8. Jonah
Jonah’s downstairs apartment looked even darker with the last of the shutters in place, but it smelled like lemon and baby and…Pepper. So that was nice.
While the meeting and family gathering had ended with people grabbing plates of food, Pepper had slipped down here with Atlas, bathed him, and dressed him in a nightgown with dinosaurs all over it, which was just funny.
He found them in Atlas’s room, with Pepper rocking in the glider, holding his son, humming a song while she gave him a bottle.
“How’d you do that?”
She opened her eyes and looked at him, the impact of her warm gaze, long lashes, and utterly beautiful features rocking him like he was the one in the glider.
“Do what? Bathe him?”
“Without a squeal for help—”
She laughed. “I didn’t need help.”
“And you left without eating,” he added, openly admitting he noticed her every move.
“I’m not paid the big bucks to eat, I’m paid to bathe, feed, and adore.” She gestured for him to sit on the floor next to them.
Her pay was anything but big, he thought as he followed her silent command and dropped onto the floor.
“I can stay in here with him while you shower and get the restaurant off you,” she said.
He lifted a brow. “Do I reek of the kitchen?”
“You just look like you’ve had a long day, and I’m fine…” She looked down and stroked Atlas’s cheek, making him whimper with utter contentment as he sucked on the bottle. “So is my little man here.”
Her little man? A weird tightness stretched in his chest. What would it be like…
He shook off the thought before it formed.
Instead, he watched the Madonna and Child scene unfold in front of him, choosing gratitude over any other emotion.
“Man, I got lucky when I found you. For his nanny,” he added quickly, but still got a quick flicker of a look.
“I’m the one who’s lucky,” she said softly, shifting her gaze down to the baby. “I’m so in love with him, Jonah.”
And his heart did a tumble, roll, drop, and crack.
A quiet beat passed, and she looked at him, searching his face. “Are you having second thoughts?” she asked, proving she did not have mind-reading skills.
“About?”
“Staying at my dad’s for the storm.”
Oh, that. He’d forgotten it in the face of her unabashed love for his son.
“Well, he won’t be there, so…no. Otherwise, it could get dicey.”
She smiled and he watched her carefully, drinking in the slope of her cheekbones, the smattering of freckles, the softness in her lips.
And thought about spending a whole night, with a storm raging, in a brick house miles away. This could be the best hurricane ever.
“So how was he today?” he asked, working for casual and businesslike.
“He ate well,” Pepper reported. “Only spit up once, right here.” She patted her shoulder. “So I smell like a creamery.”
“You do not smell like a creamery,” he assured her. “Did he roll over again? Belly to back?”
“Twice,” she said, taking the finished bottle from his mouth. “And every time he looks horrified.”
Jonah laughed. “Of course he does. His world literally goes upside down.” Which was kind of like how he felt every time he looked at Pepper.
She bent her head down to Atlas and tickled his tummy with one quick fingertip, and Atlas laughed—the new laugh, the surprised gravelly chuckle he’d only started making last week—and Jonah experienced the same small detonation he’d been having all week in his chest.
It wasn’t Atlas’s laugh causing the sensation.
“Oh, that sound!” she exclaimed, her own laugh just as gravelly and sweet. “It gets me every time.”
This was not going to be sustainable, he thought. This was not a viable arrangement. Not with her father’s warning looming. But…where would Marcel Broussard draw the line? He needed to know.
“You don’t mind me staying with you, do you?” he asked. “I mean, you’ll tell your dad and he’ll approve, right?”
She just laughed. “He’ll be at the campus.”
“But…” He ventured deeper. “I did tell you that he was pretty clear in suggesting that any kind of, uh, friendship between us wouldn’t…” He had no idea how to finish that without making her father look bad. “Wouldn’t be a great idea.”
Jonah had not told Pepper that the warning came with subtext—no, actually, it was overt text—that said Chef Broussard was so opposed to a relationship with Pepper that he would wreck Jonah’s chances at Driftwood.
She finally looked up from Atlas. “I told you, he can’t pick my friends or employers. I’m not a child.”
“But does he even know you’re Atlas’s nanny?”
“He knows I’m somebody’s nanny.” She lifted Atlas an inch and kissed him lightly. “I’m a smitten kitten.”
“With Atlas,” Jonah clarified. “Not his father.”
She looked up with a glint in her eyes. “Oh, a little smitten with his father.”
The admission hit. So did the glinty eyes. “Pepper.”
“Hush,” she whispered, exactly like she did with Atlas, skillfully easing the bottle out of the baby’s mouth without waking him. “Let me put him down and we’ll talk. Go ahead and shower, Jonah. I’m in no hurry to leave.”
