Chapter 38
The door to the small dining area opened and Jared strode in, looking far too satisfied with himself.
“Where’s Angie?” North asked.
Fuck.
What was this? Concern?
He didn’t like having feelings.
“She’s having a shower, then coming down.” Jared sat and stared at the door. “I’ll give her five more minutes before I go up and get her. You made this?”
Rex had a doctor’s appointment this morning and he wouldn’t be back for another few hours.
He shrugged. “Yeah, looks okay but it might taste terrible.”
North plated some food for Angie, then for himself. If he or Jared didn’t put food on her plate, she’d take next to nothing for herself.
And that pissed him off.
So many things about her made him feel. It was infuriating.
Jared stood. “Her five minutes are up.” His phone rang and he frowned as he checked it.
“Want me to go get her?” North asked.
Fuck.
Why did he offer to do that?
“Yeah, thanks.”
North nodded and left, heading up the stairs to her room. He knocked on the door.
No answer.
With a sigh, he opened it, hoping that she hadn’t done a runner on them. She walked out of the bathroom with a startled cry at the same time that he stepped into the room.
“Oh my God. You scared me.” She put her hand on her chest. “You guys have really got to start knocking.”
“I did knock,” he pointed out.
“Oh, I guess I didn’t hear it.”
He ran his gaze over her. She was wearing a pair of black, tight pants and an oversized green sweater that was backward and inside out.
He wondered if she knew.
Oh, and there were two different colored socks on her feet.
“What do you need, North?” she asked tiredly.
“You’re late for breakfast.”
“Right . . . right . . . I think I might skip—”
“You’re coming to breakfast.”
Red filled her cheeks. Anger? Good. Anger he could deal with. It was when she was upset or sad that he couldn’t handle it.
“And if I refuse?” she asked.
“Then I’ll pick you up and carry you downstairs.”
“Don’t I get a say in anything around here?”
North eyed her for a long moment. “Not much, no.”
She threw her hands up into the air. “Fine. Let’s go.”
As they headed out the door and down the hallway to the stairs, she kept shooting him strange looks.
“What is it?”
“Um, nothing. Just wondering if you . . . do you . . . how do you feel about everything that’s happened?”
“That’s happened?” he asked.
“B-between us.”
“I feel like I always do,” he replied.
“Oh, right, of course.” She moved down the stairs, but he reached out and placed an arm over her stomach.
“Stop.”
She turned to stare up at him. “What is it?”
“Take my hand down the stairs.” He held out his hand.
“I don’t need any help.”
North just stared down at her. “It wasn’t a question or a request.”
For a moment she appeared like she might argue. Then she nodded and slid her hand into his. This wasn’t something he was used to. He couldn’t remember ever holding someone’s hand like this. But he kept hold of it as he helped her down the stairs.
“Why are you holding my hand?” she asked.
He really had no idea.
“You’re clumsy.”
“No, I’m not!” she said.
“Jared said you fell out of bed this morning.”
“Jeez, fall out of bed one time and suddenly I can’t walk down the stairs alone?”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” he said.
“It’s the exact opposite of reasonable! And where are we going?”
“To the dining room to eat. Although it’s likely cold by now.”
“But isn’t the dining room that way?” She pointed back to where they’d come from.
Stopping, he shook his head at her. “No. I need to put a tracker on you.”
“Do not! No one is tracking me,” she announced as they walked into the dining room.
Drat.
She had really thought the dining room was in the opposite direction. How on earth was she ever going to find her way around this house?
“Who is tracking you?” Jared demanded.
North sent her a knowing look at Jared’s words.
“No one,” she grumbled. “North just thinks that I’m going to get lost or something.”
“Ahh, good plan,” Jared said. “You should make that happen.”
“What? I don’t think so. I draw the line at you guys tracking me.”
“That’s where you draw the line?” North asked.
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
Huh? How was that interesting?
“Come. You need to eat,” North said when Jared didn’t say anything more.
In fact, he looked preoccupied by something on his phone.
“Is everything okay?” she asked as North helped her sit. She was getting better at sitting in a chair they held out.
“Yes. Fine,” Jared replied.
“I’m going to heat the plates up,” North said, picking up his plate and hers.
Jared’s looked untouched as well. She stood and reached for it. She might as well take it to the kitchen as well.
Only Jared reached out and grabbed her wrist. The movement was so sudden that it startled her, and she let out a cry, nearly falling back on her ass.
Jared scooped her up and drew her onto his lap.
“Holy heck. You’ve got good reflexes.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, yeah. Fine. You just . . . startled me.”
More like scared the living daylights out of her. Her heart was still racing.
Jared grunted. “Why is your top on inside out?”
“It is?” She held up the arm. “Oh my God! How did I not notice that? New fear unlocked.”
