4. River
RIVER
Marty stares at me, safely out of the bacon grease splatter zone. I’ve never met a dog more enthusiastic about bacon. But if I’d been on a strict diet of only dog food for the past eight years, I’d probably go a little bonkers over bacon, too.
“It’s almost ready,” I reassure him when he lets out a soft whine. If I hadn’t personally adopted him after he retired, I’d have a hard time vouching for his Marine status. This dog takes retirement to a whole new level.
My attention pulls to the open doorway, where I have a direct view of the front door. At any moment, I expect to hear a knock.
Was it absolutely necessary to start sorting through Granddad’s mess at six-thirty in the morning? Nope. This is the time when I typically sip a cup of black coffee or go for a trail run. Bacon comes after the calories are burned.
To be honest, I no longer care if the clutter gets sorted at all this week.
Before Jade applied for the job, I loathed the idea of putting the task off any longer than necessary.
I pride myself on completing tasks efficiently and in an orderly fashion.
And yet, the shed I spent all of last week cleaning out now seems like the ideal place to shove all of this should I decide to deal with it later.
I don’t care about the task. I care about getting to know the woman put in charge of it.
You’ve known this woman less than twelve hours.
And yet, somehow, I feel as though I’ve known Jade all my life.
Maybe even across multiple lifetimes. It’s the same irrational impulse that convinced me to offer her the job on the spot, knowing full well she might not know the difference between a piece of junk and something that might bring in a six-figure sum at the right antique auction.
Granddad might haunt me for this.
Bacon forgotten, Marty jumps to all fours and charges the front door, no doubt at a faint knock I missed.
“Come on in,” I call out.
I turn my back, focusing my attention on the bacon so I don’t do something stupid like burn it. I don’t have to see Jade to know she’s going to distract me. I can already sense it.
What would it be like if this woman distracted me…for the rest of my life?
Whoa, man. Calm the fuck down.
The thought refuses to be silenced, despite my best efforts to shove it way down. But at least it’s a whisper now so I don’t do something stupid, like march across the kitchen and pull her into my arms, kissing her until we’re both breathless.
My cock twitches at the thought of her lips on mine.
“Am I too early?” Jade asks. “I didn’t mean to interrupt breakfast.”
“You’re not interrupting.” I plate the bacon and pat the excess grease with a paper towel, forcing any and all thoughts that’ll keep my cock from going full mast: the pile of laundry I need to do, the Brussels sprouts that need to get cooked before they go bad, the pile of wood that needs to be chopped.
Ah, better.
“I hope you’re hungry, though,” I say to Jade.
“You made me breakfast?”
Because yes is the immediate answer that wants to slip right out of my mouth and blow my cover, I clamp my lips shut for a beat before I speak. “I made enough for your friends, too. You can invite them up to the house if you want.”
“Josh went for a run,” she says. “And Natasha will be passed out until noon, I’m sure.”
“Noon?”
“She does her best work late into the night.”
“She’s an author, right?”
“Yes. She’s actually writing a mountain man romance, so she insisted she had to come with me to Wildwood.”
“A mountain man romance?” I’d never heard of such a thing.
It seems ridiculous to me, but I keep that opinion to myself.
Who am I to judge a book theme when I impulsively doubled the salary of the woman I knew wasn’t qualified for the job I hired her to do, all because I had a gut feeling she belonged here?
“I appreciate you letting them stay. Josh wanted to make sure you weren’t an axe murderer.” Jade pulls out a chair at the kitchen table that’d been with the house long before I was born. She looks good there. “He’s protective like that.”
The word strikes me, and before I can filter the question, it rolls right off my tongue. “Are you three in some sort of…”
“I think the word you’re looking for is thrupple. And no. We are definitely not in a thrupple. Even if Josh wasn’t hopelessly devoted to Natasha, he’s like a brother to me.”
“Do you have brothers?” I ask, filling a plate with bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast before carrying it to the table. Marty has apparently forfeited his bacon post for Jade pets. Can’t say I blame him. I’d give up bacon too if it meant I got to put my head in her lap.
“Only child.”
“Me too.”
Our gazes snag and hold, this new common ground uniting us in such a simple way. The earlier whispers about forever are growing louder.
I blame my lack of sleep on my irrational thoughts and force myself to return to the counter to fix my own plate.
“Did you organize all these boxes or did the cabin come that way?” Jade asks.
“Granddad did all that.”
“You inherited the house, then?”
“I did.”
I take a seat at the table, feeling that it’s both too big and too small at the same time.
I yearn to be closer to the woman sitting directly across from me, but I know how dangerous that might be.
What the hell would she think if I pulled her into my lap and kissed her?
She’d probably run scared—if she didn’t slap me first.
“Let me guess,” she says. “Your granddad was a military guy.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The level of organization is almost over the top. It screams military.”
“You’ve seen this before then? On other job sites?” I fight to hide my grin, because I know she’ll have a hard time answering that question honestly.
I could just tell her I know the truth about her background and lack of qualifications to appraise antiques. It’s the fear that she’ll leave that keeps the truth safely locked away.
But dammit do I enjoy seeing her blush.
“This is really good bacon,” she says, shoveling a full piece in her mouth. Marty looks at her like he’s going to cry, so I toss him a chunk out of pity.
Nice dodge.
I let her get away with it, mostly because watching Jade continue to fake her way through a job she has no credentials for is entertaining me in ways I forgot were possible. This woman is unknowingly thawing layers of ice around my heart, and I don’t have the good sense to move away from the flame.