Chapter Thirteen
The grace of a woman was evident in her arrival.
—The Temptress of Pecan Lane, by Mae Daniels
Nothing said sorry I missed your call like a fresh-baked pie.
Or so Anna hoped. Was a pie too much? She didn’t want to give him the wrong impression. Like that she was too attached. Gram had always said the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, but she wasn’t looking for his heart.
She should put a note on the pie.
And say what? I like you, can we be friends? Maybe with benefits?
Right. She liked him, he liked her. She felt bad for missing coffee so she’d take him a pie. Because she wanted to.
So Sunday afternoon, after she’d studied until her brain resembled molten roadkill, she baked a pie. She studied a few more brain cells out while it cooled, then packed it up.
She thought about calling first, but she was afraid he’d tell her not to come, or worse, get gentlemanly and make her wonder if he was only being polite about inviting her over.
Or if he was just in it for the pie. Not that she’d completely mind, since his kisses had progressed to where she couldn’t remember her own name, let alone her ex’s, but she hoped he liked her for something other than her pie.
When she pulled up in front of his house, the garage door was down. No one answered her knock. No barking either.
She had triple-wrapped the pie, so the local critters probably wouldn’t bother it if she left it on his porch.
Probably.
He did have a screened-in porch in back. And he was fairly laid back. He wouldn’t mind if she left a note telling him it was there, and he’d probably appreciate the pie so much, he wouldn’t care if she broke all the way into his house to leave it.
Not that she’d go that far. But leaving it on his back porch was reasonable. She rang the doorbell and knocked once more for good measure. Definitely no one home.
She scanned the street. Despite the finally bearable temperatures, no one was out and about. She went off the porch and across the driveway. She’d leave the pie, then go back to her purse for a pen and paper to write the note.
A wooden privacy fence surrounded Jackson’s backyard.
She crunched over the dying grass and had to step around an ant hill.
She shuddered. He’d definitely appreciate her leaving this on his back porch.
She was two steps from the gate when she spotted an armadillo that wasn’t Enrique at the corner of the fence.
It eyed her.
She eyed it right back.
Wait. Was it staring at her pie?
She’d thought the only thing armadillos did was to lie on the side of the road with their legs in the air. But this one was very much alive, and it was snuffling toward her.
Her Northern upbringing was moderately disturbed by this new turn of events.
She hustled the last two steps to the gate handle and tugged. The door didn’t budge. The armadillo came closer. She didn’t like the semi-crazy look in its eyes.
Were armadillos friendly? This whole it-being-alive thing was disconcerting.
She yanked harder on the door. It caught on something up top. Stupid thing locked from the inside, and not only was she too short to reach over the fence and unhook the latch, the armadillo was sniffing closer.
And those weird dots all over its shell weren’t symmetrical.
She took a hesitant step back.
The armadillo took a bold three steps forward.
She scrambled farther back. Her heel banged into an old railroad tie.
It bordered the small alcove where Jackson kept his garbage cans.
Maybe she could flip one onto the armadillo.
She eased up onto the railroad tie, then slid the lid off the closest can, grateful to find it empty and smelling of grass clippings. Jackson was a bachelor, after all.
Balancing the pie in one hand, she reached for the handle on the garbage bin with the other.
Barking exploded on the driveway. Anna turned with a gasp.
She teetered on the railroad tie. The pie tilted.
She spun back, reached to steady it. The armadillo jumped straight in the air.
Anna shrieked and tried to retreat. Radish bore down on the armadillo.
Anna’s heel slipped, she lost her balance, and suddenly she was tumbling backward, fighting to keep the pie from flying out of her hands.
She had a moment to process one thought—This is going to hurt—when her rear end thumped into a hard object and instead of falling, she was sliding, butt-first, into something round and plastic and grassy-smelling.
It wobbled, then everything stopped. Her feet stuck out of the garbage can. The rim of it dug into her back. Her arms were cocked at a weird angle.
But by God, she’d saved the pie.
A shrill whistle broke the stillness. Radish growled, but she didn’t seem to be eating the armadillo. It gave a sniff, then backed away. Radish stalked it until it was out of sight.
Anna gave a heave with her arms and legs, but instead of leveraging herself out of the garbage can, she sank deeper into it, legs akimbo, still clutching the damn pie.
Too bad she hadn’t baked her dignity into it.
Jackson ambled into view. He wore running shorts and a ratty Bama T-shirt that dripped with sweat. His face shone with perspiration, and his chest heaved.
