"Did you…" Cass was surprised, but not disgusted. If anything, he seemed even more turned on.
"Sure did, mate," Boner said cheerfully. "We need to get her cleaned up and you'll need a change of sheets."
"Worth it," Cass said as he started to untie my hands.
I couldn't disagree. I'd never felt anything like it. I wanted to feel it again.
"I need to get to work," I said reluctantly. After I had a thorough shower.
"Me too," Boner said, pulling a face.
"So do I," Cass agreed. "Why don't we meet at Angel's Rest tonight and make that phone call with Fairfield's voice?"
"It's a date," I said. I kissed his mouth, then Boner’s, before hurrying off to the bathroom.
CHAPTER 5
HARLOW
"Are you getting enough sleep?" Gina stood in the middle of the doorway, her arms crossed under her breasts. One of her eyebrows was slightly higher than the other, her mouth set like she wouldn't accept anything other than a straight answer.
"Are you my mother now?" I went on making sheets of lasagne, carefully placing each on the rack to dry.
"Absolutely not, for so many reasons," she said with a dry laugh. "Including the fact we're about the same age. Medical science can do some interesting things, but that? Not so much."
"Just as well." I added more flour to the pasta dough and went on winding the handle on the pasta maker to move it through. "That would be weird."
"That's an understatement," she said. "I can't help noticing you didn't answer the question."
"Very observant of you," I said dryly. "I could do with a bit more sleep, but I'm fine. Thank you. You don't have to worry about me."
She was right though, I was tired from a late night and the vigorous start to the day. I was going to have to get some rest after the lunch service. If I let myself get too tired, I was going tomake a mistake. I couldn't afford that in the kitchen, much less out of it.
She lowered her arms, stepped over to place her hands on my shoulders and lightly hugged my back.
"Of course I don'thaveto worry about you, but I do anyway. You're like a sister to me. If anything happened to you, I'd be stabby. You know if you ever needed help burying bodies, I'd be right there for you."
"Who's burying bodies?" Erin appeared from the direction of the loading dock, carrying a delivery of fresh vegetables.
"No one is," I said quickly.
If only they knew.
"I was just telling Harlow we care about her," Gina said. "And we're worried she's overworking herself."
"Are we?" Erin placed the box down on the counter. "I mean, of course we are. Definitely."
I smirked at her. "Don't you start. Like I said, I'm fine." I turned around and narrowed my eyes at both of them. "You two work as hard as I do. Is this your way of saying I'm overworking you both?"
Would they get together and gang up on me like that?
Who was I kidding? Of course they would. I'd like to think I was more approachable than that, but maybe I wasn't. After all, I was known to literally get stabby. Not to them, but still…
"I've been thinking about getting some more staff in, I've been too busy to get to it." I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand.
"That's not what this is about," Gina said. "But we could use more pairs of hands in here. If you need someone to interrogate, um, interview prospective employees, I'm happy to help. I'd try not to scare them away."
"Please don't scare prospective employees away," I said. "I'll start by putting an ad up and we can go from there."
