"Actually, Benjamin deserves most of the credit." I handed her the plate, and as she inspected our work, I continued, "He found the kit in my cupboard this morning. I guess he got a bee in his bonnet about trying it."
She tilted an impressed look my way over the gelatin mound. "This is not bad for a first try."
"That's what I said." I took a seat at the rickety table.
Nan put the frog in the middle of the doily on the wooden surface, and then she stood slowly, pushing down on the table to leverage her weight. "I'll make some tea. You tell me what you've been up to over there with your," she glanced at me meaningfully, "well, whatever that assemblage of muscles and flirtation is."
I laughed outright because if there was one way to describe Benjamin, it was definitelymusclesandflirtation. "It's… fun." Nan speared me with a knowing look, so I begrudgingly admitted, "I'm sleeping with him."
"No," she said with heavy sarcasm. She set the kettle on the stove and added, "You were both devouring each other silently the first day you were in my kitchen. It hasn't gotten any better since."
I traced the grooves in the table, sobering. "One of us is a little more addicted to the other, I think."
"He does seem terribly protective of you," she agreed.
I looked up in surprise. "No, I mean me."
She barked out a laugh as she brought a mug down from her open cupboard. "Honey, he's absolutely besotted with you. Take it from an old romantic." She spooned some looseleaf jasmine tea into a little sphere-shaped steeper. "That man can't take his eyes off of you."
Hope unfurled cautiously in my chest. "You think so?"
"I'd bet my entire Lisa Kleypas collection on it," she replied.
NanlovedKleypas' novels. Still unsure, I went back to tracing the lines in the table. "He's leaving in a few days. I have a more… professional set of bodyguards coming."
Nan squinted her eyes at me as she waited for the water to boil. "I'm still unclear about the need for these bodyguards. I assumed you were bamming me with that nonsense as an excuse to hide the fact that you had a new lover."
"Nan, he literally sits under a tree and watches me all day," I pointed out.
"True," she conceded.
"I think the danger will be over soon. The team that's coming has a plan." I watched my finger slide along a deep rivet in the table, and silence stretched between us. When I looked up again, it was to find Nan scrutinizing me, like she could read my jumbled thoughts.
"Sweetheart, I've known you all your life. I held you while you refused to cry after Jan and Mark died. I watched you stuff all your big feelings into that little body of yours, and I know when you're trying tonotfeel something." She folded her hands in front of her, against the pastel patterned muumuu. "Let's hear what's really bothering you. I don't think it's the bodyguard nonsense."
My shoulders slumped. "I think I might love him."
"And what's wrong with love?"
"It's one sided," I admitted sullenly. "We promised it would be temporary. Just for fun. And he's leaving tomorrow."
Nan's weathered features softened with sympathy. "Did you ask him how he feels about leaving?"
"No," I grimaced, already too horrified by that option to actually contemplate it. "He's… well, I think he does this a lot. Atleast that's what I gathered from getting to know him. He has a lot of casual relationships just for fun."
"Until the right one isn't casual," she smiled gently.
I groaned, putting my forehead on the table and scrubbing my hair. "Come on, Nan. This is me we're talking about."
"Intelligent," she began listing off as the kettle whistled. "Beautiful, kind, competent, successful… should I go on?"
I peeked at her through my hair, my eyelids at half-mast. "You have to say those things."
"I do not," she argued like I'd offended her. She poured boiling water into my teacup. "Evelyn Hathaway, you possess more than a thimbleful of intelligence. I know you can use it well enough to engineer your own happiness."
She brought me the mug, and I sat up, cupping it with my hands and nodding. "I suppose the worst he could do is tell me what I already think. And heisleaving."
"Exactly." Nan settled herself back in her chair, picked up her book, and returned her glasses to her nose. "The characters in my book are in much the same situation. Let's avoid the miscommunication trope, yes?"