Anna squeezed her thighs and tried to pump her legs for momentum to get out. No dice. She was stuck. Stuck and bent in half. “Urg!”
He peered at her over the pie. His lips twitched once, then settled into a serene, gentlemanly expression as if he pulled women out of his trash cans every day. “Need some help there, Anna Grace?”
“Oh, I’ve got it. Thanks.” Her cheeks flamed. She was an idiot. An idiot holding a pie in his garbage can. He probably thought she was a stalker. Or crazy. She tried to leverage out with her legs again, but she couldn’t move.
With the dangerous armadillo gone, Radish wandered over and sniffed at the pie.
“Back, girl,” Jackson said. Radish whined, then thumped onto her haunches. He folded his arms. His eyes went cobalt and crinkly. “Wouldn’t be any trouble if you needed a hand.”
“I’m good,” she insisted. Or she would be, if he’d take the damn pie and leave her alone. She threw her weight back and forth, to get the can rocking so it would fall over and she could scoot out.
Because really, did she need to add pulling me out of a trash can to his list of things he’d done for her?
“How about I take this here from you.” He lifted the pie away. She tried to lower her arms, but she was past armpit-deep. Instead, she flapped, shimmying left and right. She hadn’t thought she could sink deeper, but she did. The angle was compressing her lungs.
Crap. She had to ask for help.
He peeled back the aluminum foil and sniffed the pie. “Mmm, cherry. You do a pie proud, Anna Grace.” A muscle in his cheek twitched. “Sure I can’t give you a hand?”
She tried rocking the can again. Because if she could get out, then she could crawl into a hole and hide until he went inside.
She swung her upper body right, then left, then right again.
The trash can didn’t move.
Jackson seemed to choke on something. Despite the ornery gleam in his eyes, she hadn’t caught a glimmer of a smile. He set the pie on another can, then gripped her under the armpits and hauled her out in one smooth motion.
Her heart gave one of those weird thumps she was getting used to, and suddenly she was nose-first in hard, sweaty Jackson chest.
She hadn’t been near a sweaty male in months.
She hadn’t liked it for longer.
The testosterone evaporating out of his pores was raw and potent. Her primal nature missed that.
A lot.
Trepidation warred with excitement in her chest. She tilted her chin up and stared at his nose. She hadn’t noticed the little bump in it before. Had he played sports? Been in a fight? Or maybe he’d been born that way.
His nostrils flared. She took a fortifying breath, then raised her gaze another inch. His dark lashes were so low, they brushed his cheeks.
It wasn’t fair for a man to have lashes that long and thick.
It wasn’t fair that he seemed to be waiting for her to make the first move either. She’d taken charge every other time. It was his turn.
Because if he’d kiss her already, she wouldn’t have to worry if she was doing it right, if he wanted to kiss her, or if he was only holding her to make sure she was steady. Which would’ve been nice of him since she wasn’t sure there was ground under her feet.
He did want to kiss her, didn’t he? Or was there another reason for him to be caressing her waist with his thumbs?
“Okay, Anna Grace?”
That low, husky voice sent a shiver down her spine. “Peachy.” Except for the part where every nerve ending in her body had a couple of loose electrons.
“Next time, I’m gonna make you ask for help.”
He dropped his hold on her. Those electrons skittered off into the ether. Radish sniffed at the pie, but Jackson snapped his fingers, and she sank onto her haunches again.
Was the dog pouting? Anna could sympathize.
She swallowed her disappointment and tried to put on her happy face.
Maybe she smelled too bad to be kissed. His momma’d probably warned him about trashy girls.
She gestured to the pie. “Sorry I missed your message Thursday night. I wanted to make it up to you.”
That big, goofy grin sent her heart pitter-pattering again.
“Darlin’, you just did, and it didn’t have anything to do with the pie.”
She shifted from one foot to the next. Her back was cramping in a weird place. “I didn’t want to leave it out where bugs might get it.”
He reached over the fence and clicked the lock open. His dog trotted through. “Come on in.”
That sounded like a very bad idea. A very good, very bad idea.
“You got supper plans?” he said.
Her plans hadn’t included wondering half the night if he wanted to kiss her. She had too few brain cells left to figure out that puzzle. “I have some leftover hot dish I should eat before it goes bad.”
“Hot dish?”
“The original Minnesota casserole.”
“I’ve got homemade fried chicken and biscuits.”