Chapter 10
Triana had been sure her mother had lost her mind when she’d set three big cast-iron pots on the stove that morning to make dinner for Remy and his friends.
“It’s just the four of them. You know that, right?” Triana said as she helped her mom chop mountains of peppers, onions, celery, and herbs. “They can’t eat this much jambalaya, or we’ll have to roll them down the steps.”
“Don’t worry about that,” her mother laughed. “Something tells me those boys are going to show up here with an appetite.”
It turned out her mother had been right. Remy and his three friends had oohed and aahed in appreciation of the aroma coming from the kitchen before they’d even gotten upstairs to the dining room. And once they’d started eating, they hadn’t messed around. They’d put away more of the thick, spicy stew than Triana would have ever thought possible. And that was on top of the huge tray of corn bread they’d demolished. How the heck could guys who looked like they did eat like that? Triana put on weight just watching them.
“You have to give me this recipe,” Max told her mother as he inhaled another piece of corn bread, then helped himself to seconds—or whatever it was called when someone ate six bowls of anything. “I have to make this the next time I’m running the grills at the cookouts we have at our SWAT compound in Dallas.”
“I’ll write everything down for you,” her mother promised. “If you’re making it on a grill, you’ll have to watch the heat and stir it constantly, or all the rice will sink to the bottom and burn to a crisp.”
Sitting there at the table in a dining room that had started feeling way too lifeless since her father had died and listening to her mom share jambalaya cooking tips with Max made Triana smile. She hadn’t realized it until now, but Remy and his friends reminded her a lot of her father. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why she thought so exactly. None of them looked like him or acted like him. They simply had a presence that struck her as familiar. She was almost certain her mother felt it, too, which was probably why she was having such a good time.
Triana was still thinking about that when she realized Remy was looking at her in a way that had her stomach doing backflips. Their eyes locked, and while everyone around them was laughing and talking, she and Remy simply shared a moment alone in a room full of people.
There was no denying it. She was falling for Remy—hard. Even though she’d known him since high school, she’d only been seeing him romantically for three days, but she already wanted to spend time with him after they both went back to Texas at the end of the week. Dallas and Houston were only a few hours’ drive from each other. If she and Remy wanted to, they could make it work.
If anyone had told her she’d have these kinds of thoughts about a guy so soon after getting involved with him, she would have told them they were crazy, then tightened the straps on their straitjackets herself and called for a pickup wagon. But it wasn’t crazy. She’d never met anyone like Remy, and no matter how much she got of him, she always found herself wanting more.
Part of it was the amazing sexual chemistry between them. There was no denying that. She loved sex as much as the next girl, but with Remy she didn’t just love it—she craved it all the time. That quickie in the hallway last night had been amazing and probably should have left her satiated for days. Instead, after a couple of hours dancing with him at a club on Bourbon Street, she’d dragged him back to his hotel room for another round of lovemaking that probably qualified as an out-of-body experience.
Even more than the sexual cravings, there was something about being with Remy that made her happy. Whether they were walking quietly hand in hand down the street or chatting about the storm in the Gulf and where it might end up, Triana found herself feeling the way she imagined people felt when they were in love.
Loud laughter pulled her attention back to the conversation, and as she gave herself a mental shake, she swore from the knowing look Remy gave her that he somehow knew what she’d been thinking. It wouldn’t have surprised her. She already thought he was some kind of superhero with powers and abilities far beyond that of mortal man. How else could he be so amazing?
“Cooper wanted to do something special for his new bride to show her how much he loves her, but he also wanted it to be something she would never see coming in a million years,” Max was saying, and it took Triana a moment to figure out they were talking about one of the other guys on the Dallas SWAT team who’d recently gotten married. “So he got the whole team together and we came up with a choreographed line dance to the song ‘Howlin’ for You’ by the Black Keys.”
“Let’s just say there’s a reason most of us are cops and not dancers,” Brooks said with a pointed look at Zane. “The whole thing was supposed to be sexy, but it ended up being hilarious. Everly, Cooper’s wife, practically passed out she laughed so hard.”
Triana’s mother smiled. “And you all danced?”
“Only because we didn’t want to let Cooper down,” Zane said. “But since I have absolutely no rhythm, I mostly stood there looking cool and snapping my fingers to the beat.”
Triana wasn’t so sure of that. She’d seen Zane and Kim dance together last night, and he seemed to have plenty of moves as far as she could tell. She opened her mouth to say as much, but Max already had Zane on his feet and was attempting to show him how to do the dance they’d done at the wedding. Despite what she’d seen last night on the dance floor, it turned out that Zane honestly didn’t have any rhythm. Then again, he didn’t have any music to work with so that could have been part of the problem.
“You gotta loosen up those hips, dude,” Brooks said in between laughing. “You dance like you have a stick shoved up your butt.”
Zane tried, he really did, but it was hopeless. Triana laughed so much she almost fell out of her chair. If she stayed and watched the British SWAT cop try to dance any longer, tears were going to start running down her face and that would just make a mess of her makeup.
“I’m going to get the dessert,” she said to Remy. When he made as if to join her, she shook her head. “Stay. I’m just going to slice the cake and bring it out. Hang out here and make Mom laugh some more.”
In the kitchen, Triana took the big chocolate cake out of the fridge, then grabbed plates from the cabinet. When her mother had frosted the layer cake earlier, Triana had been sure most of it would go to waste, considering how much jambalaya she’d made. But after seeing those guys in there eat, she figured there wouldn’t be a crumb left.
As she sliced the cake, Triana wondered when she should bring up the idea to Remy of continuing their relationship long distance. She was so distracted, she hadn’t even realized she’d cut herself with the knife until she felt a sting along one side of her left index finger.
Crap.
She jerked her hand away from the cake, afraid she was going to get blood on it. She’d barely gotten her hand under the faucet so she could wash it off and see how bad it was when she felt someone beside her. She turned to see Remy standing there, a look of concern on his face.
Damn, he was quiet for someone of his size. She hadn’t even heard him come in.
“Let me see how bad it is,” he said, taking her hand and pushing it under the faucet, then gently washing away the blood.
Triana opened her mouth to tell him it was nothing and that she could take care of it, but the words got stuck in her throat at the worry on his face. She glanced at her finger, thinking maybe the cut was worse than she’d thought. But it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was a little nick less than half an inch long and not as bad as some paper cuts she’d had. You wouldn’t have known that from the care Remy took tending to the cut. He washed it out with soap and water, then put pressure on it to stop the bleeding, while drying the rest of her hand with a towel.
“Where does your mother keep her Band-Aids?” he asked.
