Louisa flung herself back in her chair. “You ever listen to a rocket scientist try to explain algebra?” Her nose wrinkled. “Probably not.”
“I liked algebra. Calculus too.”
“Youcan do calculus?” Louisa’s incredulous tone made Jackson’s gentlemanly side want to offer Anna Grace another apology.
But she took it in stride. “I can do anything I want to do.” She snagged the ketchup out of the fridge before she took the plate he handed her, then went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Including let someone else make me breakfast once in a while. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Anna Grace.”
He helped himself to his own plate, then joined the ladies at the table. He’d barely sat down before Louisa got that look again.
The brewing trouble look.
“You know,” she said, “Jackson was supposed to go hunting with me this weekend. He couldn’t go last year because he was over in the stupid desert, and now this year, he’s bailing on his family again. He tell you that?”
Anna smiled blandly. “What’re you hunting?”
“Snipe.”
“A little early for snipe season, isn’t it?”
“About a month,” he said. Louisa looked disappointed that Anna was smarter than she looked about hunting. Jackson, though, was intrigued. “Rabbit and squirrel season now.”
Louisa’s interest was obviously piqued. “You hunt?”
Anna shook her head. “My dad and brother-in-law go every year. I fish though.”
“Huh.” There was something too calculated in the tilt of Louisa’s head. “I might could give up a hunting weekend for a good camping trip.”
He stopped eating. If she was looking to interfere in his love life, she was looking in the wrong place. “Thought you didn’t like sleeping with spiders.”
“Aw, shoot, if Anna Grace can do it, I can too.”
“It’s just Anna.”
“You sleep with spiders?”
“Yep, and I bait my own hooks when I’m fishing too.”
Jackson laughed softly. “Of course you do.”
Didn’t matter what Louisa threw at her, Anna Grace handled it like a champ.
That made him happier than it should’ve.
And when he dropped her off at the hotel, he was right glad for a few minutes of privacy. Especially since she was looking at that big old hotel like she had plans to go inside.
If she was going inside for what he thought she was going inside for, he didn’t like it.
Not that he should’ve cared.
Still, he didn’t feel the least bit bad about pulling her across the seat and giving her a good reminder of what he could do for her.
Didn’t mind that she gave it right back either. Girl could kiss like sweet rain on a hot Alabama afternoon. “You ever take that overnight bag to class?” he asked.
Her hand slid somewhere it should’ve been physically impossible for her to reach, and he found himself mighty frustrated there wouldn’t be any follow-through.
“You asking me for another sleepover?” she said.
