Sherlock threaded in and out of Alicia’s legs, knowing that after the dogs were fed, she would top his food with the canned tuna.
Callum’s gaze locked on Grace and followed her every move.With the kisses fresh in her memory, she shivered and spared him a quick glance, immediately regretting it.Counter to his usual cool nature, the sexy gleam in his expression made clear he was also thinking about their kisses.
Grace was cognizant of where she stood, how she stood, how she folded her arms, then how she uncrossed them.Awareness ticked in her pulse, as if she were a woman starved for attention.
Seriously, she shouldn’t have kissed him.
Everything felt awkward and amplified, and she was as obvious as her eight-year-old self, showing off magic tricks of her disappearing act with her dog.Arousal flamed under her skin.Callum Hale was watching her.She wanted to scream.
Grace drank her lemonade and ignored him.Alicia put the dog bowls on their mats.Sherlock jumped onto the table and lifted his chin in an indignant show of impatience.
“You’d think there isn’t food sitting in his bowl right now.”Alicia swept Sherlock into her arms and ignored the dignified squirming as she walked to the refrigerator and pulled out the container of tuna.
Sherlock purred his approval.
“Are we eating in or out?”Alicia added the tuna flakes to Sherlock’s bowl and petted the cat, who was devouring dinner like he hadn’t been fed in months.“I’m not in the mood to cook.Either of you want to play chef for the evening?”
“We went out to lunch earlier.”Grace never wanted to cook but would sous chef the hell out of whatever Alicia made.Not with Callum, though.They had enough heat to work with.
“Then you’re cooking for us?”Alicia pressed.
Nerves jumped in her stomach.She wasn’t good in the kitchen but had never cared if Alicia knew it.She shouldn’t care if Callum knew it.But she didn’t want him to see her fail at yet another thing, even if cooking dinner was low on the consequence scale.
“Yeah, I will,” Callum volunteered.
Alicia narrowed her eyes.“You cook?”
“Sure.”He shrugged.“Anyone can cook.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Grace added, with no natural ability in the kitchen beyond microwaving or following Alicia’s instructions.
Alicia scrutinized the oversized man in her cutesy kitchen.“Any good at it?”
His broad shoulders bunched again.“That’s subjective.”
Grace tore her focus from his form-hugging shirt and studied the pink KitchenAid mixer on the counter.It wasn’t the right time to notice Callum’s chest or the hard plane of his abdomen.Nor was it the right time to recall that was the same shirt she’d fisted a few hours ago.
“Wrong answer.”Alicia shook her head.“I’m too hungry to wait for anyone who doesn’t know how well they cook.”
He laughed.“I’m a good cook.”
“You can prove that to me later.What do we want for dinner, Grace?”
“I vote for ribs or tacos.”Any kind of food that required her to concentrate on how she was eating so that she wouldn’t fixate on Callum.
“Oh, same.”Alicia tilted her head at Callum and smiled.“You can vote for anything, but you’re automatically outvoted if you say something other than ribs or tacos.”
“I’m good with either.”His phone rang.Callum glanced at the screen.His smile flatlined.“Give me a minute to take this.”
Grace’s stomach bottomed out.His phone calls were never good news.
After Callum walked out the kitchen door to the backyard, Alicia whistled long and low.“Holy Mother Mary, what happened today?”
Grace sank onto the chair that Callum had abandoned.“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me.”
“I don’t know why you’re giving me that look.”Except she totally did.
