by Violet Duke
Her blush deepened and spread slowly to pink up her skin clear down to her chest.
“I can’t believe you just said all that,” she murmured in a thick, soft, breathless voice that sounded . . . intrigued.
Yep, she was definitely trying to kill him.
“Which part? Me telling you to stop talking, or me telling you I want to kiss the living daylights out of you?”
“Both.”
“Well, believe it, honey. And don’t test me unless you want to see how quickly I can get you out of those jeans . . . without the scissors.”
A stuttered gasp escaped her lips then, and swear to God, he felt ready to pass out for lack of blood in his brain. “If you’re keeping a list, go ahead and add that sound you just made to the things you can’t do or say unless you’re okay with me throwing you over my shoulder and dragging you off to my cave.”
“Jake, now you need to stop talking.”
He surveyed her rapid breathing and dilated eyes.
Arousal, not anger. Damn. He couldn’t help himself. “Why?” he asked, leaning in just a little closer. “Are you going to kiss me if I don’t?”
She shook her head slightly but didn’t move away from him.
“Then why do I need to stop talking, sweetheart?”
“B-because,” she whispered, her voice gaining strength little by little, “you’re about to cut open my jeans, and if you don’t stop talking, my panties will be drenched, and then I’ll be too embarrassed to slide out of my jeans.”
Her defiant so-there tone by the end simply tested his restraint even more.
“Holy hell, woman.”
Jake fisted his hands on the ground beside her and dropped his forehead down onto hers. That whispered confession was the hottest damn thing he’d ever heard a woman say. “You’re driving me batshit crazy right now.”
“You drive me crazy all the time.”
He chuckled at her frankly disgruntled response. “Let me ask you something. And be honest. If I told you I needed to go to the Taylors’ again tomorrow, could I trust you not to work on the floors again?”
“Yes.”
Hmm. He thought about how he’d worded that. Then gave her a look. “Could I trust you not to work on the walls or ceilings or anything else either while I’m gone?”
She snapped her mouth shut and gave him a mulish pout.
He led out a rumbling sigh and put the scissors down.
“What are you doing?”
Sitting back on his heels, he crossed his arms over his chest and waited her out.
“Are you seriously not going to let me free unless I promise not to do work on my own bakery while you’re out?”
“No,” he admitted. “We both know you’d break that promise in five minutes.”
She raised her impertinent little nose in the air to acknowledge the accuracy of his prediction.
“But I am refusing to set you free unless you agree to three other, much more manageable conditions,” he countered.
With an indignant huff, she crossed her arms over her chest and mirrored his pose. “What three conditions?” she bit out.
“One, you don’t do any more big jobs like this without my supervision.” He interjected quickly before she could protest, “Or at least tell me what you’re up to, especially if you’re going to be using a saw or things like an adhesive that could glue your gorgeous butt anywhere it’s not supposed to be permanently affixed.” Wow, there’s a visual.
Focus, Jake.
Totally unaware of his off-track thoughts, Emma continued to glower stubbornly at him. But she did eventually concede. “Fine.”
“Second condition, you march your little tush upstairs and get some goddamn sleep for a change.” At her frustrated frown, he reasoned gently. “Babe, I know you’ve been burning the midnight oil every day. It needs to stop. You’re exhausted. And every time I see you stifle a yawn I get crazy ideas about tying you to bed. Preferably mine. Which then results in me getting a raging hard-on. I know it’s hard to believe, but doing carpentry work in that state is not nearly as fun as you might think.”
Her eyes widened for a beat, and the pulse at her throat thrummed double time before she replied with a quiet, “Okay.”
“Third condition.” Now this was just getting fun. “From here on out, you will call me master and make me Reuben sandwiches and bourbon pecan pudding every time I snap my—”
She whacked him on the arm before he could finish his list of demands.
“In your dreams, buddy.” Quick like a cat, she grabbed the scissors he’d put down and began swiftly cutting through her jeans.
She had her boots unzipped and was just starting to scoot out of her jeans when he put a hand on her knee to stop her. “You’re already there, sweetheart. Have been for a while.”
Emma paused, eyebrows lowered in question over his cryptic statement.
“I’ve been dreaming of you damn near since the moment I first saw you peek over that fence separating our two houses. Don’t know that I ever really stopped.”
Then he let go of her knee and promptly dropped his hand atop his closed eyes. “Go on. I’ll take care of the rest of this floor. You get some sleep, honey.”
“You’re not even going to try to sneak a peek?” If he wasn’t mistaken, she sounded a bit disappointed about that. The little vixen. She had no idea how badly he wanted to not just look, but touch, taste.
Keep.
“I told you, sweets—it’s pretty un-fun to do construction work when you’re turned on like a lamppost. Plus, I really only have room for one hammer on my tool belt.”
Her quiet giggle echoed through the bakery. “I’d say you’re full of yourself, but—”
“Hey.” He pretended to grab for her. “If I have to preserve your modesty by not ogling you, you should have to do the same.”
“Now you tell me.” She chuckled and scurried away.