“What fear is that, sweetheart?” he asked as he helped her take off her sweater and put it back on properly.
Sheesh.
“Um, the fear that I’ll walk around with my clothes inside out and back to front. How does someone do that?”
“Maybe you had something else on your mind.”
Yeah, she certainly had.
Him. And North.
He held her, staring down at his food.
“Um, Jared?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“Is something wrong?”
“Why would you ask me that?”
“Because you’re just staring at your food, lost in thought.”
“Family stuff,” he replied.
Ahh. Right.
North walked back in, carrying two plates. “Are you going to feed her like that?”
Jared looked at her and finally he seemed to see her. “Yes, I believe I will.”
“Um, I don’t need anyone to feed me.”
But there was a secret part inside her that liked the idea. That revelled in the way that they took care of her. She’d never really had this.
Having both of them focused on her? It made her head spin.
Even North, who didn’t seem like a caretaker at all, was taking care of her in his own way. He moved Jared’s plate aside and set down the one in his hand. Then North started cutting the food.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Cutting up the food so it’s easier for Jared to feed you,” he explained.
“Nobody needs to feed me.”
“I want to, though,” Jared stated.
“And you always get what you want,” she said. It was meant to sound sarcastic, but it came out almost breathy.
“That’s right. I do.” Jared took the fork from North who sat across from them, checking something on his phone.
Then Jared held up a forkful of food.
She took it, chewing. She didn’t quite know what to do. Should she protest more? Or should she just accept it?
“Just do what you’re told,” Jared told her. “It will make everything easier.”
“For you!”
“And for me,” North added.
A huff left her but she accepted another bite of food.
“Is there any coffee?” she asked.
“You’ve already had some,” Jared told her.
“One cup! I need more than one cup to survive.”
“No, you don’t. I think you should cut down. We could start with some decaf coffee, then move on to herbal tea.”
“Decaf coffee! I won’t put up with that sort of language,” she told him.
“What sort of language?” he asked, appearing startled.
“Decaf,” she hissed. “As far as I’m concerned it should be outlawed. What use is coffee without the caffeine? It’s like Homer Simpson without Marge.”
“Weird comparison,” North said.
“Weird but true. If there isn’t any, I can make some myself.”
“You will not,” Jared told her.
Sheesh. He was just full of orders, wasn’t he? He fed her another bite of food, then leaned back in his chair, studying her. “How many cups of coffee do you have a day?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“Guess,” he prompted.
Hmm. How many did she usually have? Three in the morning. Then another two in the early afternoon. Then three more. “About seven or eight, I guess.”
“That’s definitely too many. You’re cutting down to four.”
“What? No way!”
“Yes way,” Jared replied.
“Who is going to make me?” she demanded.
He leaned in close to her. “Me.”
She quickly swiped up the knife and held it out toward him, tucking it under his chin. “Yeah? You and whose army?”
Okay, so it was just a butter knife and blunt as heck. There was no way she could stab him with it, but it wasn’t like she actually wanted to stab him.
She just wanted to get her point across.
Coffee was important. And no one would get between her and her precious, precious brew.
“Oh, someone is choosing violence today,” North said.
Jared’s eyes narrowed as he stared down at her sternly. He didn’t seem at all perturbed by the knife.
“Why are you holding a butter knife to Jared’s chin?” North asked as he took a bite of scrambled eggs.
Darn it. Her eggs were getting cold and she loved scrambled eggs.
“I’m threatening him.” She’d thought that was pretty clear.
“With a butter knife? If you’re going to threaten someone you should do it with a knife like this.” North brought a knife out of somewhere. Where had he even been keeping it?
She didn’t know, but the darn thing was scary as heck. It looked deadly sharp, thin and nasty.
“I . . . I wouldn’t even want to touch a knife like that. I’d be too scared of hurting myself.”
North frowned. “Do you know how to stab someone?”
“No idea.”
He shook his head. “Your education is sadly lacking.”
“What kind of education teaches you how to use a knife like that?” she asked.
“A thorough one,” he told her. “I’ll teach you how to use a knife.”
“You will? Really?”
“Yes. We will do it after breakfast. Unless you want to take care of her punishment first?” he asked Jared.
“Hmm. That can wait.”
“Punishment? What punishment?” she asked.
“For pulling a knife on me,” Jared told her, plucking the knife out of her hand.
“But it’s blunt and it can’t really cause any damage. North said so.”
“I don’t believe I said that. With enough force anything can cause damage.”
“I wasn’t going to use it on you, though,” she said to Jared.
“Never pull a weapon on someone unless you plan to use it,” North told her sternly.
“It was a joke.”
“And it’s not funny to threaten someone,” North added.
Dear Lord.
“Now, eat, you’re going to need some energy.”
“Can’t wait. I’ve always wanted to know how to stab someone.”
At the moment, “someone” was him.