And it was…enough.
Between Lincoln helping more now that he’d halved his hours at the bar and Laurel pitching in on afternoons and weekends along with a few other of the high school staff, I was no longer stretched quite so thin. Found I could actually breathe.
Which was a really nice change.
With a glass of wine in one hand, I sank into one of the armchairs just as my husband burst through the front door of the silo, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
I startled, nearly spilling some of my wine. “Jesus, Linc. You scared the hell out of me.”
He bent to kiss me like it was second nature, and I ignored the flutter in my stomach that thought caused. “Sorry, wife. Too excited to tiptoe in.”
Smirking, I raised a brow. “You finally beat someone at pool?”
“Not quite.” He flashed me a grin before slapping a wad of cash in my lap. “I have a business proposal for you.”
“Please tell me you weren’t stripping on Main Street.”
“Nope,” he said, smiling like he could barely contain himself. “But I did sell a single jar of your blackberry cardamom jam for five hundred bucks.”
I split my gaze between him and the pile of money in my lap, mouth agape. “What the hell, Linc? Did you hawk my jam on the street?”
“It was at the bar. And, yes, I did steal it from the pantry, but it was for a good cause.”
“That makes it worse, not better.”
“We’ll see.” He dragged over a stool and set a laptop on it. “Consider this my formal application to become your sex slave and jam salesperson.”
“My what now?”
He opened the laptop and turned the screen to face me. A PowerPoint presentation flickered to life with the titleOperation: Make Willa a Household Name. And then in smaller letters below it:and Make Her Moan Mine Daily.
“What is this?”
“This is my market penetration presentation. I sell the shit out of your delicious jam during the day and do unspeakable things to your delicious cunt at night.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. “So you’ll do unspeakable things to me only at night?”
“Good point. Sex enthusiast 24/7, at your service, wife. But the rest stands.”
With that, he flicked to the first slide and gestured to it with a flourish. “Slide one—market analysis. True, this was based entirely on drunk bar patrons, but I stand firm that it’s accurate.”
I huffed out a laugh and shook my head. “You’re not selling me yet, husband.”
“I figured as much.” He forwarded to the next slide. “Which is why this next section is all about why you’re a culinary genius.”
“Linc…”
“Right, okay. You alreadyknowyou’re a culinary genius. Of course.” He grinned, his smile infectious. “But this next slide is gonna hook you.”
The third slide, titledEye Candy Sells,featured a shirtless selfie of him holding a jar of the jam he must’ve stolen, giving the camera that smolder I used to swear he practiced in the mirror every morning.
“Sex appeal works,” he said. “And I’m here to please, wife. Use me however you want.”
I didn’t miss the not-so-subtle undertones ofand not just with jam salesdripping from his words.
“How many slides are there?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just sit there and look pretty. Next up—distribution channels. We spread this far and wide—like your legs later tonight.”
