“If you’re lost, moss grows on the north side of trees,” she quipped back, earning a chuckle from him.
She stopped beside him, looking down into his eyes, and he reached up and took her free hand.
“You okay?” she asked. The dark circles under his eyes made him look as tired as she felt. No wonder. It had been a long day for him, too, and with so much extra to do because of the cattle thieves, his brain was most likely mush. She ran her hand through his hair, smoothing it back into place. Not that she minded it rumpled, but it meant he was thinking too hard. Tanner did the same thing.
“I am beyond exhausted, Liz. Today, yesterday . . .” he replied, and stopped mid-sentence, his eyelids fluttering closed, groaning as she massaged his scalp with her fingertips.
“A lot to take in,” she finished for him, and lifted her hands before that got any more intimate, her mother’s words echoing in her head. He smiled tiredly at her and gestured at her food.
“Eat before it gets cold,” he said, and went to stand, but she pushed him back into his seat. Despite her whirling brain and the questions hanging over her head about him, she took a big breath and ran her hand over his jaw, leaned down, and kissed him gently on the lips. She wanted him to stay. For what, she wasn’t sure, but her body hummed as their lips met.
“Stay. Just for a bit. I’ll eat, and you can tell me about your call with Frank.”
He leaned into her hand, a sigh coming from what seemed his toes sagging his whole body. She took her hand away, the intimacy again a bit more than she wanted, but what she seemed to find whenever she stopped thinking about it. She sat down in her chair, picked up the cornbread, and bit into it.
It was buttery soft, and so good she let out a moan and looked down at it, her eyes crossing. She’d never liked Rosy’s cornbread—it was always bone dry—but this was like biting into a piece of heaven. A chuckle from Jake lifted her eyes back to him.
“You make that same noise when you’re about to come,” he remarked huskily, and leaned on the table, chin in his hand. “I think I like watching you eat.”
“Jake!” she choked out. “I’m eating, not—”
He put his hands up in surrender, a stupid, shit-eating grin on his face, then stood up and headed for the sink, where he rolled up his sleeves, preparing to wash the dishes she hadn’t gotten to yet.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, but he waved a hand at her.
“Gives me something to do while you wolf that down. I’m tired but I’m restless as well, a lot of shit to deal with gets me like that.”
She understood that. She’d been feeling the same way not even five minutes before he’d arrived.
“Anyway, Frank hadn’t looked at the results yet, his assistant had mailed our copy the same time they came in to him. He was up to his eyeballs in another client’s mess, apparently,” Jake said, launching into it as he turned on the tap and squirted dish soap into the sink.
“Normal, everyday lawyer stuff, I’m sure,” Liz remarked, enjoying the view of Jake’s shoulders as he moved. She could watch him do that all day. She took another bite of the cornbread and then dug into the pork. She let out another soft moan. It was so good, it wasn’t possible.
“Liz, I’m going to be hard in a minute if you don’t stop making love to your food,” he chastised, turning his head to look at her, grin still firmly in place. She rolled her eyes at him, making him chuckle, and he turned back to the sink.
“But had he seen them by the time you talked to him?” she asked between mouthfuls of food. She was shoveling it in now, her appetite restored by the absolute perfection of every bite.
“They were on his pile. I told him he might want to look at them. He dropped the damned phone, after he swore. He had no idea,” he continued. He set a glass on her drip tray and paused, looking out the window.
“What do we do now?” she prompted around another mouthful.
Jake shrugged, the material on his long-sleeved shirt bunching across his back as he did. “Not sure. It doesn’t change things from my end, and since none of this was in any of Brett’s paperwork, it’s kind of moot.”
“We’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose,” she added lamely, and Jake made a sound of agreement as he set another glass on the tray.
Liz pondered that, the two of them lapsing into a comfortable silence. She finished eating and pushed back from the table, her stomach full, her thoughts fuller.
Jake turned and took her plate, setting it in the sink, and she muttered a thanks then turned to watch him. He was here, with her, in this strange domestic moment, and it was as if they had always been like this. Her mother’s words popped back into her head once more, pestering her. Was she about to be burned? When she wasn’t with Jake, it was easy to say she was fine, she was in control.
But when he was with her? All bets were off. She couldn’t think straight, her heart and her head at war.
He caught her watching him, and she must have looked very serious because he looked concerned for a moment, studying her, their eyes meeting. Then, very carefully, he dunked a hand into the sink, swirling it. He winked flirtatiously at her, and slowly raised his hand, covered in soap suds. He quirked an eyebrow.
“Are you quite finished, Ms. Baker?”
“Oh my god, no . . . Jake! NO!” she squealed as she launched out of her chair, anticipating what was about to happen as he lunged at her playfully. They went twice around the table before he caught up to her.
They were both laughing as he slowly ran his hand down her face, leaving bubbles all over her, and then ducked away from her as she went to grab him, coming around behind her and snagging her around her waist. He dragged her over to the sink, and she was completely unable to resist, laughing hysterically. He picked up another handful of bubbles and covered her chest with them, soaking her shirt.
