Tom shook his head. “No need, I’m certain. He just wants to be reassured of your affection.”
“Well, he always has plenty of that.”
“I know that, and you know that, but sometimes a kid needs to be told, even if he does pull away from all your hugs.” He smiled, and those sea-green eyes made my heart go pitter-pat, even though we’d just had one of those showers.
* * *
“She appears!” Julian cried, when I entered the kitchen.
“Knock it off, I haven’t had my espresso yet.”
“Coming right up.” He set aside the tool he’d been using to remove the zest from a pile of lemons, put a demitasse cup under the espresso machine’s doser, and let ’er rip. I looked over his preparations for the persillade that would coat the lamb chops. If we calculated correctly, the chops would come out at the same tim
