* * *
Jake wanderedthe aisles of the local supermarket, consulting the list of ingredients he needed to cook dinner for Megan tonight. Maybe it was ambitious, cooking for her instead of taking her out, but the things they needed to discuss weren’t things he wanted an audience for.
He wasn’t sure whether they ought to pursue a relationship. It certainly wasn’t ideal, given that they both lived and worked on the castle grounds—close quarters if things didn’t work out. But there was no denying the chemistry crackling between them either.
He turned down the toiletry aisle to grab a new bottle of shampoo when the condom display caught his eye. Should he…? He scraped a hand over his chin, glancing surreptitiously up and down the aisle. There was absolutely no reason for him to feel self-conscious about buying condoms, and yet…small town and all. If he was spotted buying condoms, half the population of Towering Pines would know about it in no time. Better not.
But what if things went well between him and Megan tonight? He reached for a box.Ribbed for her pleasure, it announced in big, purple letters. He faltered. Magnum. Ultra. Flavored. Colored. Lubricated. There were dozens of different kinds, and he was painfully aware that he’d never bought condoms before.
It felt almost ludicrous for him to be standing here now, in front of the condom display at the grocery store on a random Sunday afternoon. So what if he and Megan had kissed a couple of times now? That didn’t necessarily mean they would take things farther.
But it was better to be prepared than not, and even if he didn’t have sex with Megan, he was a single man, had been widowed for almost a year, and sooner or later, he was going to have to climb into this particular saddle. Hopefully sooner than later, if his dick had any say in the matter.
He grabbed a nondescript black box and shoved it below the rest of his groceries, continuing down the aisle with what he hoped was casual nonchalance.
“Jake?”
He turned at the sound of his mother-in-law’s voice. Tina Robertson was walking toward him, a wide smile on her face, pushing a cart of her own. “Hi, Tina.”
“Fancy seeing you here,” she said. “How are things going at the castle so far?”
“Really well,” he told her.
“Have you already started training that new horse for Mr. Nichols?”
He nodded. “Duchess. Gorgeous thing. She’ll make a wonderful horse for Kassie.”
“I have no doubt, especially with you training her.” Her gaze dropped to the contents of his cart, and his face turned flaming hot. A package of steaks sat on top, next to a container of baking chocolate and a bottle of red wine. He might as well have written “date” at the top of his shopping list and stuck it to the cart. “Are you cooking dinner for someone?” she asked, her tone rising slightly.
Jake cleared his throat awkwardly. “Having a friend over for dinner, yeah.”
She looked up at him with sad eyes. “It’s been almost a year, Jake. It’s natural that you’ll want to date other women. Alana would want that for you.”
“It’s just dinner, Tina. I’m not sure I’m ready for more than that yet.” The bottle of wine rolled to the side, and the corner of the box of condoms peeked out from beneath a head of lettuce. Jake felt like his face must be redder than the wine.
“Take your time, dear, and do what feels right,” she said, oblivious, as she touched his arm gently.
“I will.” He silently prayed that she wouldn’t look inside his cart again, that she wouldn’t recognize the box for what it was. After all, the Robertsons were so devoutly religious that Alana had been willing to wait until her wedding night to lose her virginity. If Tina saw the box of condoms, she would be disappointed in him, and that feeling sat like a boulder in his gut.
“Well, I won’t keep you,” she said, abandoning her cart to give him a spontaneous hug. “Speaking of dinner, it’s been too long since we’ve had you at our table. Could you make it for supper on Wednesday? I could make that roast you like so much.”
“I’d like that a lot, Tina. Thank you.”
His cheeks were still flaming hot as she turned the corner. He almost grabbed the box of condoms from his cart and put it back on the shelf, but that would be ridiculous. He was a grown-ass man who had a date tonight, a date with a woman who made him hotter than he could ever remember feeling, and he wasn’t going to apologize for it or deny himself this opportunity to move forward with his life.
He finished his shopping and brought the cart to a checkout lane manned by a teenage boy he’d never seen before. The kid rang him up without comment—or recognition—and Jake made it out to his truck without further embarrassment.
At home, he put everything away and pulled up the recipe on his phone that he’d found earlier for chocolate fondue. He just had to make the sauce and put out a plate of stuff for them to dip in it. Sounded easy…and romantic. The only problem was that he couldn’t make it ahead of time. He’d have to melt the chocolate and serve it after supper.
Well, no problem. He might need an activity to keep his hands occupied after they ate. A burst of nerves fired through him. He was so out of practice, so inexperienced.
Dinner. It was just dinner.
To settle his mind, he went down to the barn and saddled Twister. They went for a long ride on the trails adjacent to the castle, breaking into a canter in the open field just over the hill. With the wind whipping in his face and the pounding of Twister’s hooves against the dirt obliterating everything else from his consciousness, Jake finally relaxed. He melted into the saddle, one with the beast beneath him.
After his ride, he took a long shower, shaved, and dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. Nothing too fancy. Just dinner. He prepped their salad and rubbed seasoning on the steaks. Didn’t think about the box of condoms in the table beside his bed.
There was a knock at the door.
