice.

He catapulted forward, grabbing onto my waist and spinning me around with my feet lifting off the linoleum floor. “Bentley!” I yelled as I smacked his shoulder trying to get him to set me back on solid ground. From my angle peering down into his face, he almost did look identical to his older brother. The only exception being Bentley still had a baby face and apparently muscles for days; I could feel the stacked ripples he had hiding underneath his shirt.

Baylor looked at Bentley with a rather stern expression then glanced at me with a wink. That look was all it took for him to lower me back down to my feet. I had to hurry and make sure Baylor’s shirt was still secured in place; luckily it hadn’t risen up exposing myself to his brother. That wouldn’t have gone over too well.

“How in the hell are ya? It’s been a good minute since we’ve seen you around these parts,” Bentley said in a southern gentlemanly tone.

“What is this, Mayberry?” I asked with a questioning look.

“Well I am the Sheriff in this town,” Bentley immediately retorted. It occurred to me that perhaps he’d been around the Sheriff a lot, if he’d been getting in as much trouble as Baylor had said.

“Right and I’m Nicki Minaj.” He bent over to look at my backside, which had me messing with the shirt again to make sure things were still indeed how they should be…covered.

He stood back up in front of me and shook his head, “Nah, not big enough.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore, I had to throw my head back and laugh, our playful banter and comradery hadn’t diminished an ounce over time.

“Don’t even get her started on her knowledge of songs. She probably knows the names AND release dates to every single song Nicki Minaj has on the radio.” Baylor stood back in front of the stove and flipped a pancake. I hadn’t even noticed him cooking before.

“You cook?” Leave it to Baylor to be the ultimate man’s man. He cooked, owned a beautiful house and was raising an amazing daughter, all on top of being a plumber so you know he was good with his hands. I considered myself pretty lucky to get to experience the different sides to Baylor that made him as incredible as he was.

“He cooks, he cleans, he’s even housebroken. Shit, the way Kristina was he had no other choice but to become domesticated,” Bentley countered with an amused expression turned angry. The more I heard about how awful Kristina was to Baylor and how she treated her precious daughter I couldn’t help but feel guilty. I know he adored Norah, it was written all over his face. Maybe if things had been different I would be lucky enough to be Norah’s mom. At least I would appreciate her and show her a true mother’s love.

“You aren’t even funny,” Baylor quipped, breaking me from my thoughts as he rested the spatula on the stove. He turned around and looked at his brother head on, “Will you take the calls this morning and I’ll be in this afternoon?”

I couldn’t stand by and let him think that he had to be around me all day; I certainly didn’t want to become a burden on him, “Baylor, this is your job, I’m not some lost puppy who doesn’t know how to entertain themselves. I was actually thinking about calling Dean to see if he wanted to grab some lunch.”

“Nah, Eden, it’s all right. Baylor needs a little time off and now that he has company to spend it with I’m all right with taking charge this morning.” Bentley looked to his older brother and pointed a finger into his chest, “But only this once. You owe me.” He turned to give me a wink before bending to place a soft kiss on my cheek as he left for work.

Baylor pointed towards the light oak table and told me to take a seat while he plated up the rest of the pancakes. He set a plate of steaming pancakes about ten high down in the middle of the table and they looked mouth-wateringly enticing. I hadn’t known until then how hungry I was, and who wouldn’t be after partaking in an abundance of extracurricular activities like we had the night before?

After putting two pancakes on my plate, Baylor came up beside me and placed a crisp piece of bacon on the side. “I’m sorry about Bentley, he still has a lot of growing up to do.”

“Please don’t apologize for your brother, I love his youthful playfulness. Sometimes it’s nice to stay young…” I drizzled some warm maple syrup over the stacked mounds and contemplated my next question…On one hand it really wasn’t any of my business, but the curiosity got the better of me. “Were you ok with me not being Maisie?”

His fork clattered against his ceramic plate. It appeared that I caught him off guard, he was mid-bite, his fork suspended in the air. “You heard that?” Definitely not the first thing that I was anticipating to come flying out of his mouth, as I’m sure my facial expression indicated. He leaned towards me grabbing ahold of one of my hands that were resting in my lap, “I want you to listen to me, Maisie is a young girl with a crush. But you, Eden, you are everything. Don’t ever try and belittle that. Bentley was just the same as me, we had lost hope on you ever coming back to Cottage Grove.” Well, he sure knew how to make a woman feel like a heel. I didn’t have much time to dwell on it before he quickly changed the subject. “So, did you sleep well?”

“I did, thank you. Much better than I anticipated, actually. You, sir, make a wonderful pillow and bed companion,” I said through a smile, receiving one in return.

“Is that right?” He leaned forward again, with my hand still enveloped by his, and gave me a brief kiss followed by, “mmm.” We were interrupted from whatever what would’ve occurred next by the text chime on my phone. “It’s actually gone off a few times this morning,” he said, glancing in the direction of the sound.

“Oh crap, I forgot to text Julia.” I scooted the chair back on his tiled floor and rushed over to my purse which was discarded sometime last night on the island. Returning to my seat, I dialed Julia’s number, put her on speaker phone and placed the phone on the table. I resumed trying to dig into my pancakes as I hadn’t been able to take a bite yet.

I didn’t have to wait long for Julia to answer the phone as she answered on the first ring, “You slept with him, didn’t you?” she immediately shouted into the phone, making me jump back in my seat at her tone of voice.

Clearing my throat, I gave Baylor a brief look before answering, “Good morning to you, too.”

“Don’t you dare try to dodge the question; you did it, didn’t you? I can hear it in your voice, you hussy!” My eyes went wide, but she didn’t stop there. “Actually, I’m pretty freaking proud of you. Way to end your dry spell with your first love.” My hands were covering my mouth by this point; I couldn’t believe what she was saying. Of course I couldn’t even get a word in edgewise, she kept cutting me off. “I would give you a standing ‘O’ if I could. Speaking of, you had an ‘O,’ right, well at least one? I mean with over fifteen years of pent up sexual tension it was bound to be pretty spectacular.” My face was beyond heated and I was sure it was about ten different shades of red. When I looked at Baylor, peeking from just one eye because I was embarrassed for my best friend, Baylor was silently laughing. And it wasn’t just a little laugh, it was one of those laughs where you couldn’t catch your breath so that’s why it was silent. I dropped my head in my hands and wished that the earth would swallow me up. I raised my head as she still continued on, “Why on earth are you so quiet, you’re normally pretty vocal.” Baylor perked up from his laugh and mouthed ‘oh yeah’ and winked. “Oh God, he didn’t have a little peen did he?”