He meant it as a superficial joke, but Sloane could read him, just like he could read her. He was hurt, as Emma was, about being left in the dark.

That guilt came back in one swift movement.

Part of Sloane wished she’d stayed in her room. The other wished she’d stayed in Nashville.

“Well, spiders aside, I think we better get a move on if we want that boat.” Brady rocked forward on his heels and turned his smirk into a slightly frustrated but necessary smile. He reached his hand out to Callum. “Thanks again for letting us take the supplies. I can pay you back for whatever we end up using.”

Callum shook his hand and also put on a polite smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it. If it helps Roger unclench a bit, then it’s a worthy cause.”

Brady went into the garage to, she guessed, get the box. There was no way she was ever going back in there again, so the move was a smart one, even if it left her and Callum alone with a lot of things unsaid between them.

The silence was deafening the moment he went through the doorway.

She couldn’t take it.

“Why are you home, by the way?” Sloane asked. “Is everything okay?” Callum worked as a bank manager at Willington Trust off Main Street. He rarely left before five on weekdays.

“Yeah. Melanie called and asked if I could pick up Justus from school. She has a lot of work and school stuff going on at the same time right now and really needed some help.” His smile became more genuine, and Sloane felt the same affection for the woman in question.

Melanie Teller was a friend who had had a long string of bad luck over the last few years. Callum had met her through her young son, Justus, as part of his volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club. Although he no longer volunteered, he still often watched Justus when Melanie was in a pinch. Both had also been somewhat absorbed into the family fold during the recent holidays. In fact, Sloane already had Justus’s Christmas present in her closet back in Nashville.

Brady walked back in, box in hand. Sloane eyed it with suspicion.

“Don’t worry,” he said, catching on to her concern. “I checked it for any crawling things. We’re clear.”

Sloane still wasn’t convinced. She kept her distance as she said bye to her brother and followed Brady out of the house. It wasn’t until the box was secured in the truck bed that she remembered what had happened before the whopping familial guilt.

The whopping hard-on.

Brady’s whopping hard-on.

Pressed against her.

Because she had kissed him.

A kiss they hadn’t been able to talk about yet, but now that they were getting into a truck and then going to paint a nursery together?