"Please don't finish that sentence," I interrupted. "I beg of you. Don't tell me that you'll hold out for a guy who isn't interested in you."
"Just rub salt in the wound," she said under her breath.
That stopped me. I wasn't trying to be hurtful. "I'm not trying to do that. I'm only trying to understand why you'd undercut yourself like that for Bartlett."
Annette blew out a breath and shook her head slowly. "I don't know, Jackson. I guess I need to spend some time soul-searching. Shall I leave to do that or am I allowed to finish my beer?"
Ah. There it was. The edge of Annette's patience. Even town sweethearts had one.
"Listen, I shouldn't have brought it up. You don't have to defend yourself to me. Whether you're making plans or not making plans, I can roll with it. It's your choice and I understand where you're coming from now."
Annette peered at me the way I'd probably peer at someone who made several hairpin turns in a single conversation. "What about you? How do you feel about plans?"
I reached for my beer bottle, needing something to keep my hands busy. Jerking a shoulder up, I studied the label and said, "Nah, no plans here. I should've said this the other day but I'm not looking for anything serious."
I tipped back my beer, a futile attempt at washing away the taste of my lies. If she'd asked me a week ago, it would've been true. I hadn't been looking for anything serious, anything that diverted my attention from the job and the reputation I wanted to build here. But now I understood why she was the town sweetheart, an institution like JJ growling at patrons and Bartlett pulling in lobsters. She was one of a kind, and she deserved to be treated that way.
By me.
"I'll drink to that," Annette replied, holding her bottle up to mine in a toast. "Now, let's make those scones."
10
Sweating
v. To heat fruits or vegetables slowly in a pan with a small amount of fat so that they cook in their own juices.
Annette
Jackson had ideas.
Big ideas. Relationship ideas. He claimed he didn't but that was a special slice of bologna.
I couldn't tell up from down right now and everything I felt with him seemed distorted, as if I was experiencing my life through fun-house mirrors. Aside from my issues—and my constant desire to dispense with undergarments while in his presence—he wanted me in a way I didn't comprehend. I'd never been on the receiving end of attention—desire—like this and I didn't trust it. It seemed too much, too fast, too good to be true. Yeah, he brought out my inner stripper, the one who lived right beside my inner bitch, but sexual chemistry wasn't everything.
The reality was that I felt things for Jackson. Sexual things, emotional things, connection things. But he was the first man in ages to offer me a bit of attention, some affection. As I'd already learned, I could go for actual years with little more than a few special book order conversations. This avalanche of emotions was nothing more than Jackson tuning into me and turning me on. It didn't mean anything.
Right?
Right. Of course. I had this under control.
The scones, though, not as much. We had the dry ingredients measured and sifted—not without leaving plenty of floured handprints on each other—and most of the wet ingredients ready to roll. It had only taken us two hours to accomplish these initial steps. The operative ingredient here, the peaches, wasn't making things easy on us.
"Like this," I said, bumping Jackson with my elbow to get his attention. "Peel the skin off gently so you're not bruising the fruit."
"No bruises," he murmured, watching as I worked the skin off a peach.
This time, I nailed it. The last two tries weren't as smooth. "Now, you try it."
He held the fruit in the palm of his hand while he scored the skin with a paring knife, sectioning it into quadrants. From there, he worked his thick fingertips, of which I was intimately acquainted, along the knife's lines. He edged the skin away with care and precision, even when the fine flap slipped out of his grip or tore in uneven swaths.
But the problem I'd discovered with peaches—good peaches, ripe peaches—was the juice. A peak-season peach would sop all over your hands once cut, and this crop was no different. Just when Jackson was about to tug the last bit of skin from around the stem, the fruit went flying.
"That fucker," he muttered, grasping after the peach even as it sailed across the kitchen and landed near the back door with a sloppythud. "That fucking fucker." Shaking his head, he turned to me, his hands coated in peach juice. "I'm the worst helper you've ever had, aren't I?"
I snorted out a laugh. Ladylike, truly. "You're the only helper I've ever had," I said as I went on a retrieval mission. "You might be fumbling the star ingredient—"
"Don't forget me mixing up teaspoons with tablespoons," he added.
