“Have you been here before?” Jace asked.
“No, but everything sounds good. Do you have a favorite?” With him right next to me, I wasn’t sure if I should try to shift and make eye contact or keep my eyes on the menu I clutched in my hand.
“Dad always gets the ribs,” Eli said. “Side of homemade slaw and home fries with extra sauce on the side. Same as me, right Dad?”
“I don’t always get the ribs,” Jace protested.
The twins gave him the same exact look, like they were calling bullshit. I couldn’t help but laugh.
Jace shrugged. “I guess I’m a creature of habit.”
I barely knew the man and could have guessed that. “Ribs sound good, but aren’t they pretty messy?”
“That’s why they give you bibs.” Wren unwrapped her silverware and held out a pink plastic bib with a pig’s face printed on the front.
“You don’t actually have to wear the bib,” Jace said.
“That’s not what you said.” Eli’s eyes went wide.
Jace shifted on the bench next to me and for half a heartbeat, his thigh pressed against mine. I wasn’t sure what made my pulse spike… how it felt to have our legs touch, or how much I didn’t want him to move away. I reached for my water just as our server came back.
“What can I get you, hon?” She pulled a pencil from the depths of her tall beehive hairdo and waited for me to answer.
“You can go first,” I said to Wren.
“We already ordered. Go ahead and we’ll just have them hold our food until yours is ready too,” Jace said.
I caught a sly smile from Wren. She’d tricked me into joining them by saying they hadn’t even ordered their food yet. It was too late to back out, plus I was trapped in the booth by Jace. Giving in, I handed my menu to our server. “Oh, I guess I’ll have the ribs.”
“Slaw or salad and home fries or fried okra?” she asked.
I hesitated. No one had ever offered me fried okra before. “Slaw and fries, please.”
“Sounds good. I’ll have that out for you folks in a jiffy.” She wound her way through the crowded restaurant like she’d been doing it all her life.
“That was Glenda. Her family’s owned this place since it opened a few generations ago,” Jace said. “You’ll find that a lot of folks in Big Wood have lived here their whole life.”
“But not you, Dad,” Wren said with a smile.
I’d wondered how Jace ended up in Big Wood. Wren had just given me the perfect opportunity to ask. “So, you’re not from around here?”
He wrapped his hand around his plastic cup of tea and lifted it to his lips as he answered. “Nope.”
“Dad grew up in Texas,” Eli said. “He has a hundred brothers and used to ride bulls for fun.”
“That’s not exactly true.” Jace grinned and shook his head. “I have foster brothers. And I only tried riding a bull once. I could tell right away it was a horrible idea.”
Eli’s grin widened. “Tell her about the time you picked up a rattlesnake with your bare hand.”
Jace rolled his eyes. “I never should have told you that story, and I’m sure Miss Delaney doesn’t want to hear about all of the dumb things I did when I was a kid.”
“Actually, it’s kind of fun knowing you weren’t born with a survival guide in your hand,” I teased.
After that, the conversation flowed easily while we waited for our food. Seeing Jace around his kids made me look at him through a different lens. He was comfortable and relaxed, not like the uptight drill sergeant he seemed to be around the office. And when Glenda came back with huge platters of ribs, a veggie hot dog for Wren, giant bowls of homemade coleslaw, and another skillet of fresh-out-of-the-oven cornbread, Jace was the first one to tie the pink piggy bib around his neck.
By the time our plates were cleared away and Glenda set my foil-wrapped leftovers in front of me, I’d decided I actually liked Jace Ramsey, at least this version of him.
“Who’s signing up for the hog calling competition?” Glenda asked as she stopped by the table. “Special dessert is up for grabs. You can’t order it, you have to win it.”
