Chapter 20 #2
Lark finally rewarded him with a wide smile, a giggle, and a tuck of her hair. He’d learned that was her way of flirting with him in front of her brothers, and yeah—she’d be going tree-cutting with him tomorrow.
“All right,” Cash said several hours later, pushing away from the table where he’d just finished his roast turkey feast. He’d been peeling, buttering, kneading, and multi-tasking for hours, and he couldn’t wait to clean up the leftovers and then drop onto the couch.
With any luck, Wade would leave with Theresa to spend time alone with her, and Jet would wander off to his upstairs bedroom to take his post-turkey-consumption nap, leaving Cash alone with Lark.
“That was so good,” Theresa said, her smile bright. Cash could see why Wade liked her, and he grinned back at her.
“Thanks,” he said. “Did you want to take some leftovers to your sister?”
“She’ll have her own,” Theresa said as she pushed away from the table. “But I’ll help you clean up.”
“We’ll clean it all up,” Wade said as he joined Theresa. They moved into the kitchen, and Cash watched as they started opening cupboards to find plastic containers.
“Yep,” Jet said. “We know how to clean up. You go rest.”
Cash looked over to Lark as she got to her feet and started gathering dishes, including his. “Am I being banished?”
She smiled and nodded to him. “Of course not, but you’ve been working all day. Let us clean this up. You could go take a nap.”
“What if I’m not tired?” He watched her walk into the kitchen and put the dishes in the sink. Wade said something to her in a whisper, and Lark nodded.
She came back toward the table, and Cash got up to help clear it.
She took the butter dish from him, though, and replaced it on the table.
“We’re banishing you.” She grinned at him and took his hand in hers.
“I’ve been tasked with removing you from the kitchen and making sure you get all the way into your bedroom. ”
His eyebrows went all the way up. “Removing me from the kitchen?”
“And you’re not cooking for us tomorrow, either,” Wade called from where he rinsed dishes in the sink. “We’ll order food or eat leftovers.”
Cash hadn’t been planning on making another meal while the McClellan’s were here, so he didn’t argue. He could let them think they’d changed his plans, and he squeezed Lark’s hand. “What if I put up a fight?”
“Stop it,” she said sternly, and he let her lead him out of the kitchen, only dragging his feet for theatrical effect. The moment they’d left her brothers’ voices behind, he put more pep in his step and swept his hand up Lark’s arm and then around her waist.
“Are you going to put me to bed?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “And if you want me to hike out into the woods in the snow, you’ll go without causing a problem for me.”
Cash laughed, and he opened the door to the master suite. He entered first, while Lark hesitated in the doorway. He sank onto the bench he’d put by the door and pulled off his boots, the silence now reigning between him and Lark a bit tense.
“A nap sounds nice,” he said, because no, he didn’t want to cause a problem for Lark.
“It looks so different,” she said, and Cash caught her looking around. “What happened to the curtains?”
“They were sheer,” he said as if that explained everything.
“I still have them in the top drawer, and I’ll put them up before your parents get back.
” He stood and took a couple of steps to the wall of windows that showed him the Tetons once he awakened in the morning.
“These are blackout curtains, since I sleep pretty late in the morning.”
He turned back to Lark. “I got new bedding, but your parents’ stuff is in the top of the closet.
I’ll re-make their bed with their stuff before I leave.
” He wasn’t sure why she kept looking from item to item like he’d left a box of kittens out in the cold.
“I took pictures of everything before I changed it, so I can get it back to how it was.”
Lark’s eyes finally returned to him. “It feels like you.”
“What does that mean?”
“The blue, the gray, the brown.” Lark shrugged. “The hat rack.” She indicated where he’d placed it next to the door. “The blackout curtains, the scent of…I don’t even know what that is. Musk? Leather?”
She reached out and touched the sleeve of his dark brown leather jacket, her eyes flying back to his.
Cash simply looked back at her, so many things flying through his head.
He imagined himself stepping forward and kissing her right there in the doorway.
Or taking her hand and tugging her further into the room, so he could close the door and just be with her.
Or peeling off his shirt and tossing it onto the bench, as he never slept in a shirt. Not even to nap.
He did none of those things and waited for her to do something. Say something. Anything. He took a breath to say something—what, he wasn’t sure—when Lark committed to entering the room.
She closed the door with one bare foot, which felt very much like Cash had been called to the principal’s office.
His pulse kicked into high gear as she stepped toward him.
And when she asked, “Can I lay by you to take a nap?” in the softest, sexiest whisper Cash had ever heard, all he could do was nod.