Derek, miraculously, was sleeping through it.
"Hey," she shook his shoulder. "Your alarm."
Nothing.
"Don't you have a plane to catch?"
That did it, and he rolled over, the heel of his hand pressed to his forehead. "Sorry. Had a late night last night." He aimed a wicked grin her direction. "Oh, wait. You look familiar..."
> She smacked him with her pillow. "Get dressed and I'll drive you to the airport before I go to my parents."
"Right. Is there coffee?"
She laughed, realizing this was the first morning they'd shared. Usually, she crept back to her place before dawn. Apparently, Derek was slow to come alive.
"There will be," she promised, then left him to finishing his crawl into the land of the living.
A few minutes later, he came into the kitchen. "I like this."
"The kitchen?"
"The way you look in the kitchen."
She raised a brow, but he just shrugged, not in the least chastised.
"Why aren't you dressed?" She let her eyes roam over him, noting that he looked just as appealing all rumpled in the morning as he did when he was tailored and polished for work.
"My flight's grounded," he said. "Engine trouble. And all the commercial flights are booked. My assistant has me out on an early morning flight, so I'll still get back to the ranch in time for Thanksgiving." He shrugged. "That's okay. I can enjoy my new condo."
"I'm sorry. Weren't you going to see your sister today?" He'd mentioned a couple of times that he hadn't seen Mellie in a few months, since she'd been working at the Winston Hotel in Australia.
"I'll see her tomorrow."
"Still..."
She held her mug in two hands and regarded him thoughtfully. "It sucks to be alone. Why don't you come to my parents' house and have Thanksgiving with us?"
"That's tomorrow."
She shook her head. "Not in my family. Thursdays we always spend at a center for underprivileged kids with learning disabilities. We started volunteering a few years ago, and it's become a tradition."
"So today's your family's Thanksgiving? I don't want to intrude."
She waved away the words. "Oh, please. It'll just be us, my mom and dad, and my brother. But we usually have a good time. Although I warn you that Nolan takes some getting used to."
A moment ticked by, then another, and still he didn't say anything. All he did was look at her, as if memorizing her face.
"Um, Derek? Look, if you don't want to--"
"I'd love it." The words seem to burst out of him.
"Really?"
"Yeah," he said, the sincerity in his voice unmistakable. "Really."
* * *
Derek hadn't been nervous visiting a girl's parents' house since high school, but he couldn't deny that he'd been nervous the entire time that they'd been in the car from downtown to Amanda's family home. Those nerves had kicked up even higher during the walk to the door.