Charmed by Nora Roberts

knowledge and the unbearable sweetness of that first long, lingering kiss. Her mouth moved under his, yielding as she murmured …
    “Daddy!”
    Boone came awake with a crash as his daughter landed with a thump on his back. His unintelligible grunt had her giggling and scooting down to smack a kiss on his stubbled cheek.
    “Daddy, wake up! I fixed you breakfast!”
    “Breakfast.” He grumbled into the pillow, struggling to clear the sleep from his throat and the dream from his system. “What time is it?”
    “The little hand’s on the ten, and the big hand’s on the three. I made cinnamon toast and poured orangejuice in the little glasses.”
    He grunted again, rolling over to peer through gritty eyes at Jessie. She looked bright as a sunbeam in her pink cotton blouse and shorts. She’d done the buttons up wrong, but she’d brushed the tangles from her hair. “How long have you been up?”
    “Hours and hours and hours. I let Daisy outside and gave her breakfast. And I got dressed all by myself and brushed my teeth and watched cartoons. Then I got hungry, so I fixed breakfast.”
    “You’ve been busy.”
    “Uh-huh. And I was real quiet, too, so you didn’t have to wake up early on your sleep-in day.”
    “You were real quiet,” Boone agreed, and reached up to fix her buttons. “I guess you deserve a prize.”
    Her eyes lit. “What? What do I get?”
    “How about a pink belly?” He rolled with her on the bed, wrestling while she squealed and wriggled. He let her win, pretending exhaustion and defeat when she bounced on his back. “Too tough for me.”
    “That’s ’cause I eat my vegetables. You don’t.”
    “I eat some.”
    “Uh-uh, hardly any.”
    “When you get to be thirty-three, you won’t have to eat your brussels sprouts, either.”
    “But I like them.”
    He grinned into the pillow. “That’s only because I’m such a good cook. My mother was lousy.”
    “She doesn’t ever cook now.” Jessie printed her name with a fingertip on her father’s bare back. “Her and Grandpa Sawyer always go out to eat.”
    “That’s because Grandpa Sawyer’s no fool.” She was having trouble with the letter
S
, Boone noted. They’d have to work on it.
    “You said we could call Grandma and Grandpa Sawyer and Nana and Pop today. Can we?”
    “Sure, in a couple of hours.” He turned over again, studying her. “Do you miss them, baby?”
    “Yeah.” With her tongue between her teeth, she began to print
Sawyer
on his chest. “It seems funny thatthey’re not here. Will they come to visit us?”
    “Sure, they will.” The guilt that was part and parcel of parenthood worked at him. “Do you wish we’d stayed in Indiana?”
    “No way!” Her eyes went huge. “We didn’t have the beach there, and the seals and stuff, or the big carousel in town, or Ana living next door. This is the best place in the world.”
    “I like it here, too.” He sat up and kissed her brow. “Now beat it, so I can get dressed.”
    “You’ll come right downstairs for breakfast?” she asked as she slid from the bed.
    “Absolutely. I’m so hungry I could eat a whole loaf of cinnamon toast.”
    Delighted, she rushed for the door. “I’m going to make more, right now.”
    Knowing she would take him at his word and go through an entire loaf of bread, Boone hurried through his shower, opted not to shave, and pulled on cutoffs and a T-shirt that would probably have done better in the rag pile.
    He tried not to dwell on the dream. After all, it was simple enough to interpret. He wanted Ana—no big revelation there. And all that white—white on white—was obviously a symbol of her innocence.
    It scared the hell out of him.
    He found Jessie in the kitchen, busily slathering butter on another piece of toast. There was a plate heaped with them, more than a few of them burnt. The smell of cinnamon was everywhere.
    Boone put on the coffee before he snagged a piece. It was cold, hard, and lumped with sugary cinnamon.