He waited until he heard her soft footsteps get all the way up the stairs before he took his hand off his eyes. The sight of the empty jeans and boots on the ground before him had him shaking his head in reluctant laughter.
And, yes, hard as a hammer.
Honestly, how different would life have been for him the past fourteen years if he’d had Emma right there beside him making him crazy the entire time?
“Hey, Jake?”
“Yeah?” he called up.
The words floating down the stairwell were barely audible. But he heard them.
“I used to dream about you, too.”
It sounded like a confession, wrapped as a gift. Followed by the soft click of her door closing for the night.
Unforgettable, he decided then, answering his own question on how differently his life would’ve played out. No doubt having Emma at his side for the past fourteen years would’ve made each and every day utterly unforgettable.
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning Jake woke up to the smell of hot coffee, hot cookies, and hot woman.
He’d recognize Emma’s scent anywhere.
He peeked open his eyes and saw a very bothered scowl on Emma’s sweet, dawn-lit face.
Man, what time is it? I didn’t even feel her climb in the truck bed.
She settled in beside him and placed the fresh cookies on his chest. Then with his attention now caught, she drilled him with a black look. “You could’ve frozen to death out here.”
He smothered back his incredulous laugh because he knew she was being completely serious. “Sweets, it’s April. I was perfectly warm.” In fact, he was downright toasty in his sleeping bag right now. The only reason he hadn’t climbed out of it yet was because it was handling a morning-wood situation for him.
“With my place being so far, it was easier for me to just crash out here after I finished the floors. I always have my camping gear in my truck since I sometimes get the random urge to go off in the woods, so it worked out great.” As exhausted as he’d been, the tucked-away parking spot under the tree across the
street from the bakery had been impossible to resist. He’d dragged out his sleeping bag and knocked out the second his head had hit his makeshift pillow.
“Next time, just sleep in the bakery,” she ordered as she continued to fuss over him and tuck him deeper into his sleeping bag, as if she expected him to go hypothermic.
God, he couldn’t get enough of her.
When he managed to rub the last of the sleep from his eyes, he was finally able to get a good look at the still-worried frown she was wearing, which paired perfectly with the suspicious survey she was taking up and down the street around him. As if she was looking for evidence of some ruffian waiting in the bushes to kidnap him out of his truck.
She was killing him. He went ahead and cataloged this as yet another one of the outrageously cute things she did that turned him on. The list was getting pretty big.
Among other things at the moment, in direct relation.
“Emma, you’re going to need to sit about ten inches away from me. I don’t exactly have room for a tent in my sleeping bag.”
A brief pause. Then: “You’re talking in drunken bubbles.” She chuckled, clearly not getting his perfectly lucid meaning. “How late did you get to sleep?”
“Not that long ago.” Between the coffee and the cookies and the feeling of an early-morning, sleep-warmed Emma tucked against his hip, at this rate, he was going to have to turn over completely to keep himself decent. “Honey, really, you gotta shift a bit for me.”
She shrugged and scooted her butt over a bit.
He hissed. “Other direction.”
Her eyes rounded as belated understanding set in real quick. “Oh.”
Soon as they weren’t hip to hip anymore, he was able to pull himself into a seated position and adjust enough to keep his flag from saluting her before taking the travel cup of coffee she was holding. “Woman, why are you up at dawn? I thought I told you to sleep more.”
He promptly stopped his scolding to release a deep male purr of satisfaction over the strong brew Emma had made for him. After that first day she’d tried to poison him with the horrendous decaf, she hadn’t done anything mean with his coffee again. And if he wasn’t mistaken, good ol’ Sally had shared her recipe for double black with Emma because what he was drinking right now was dark-as-night, caffeinated heaven in a cup.
“Don’t turn this around on me, buster. What if some hoodlum had mugged you or something while you were sleeping?”
“Then he would’ve been sorely disappointed to discover a measly twenty in my wallet.” He winked. “Well, that and an extraslim-fit condom of course.” Since the condom he’d left in Megan’s garden had somehow sprouted legs and ended up in his toolbox for all the world to see last week when he’d gone over to help out at the library site for a few hours—he was still living that one down, by the by—Jake now kept it in his wallet just in case.
At the reminder of the funny-ass stunt she’d pulled, which he was still brainstorming a proportionate payback for, Emma smothered a laugh and finally stopped looking so darn worried over his delicate hide.
He picked up one of the fresh cookies she’d put on his chest earlier. It was still warm from the oven. “Did you get cleared to bake already? I thought you had to wait for the town inspection after we’re done with all the repairs.”
“I do. I’m still shut down from cooking commercially, but I have a few projects I’m involved in that are not commercial.” She pointed at a big box of cookies she’d left by the door. “Every week I donate several batches of cookies to the local youth center for snacks and volunteers. The director is so busy because that place runs from five in the morning to ten at night, six days a week. So this is the usual time she comes by for pickup.”
He shook his head. “Just when I think you can’t get any sweeter.” Grinning over that irrepressible heart of gold of hers, he took a big bite of the cookie.
And grew still as a statue.
“What’s wrong?” Emma sat forward, alarmed. “Are you okay?”
