Suddenly Married by Loree Lough Page B

on the floor. “No,” he said, focusing on Dara, “I just forgot to set it.” And grinning, he added, “Don’t know where my mind’s been lately.”
    She’d already filled the juice glasses and now poured coffee into his mug. “Everything’s ready,” she announced. “Let’s sit down before it gets cold. Angie and Bobby worked very hard to make you this feast.”
    Eyes widening, he smiled at his kids. “ You made breakfast?”
    “Yup,” Bobby proclaimed.
    “Well,” Angie said hesitantly, “we helped.”
    “I couldn’t have done it without them,” Dara put in as Noah took his place at the head of the table and the children sat to his right and left, leaving the chair straight across from him for Dara, just like last night. She slid onto the caned chair seat and flapped a napkin across her knees. “Pass the salt, please?”
    Grinning, Noah handed Bobby the butter dish, and snickering, the boy passed it down to Dara. She took it and, tucking in one corner of her mouth, said, “Thank you. May I have the salt shaker?”
    This time Noah sent the pepper by way of Angie, whose mischievous grin made it apparent that Dara had been included in some sort of family game. She putthe pepper shaker beside the butter dish and took a deep breath. “Thank you, Angie.” And eyes on the girl’s father, she tried again. “May I please have the salt?”
    Smiling wider than ever, Noah put the plate of toast into his son’s hands. And a moment later, the sausage platter, the pancake plate, even the jelly jar, sat in a tight cluster around Dara’s place mat…everything except the salt.
    Noah raised his left brow, looked at Angie, then Bobby. “She doesn’t seem like the type who’d hog all the food,” he said, feigning disgust, “but would you look at that?” He shook his head. “Didn’t your mother teach you to share, Dara?”
    Shoulders hunched, and hiding behind their hands, the children giggled.
    “Funny. Very funny, you guys,” Dara said, trying hard not to laugh herself. “And yes, my mother taught me to share.” She stood, headed for Noah’s end of the table. “She also taught me to take care of myself,” she added, snatching the salt shaker. Calm as you please, she returned to her seat and sprinkled her eggs with the seasoning. “When I asked for the salt,” she added, “I didn’t think you’d assault me with everything but!”
    The Lucases laughed as she put the shaker down with a solid thud, and aiming a perfect Stan Laurel smile at Noah, Dara speared a slice of sausage. “Mmmm.” She closed her eyes. “Dee- lish -us.”
    “So what do you think, kids?” Noah began. “Isn’t Miss Mackenzie pretty first thing in the morning?”
    “ I think she’s pretty all the time,” Bobby admitted.
    He tousled the boy’s hair. “When you’re right, son, you’re right.”
    Dara felt the heat of a blush brightening her cheeks,and wished for a legitimate excuse to leave the table, at least until the color faded. Unable to think of one, she tried a different tack. “After we get the breakfast dishes cleaned up, what say we go outside and build snow forts.”
    “Snowmen, you mean.”
    Dara gave Angie’s hand a gentle squeeze. “No, sweetie. I mean snow forts. First we’ll make big bricks, then stack them one on one. We’ll build two walls and make a whole pile of snowballs and split up into teams, and—”
    “I get it!” Bobby hollered. “We’ll duck down behind the walls and throw the snowballs at one another!”
    “You mean…like a pretend war?”
    “Oh, no-o-o, Angie. Not a pretend war,” Dara replied in a deliberately serious voice. “I play to win!”
    “Then I want to be on your side!” Bobby yelled.
    “No,” Angie protested. “ I want to be on her side!”
    Laughing, Dara sat back in her chair. “Kids, kids,” she said, waving her hands like white flags. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more wanted in my life, but there’s enough of me to go around. Here’s how