Maybe,he thought.If it’ll impress Lark.
“You’ve got to stop worrying about what will impress her,” he told himself sternly, his voice echoing through the silent house. Cash had found he quite liked the silence, but he also talked to himself a lot more, perhaps as a way to fill it or not feel so alone.
“She doesn’t even like you.”
“Who doesn’t like you?” a woman asked, and Cash didn’t have to spin toward her, heart pounding, to know who it was. That voice went with him everywhere. He looked up and over to the front hallway, where indeed, the gorgeous Lark McClellan stood.
“Because I should get her number. We can compare reasons why.” She gave him a catty smile and turned to go down the hall. Cash watched her go, unable to stop himself. She wore a dark pair of jeans and a snowy white sweater that tapered to her trim waist. Her brown ankle boots made noise against the rug, and she pulled a wheeled suitcase at her side.
“I guess she’s coming today,” he murmured, smiling. His heartbeat ricocheted through his body next, because it was barely lunchtime, and that meant he had almost two whole days with Lark to himself.
He’d called Jet the moment she’d left in August, and he’d asked about her boyfriend. If that wasn’t a dead giveaway, Cash didn’t know what would be. Jet hadn’t seemed to pick up thehint, though. In fact, he’d seemed more surprised that Lark had a boyfriend at all, and they’d never talked about it again.
Cash watched the empty hallway as Lark had not closed her bedroom door, and a patch of brighter light fell into the hall. Her shadow moved over it, and Cash’s anticipation grew. She came out of the bedroom, didn’t look his way, and headed for the bathroom across the hall.
“I ordered pizza,” he called.
“I ate on the way in,” she called back, and the door clicked closed behind her.
“Of course she did,” he muttered to himself. “But she’s a poor college student and can’t stop to get food.”
Cash looked back at the recipes, suddenly desperate to show her that he was more than a rodeo cowboy. The timer on his veggies went off, and he spun to get them out of the oven. He checked the pizza app, and sure enough, his lunch had been delivered. He went to retrieve it from the porch, and as he came back down the hall toward the main living part of the house, Lark did the same from the walkway that went to the bedrooms.
“Let me guess,” she said, putting one hand on that deliciously curvy hip. “It’s only meat, right?”
He grinned at her. “It’s the best kind of pizza.”
She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Do you have any food in this place besides that?” She eyed the top of the box. “And how did you get them to deliver?”
“There’s a place right here in Dog Valley,” he said. “They deliver everywhereexceptCoral Canyon.” He gave her aso theregrin and turned to go into the kitchen. She followed him, which shouldn’t make him as excited as it did.
He opened the box and drew in an exaggerated breath of his all-meat pizza with pepperoni, ham, sausage and bacon. “See, you order all of this,” he said, and then he pulled open the drawer and lifted out a pair of tongs. He picked up the trayof roasted veggies with a hot pad and turned back to the pizza box. “And then, you add the vegetables you actually like, because mushrooms are disgusting and olives should never be eaten hot.”
Lark gaped at him as he tonged his roasted zucchini spears, broccoli, and cauliflower over the top of his pizza. He turned and slid the pan back onto the stove top, which created quite a racket and caused him to cringe internally as he faced her again.
“You want to try it?”
Lark blinked, looked down at his pizza, and then returned her gaze to his. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” she said. “But I kind of do.”
Cash’s hopes flew toward the stratosphere. And if this woman knew what she did to him…. She could never know.
Cash picked up the box and started to walk around the island toward the dining room table. “Okay, but I don’t do dishes, so I just eat right out of the box.”
“Of course you do,” she said in the driest tone possible, but she followed him.
Cash even lifted out the first piece covered with more broccoli than cauliflower and only one stick of zucchini, and handed it to her like the gentleman he was. Lark looked at it like the piece of pizza might suddenly roar to life and start breathing fire down her throat.
He chuckled and picked up his own piece of pizza, moving around the vegetables so that he got a good mix. “It’s just pizza, Lark. It’s not going to kill you.” He took a big bite and grinned at her, and to his utter delight, she rolled her gorgeous sparkling gold-flecked hazel eyes, and took a bite.
CHAPTER
TWO
Lark McClellan could not believe that Cash Young hadroasted vegetables, number one.
They were actually seasoned with salt and pepper and perfectly done—not too crisp, not too mushy—number two.
The idea of ordering an all-meat pizza and then adding his own vegetables…Lark had not imagined Cash to have that depth.