On a sigh, he pushed up and agreed to that plan, deeply aware that he was in no hurry for her to leave, either.
Jonah rushed through a shower, put on some clothes, and checked on a sleeping Atlas in his crib. He found Pepper in the dimly lit living area, sitting on the sofa, reading her phone. He didn’t want to be down here alone with her, in the dark, on the sofa, close and clean and hungry.
He seized the last thought.
“I think everyone’s gone but there was plenty of food,” he said. “Want some dinner? Kate’s pasta is top notch.”
She lifted a shoulder and put her phone down. “I could eat. How about you?”
Honestly, not a bit. “I tasted so much food and finished two plates that didn’t pass Chef’s exacting standards.” He made a face. “If she rejected a wild mushroom risotto with truffle oil that good, then I don’t ever want to cook for her. But I’ll do a mean heat-up for you.”
Upstairs was quiet and still after the meeting. He supposed Kate and Eli had taken a walk to de-stress, Emma had disappeared to teenage land, Aunt Vivien had slipped off to Peter’s, and Meredith was…probably working.
He found a storage container of penne and red sauce, another of salad, and spied some of the sourdough bread that he’d made himself that morning.
“Sit at the counter and let me do this for you,” he told Pepper. “You want a drink? Soda? Water? Wine? I see a red that the troops did not finish.”
“Water is fine, and I’ll get it. Being treated like a queen is not in my job description.”
He looked up from the pan he was filling with penne to warm on the stove. “You’re off the clock. I can’t afford overtime.”
She got water from the fridge and took it to the island, settling on a barstool. “You know I’d do this for free. I love Atlas.”
He smiled. “The feeling is so mutual, I’m pretty sure I’m losing him to you.”
“No, never. He loves you. Tells me that all the time.”
Laughing at one of their favorite inside jokes, he turned on the gas burner and threw her a look. “And Chef Broussard? Does he tell you how much he…doesn’t want you to hang around me?”
“Let it go, Jonah.” Propping her chin on her hand, she pinned him with a dizzying gaze. “He’s all bark and no bite, you know.”
“No, I don’t know.” Jonah’s face grew serious. “He told me to stay away from you. I think it’s fair to say he hates me.”
She took a sip, shaking her head. “That’s not hate,” she said when she swallowed. “That’s caution.”
“I don’t know that I can tell those apart on Marcel Broussard’s face.”
“He most certainly doesn’t hate you,” she added. “He thinks you have promise. But… he’s…protective. And…” She paused for a long enough time that he had to look up from the stove to gauge what she was about to say. “So are you, or you wouldn’t have insisted on babysitting me during the storm.”
He considered that, adding salad to Pepper’s plate. “I did not insist.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Maybe a little. But you shouldn’t be alone, no matter how safe the house is. I’m surprised your father thinks it’s a good idea. Especially if he’s protective.”
“Look, we’re from New Orleans, so we know what a storm is. We weren’t close and didn’t get flooded, but we lived through Katrina. He bought this house specifically because it’s a fortress, not on any water—there’s a creek a mile away—and took down trees that could fall on the roof. It’s fine.”
He took a minute to fill her plate with the pasta and pour himself a glass of red, then presented her dinner but didn’t put it down. Instead, he angled his head toward the deck. “Last time for a few days we can dine al fresco. Let’s sit out there. Grab some silverware and your napkin of choice.”
Outside, the air was thick and humid, but still. Not even the first of the winds had picked up yet.
She sat at the large dining table facing the water and he took the seat kitty-corner, setting her plate with a flourish and a warning. “Bon appetite, but remember, I didn’t make it.”
That made her laugh, which turned into a soft moan at her first bite. “Kate’s good.”
“Excellent,” he confirmed. “Okay, well, even in a fortress, I’m glad you won’t be alone.”
“You’ve got a very protective streak, Jonah.”
For some reason, the comment, especially since it was the second time she said it, hit hard. Maybe not for “some” reason. Maybe because once, he hadn’t been protective enough. And the price had been…high.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
He looked up, not surprised she read his expression. But what should he share? The truth, of course. Always.
“Once, not so very long ago, I failed spectacularly at protection.” He heard his voice crack, and by the look on her face, so did she.
“Jonah.” She put down her fork and placed light fingers on his arm. “Will you tell me? You never have, you know. No one has. I don’t know any details.”
“There aren’t a lot,” he said. “It was a simple, tragic, utterly avoidable accident.”
“Tell me,” she urged.