Jake took another bite, feeling untethered in time for a brief moment, before he finished chewing. Swallowing, he said almost reverently, “This is the cookie you made for me and my family the day we moved in. You came over and announced they were peanut butter and jelly shortbread cookies . . . and we all thought you were a little nutty until we tasted them.”
There was no mistaking the melted home-churned peanut butter and freshly picked jelly filling, which married perfectly with the crisp shortbread. Each bite sent him right back to that summer.
“That’s actually the first time I created the recipe for this cookie. I can’t believe you remember that.”
“Sweetheart, I remember everything about you.”
A delighted, gushing “Awww” from somewhere in the middle of the street broke up the moment. And had them scrambling to get out of the truck.
Emma hopped out first and headed right over to the woman in her midforties standing a few feet away from his truck, hands clasped to her chest, sappy smile melting all over them.
“Gloria! I’m so sorry—I didn’t even see you.”
“No, no. You stay there, I’ll come back after I finish getting the cookies into the car,” she called out as she turned back around to her station wagon to finish loading up the box of cookies Emma had packed. After slamming the wagon door shut, Gloria made her way over again. “I noticed you two sitting here while I was picking up the cookies, so I’d walked over to say hi. Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, and I certainly didn’t mean to interrupt anything.” Gloria waved his way. “Hi, I’m Gloria. I run the youth center here in Juniper Hills.”
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Jake. Emma’s carpenter.”
“Oh, you’re the carpenter! I’ve heard so much about you!” She looked back at Emma with a smile. “Again, sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear—I promise I wasn’t doing it on purpose. But I think it’s so great that you two grew up together. Were you high school sweethearts? How wonderful that you’re also going to be working on Megan’s library as—”
Jake barely heard the rest of Gloria’s run-on questions. All he could focus on was the distraught look on Emma’s face, the way she was wringing her hands, the lost shadows in her eyes while she stared hollowly before her as if one of her nightmares were playing out in real life.
Normally he’d let her handle this sort of thing since this was her town, but she looked as though she was seconds from coming apart at the seams. “Emma and I never went to high school together.” Technically true—he’d been sent away to juvie before he’d been able to start. “I met Emma a really long time ago. And actually, we haven’t seen each other since.”
There. Vague but complete. With just enough info to satisfy and stem questions.
“Oh.” Gloria laughed lightly. “Sorry, I guess I let my imagination run a bit there. When I heard what you said, I thought you were reunited sweethearts with this amazing backstory.”
Not exactly amazing. I sort of killed her younger brother and scarred her younger sister before we lost touch for fourteen years.
Yeah, too much information.
When a fog of awkwardness fell on them, Gloria looked back and forth from him to the now-silent Emma. “I’m so sorry—was it something I said? My husband is always telling me to look left and right before I go shoving my big foot in my mouth.”
“No.” Jake shook his head reassuringly. “You’re fine. We’re figuring some things out.”
Emma finally seemed to snap out of the trance she’d been in. “We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms the first time around. Which is why we’ve kept that part to ourselves.”
Gloria nodded vigorously in understanding. “Say no more. I completely understand. We all have a past. Again, I am so sorry to have eavesdropped. It wasn’t intentional. And don’t worry—I won’t say a word.” She walked over to give Emma a quick hug. “Smart thinking keeping this under wraps. Frankly, I make a point to never let the town biddies know any of my business.” She m
ade a zipping motion over her lips. “My lips are sealed.”
Gloria checked her watch and then started hustling back over to her car. “I gotta run to open up the center. Jake, it was great meeting you. Emma, thanks again so much for baking even with all the repairs and things. I swear, some of these kids come to the center just to eat your cookies.”
Emma managed a smile for Gloria as she sped away.
After they were alone again, Jake came up behind Emma and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. “Are you okay?”
She nodded faintly. “I’m fine. I wasn’t prepared is all. But you handled it great. Thank you for jumping in.”
“No worries. Gloria seems nice.”
She still wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Yeah, Gloria’s great. And we can trust her not to talk about us.”
“Do you want to?” he asked, smoothing a thumb over her jawline. “Talk about us, I mean? Or talk about anything?”
Please. Please let us talk. Really talk.
Though there was more hesitation than she’d ever displayed before, eventually a quick head shake and a plastered-on smile were Emma’s reply. “It’s all good. We’re good.” He could tell she was focusing her eyes on a spot somewhere next to his head.
It was all he could do not to drag her into his arms and just hold her. She looked lost. Not even her grip on her three floral pendants seemed to be grounding her on this one.
He was afraid the reality of their past colliding into their present may have very well broken her. Broken any chance he’d thought they’d had to move forward. “Talk to me, Emma. We can go right back to being Jake and Emma 2.0 afterward I swear. But just talk to me.”
Every second of silence that followed deflated his hope.
A full minute passed.
And then . . . “Do you want to know why I always have Gloria pick up the cookies from me?” she asked softly, catching him by surprise. “I could just as easily drop the box off to her, but I arranged to have her pick it up instead. Do you want to know why?”
