“A futon?” Jack asked. “You already have a bed.”
“It’s for you.” Morgan turned away, a flush across the back of his neck as if Jack had just discovered him doing something he shouldn’t.
Jack followed him into the kitchen and cornered him by the stove. “I’m fine on the floor,” he said, looking at the package in the hall and then back at Morgan.
“I don’t like you sleeping on the floor,” Morgan said sternly as he chopped garlic and stirred the sausages sizzling in a deep pan on the stove. “I mean to take you into Billings at some point to get you some clothes for winter and boots without holes in them, too, but so far, the weather isn’t cooperating.”
“What would I do with all that in California?” Jack asked, though of course he could just leave everything behind when he went. If he went. “Besides, I’m not your charity case.”
He meant for that to come out full of indignation. But it didn’t. It came out more softly than he had intended.
“I know.” Morgan’s face was flushed as he concentrated on the sausages, adding a little olive oil and stirring them around like it was the most urgent thing he’d done all day. “But you work for me now. You’re living under my roof, so you’re my responsibility. Besides—” He paused and swallowed, his gaze flicking in Jack’s direction before he focused on the food once more. “I don’t want folks in town thinking I’m an asshole, letting you walk around looking like yesterday’s orphan.”
Jack wanted to laugh at that, but the softness running through his heart stopped him.
“You’re not an asshole,” he said clearly. “Pretending you hate everyone and everything isn’t working anymore. Not after today. Not after you rescued me—again—from the sheriff.”
Morgan grunted and reached past Jack for the salt shaker, a flush on his cheeks as he studiously ignored Jack, who was standing right there.
Jack didn’t move out of the way, so Morgan’s arm brushed across his belly, once and then again as Morgan drew back.
They both watched the stove as Morgan turned the sausages, nicely browned now, and put in the garlic, stirring it around before adding a bit of salt.
“They say to wait before salting,” he said. “But maybe that’s only mushrooms. Bradley was the one who cooked.”
“He did, huh.”
Bradley always came across as the one in the partnership who was an asshole, not Morgan. Then Jack was once again distracted by the fact that Morgan likedmen. Jack was a man.Jackliked men. So?—
Morgan turned down the burner and looked at Jack askance, as if Jack had been pestering him for ages.
“This is the one real dinner I know how to make,” he said. “So why don’t you go set up your futon and let me make it?”
“Yes, boss,” Jack teased as he went to drag the futon into the parlor. He unrolled it and spread the quilt on top of it, along with one of the throw pillows from the couch, then stood back, well satisfied. That is, until Morgan came to the doorway wearing an old white apron, that olive oil–coated wooden spoon in his hand.
“You need sheets,” he said, “along with a real pillow. They’re in the linen cabinet.”
Jack didn’t need sheets, but Morgan would keep insisting until he got his way. And Jack didn’t mind, anyhow, so while the good smells kept growing like a wreath of garlic and oregano, Jack got a set of sheets and a pillow from the narrow cupboard in the bathroom and made up the futon, shoving it as close to the bookshelves as he could, to give Morgan room to walk to the couch if he wanted to.
The stacks of wood below the sill of the northern window and the futon made the room cozy, which was especially nice as thewind howled outside and the cold began to creep in even more than normal.
He debated asking Morgan if he should make up the fire now rather than later, and then he went ahead and built a small one to take the edge off and did his best to stay out of Morgan’s way while he made the one meal he knew how to cook—all while trying to pretend that none of it mattered.
But it was hard, so very hard.
CHAPTER 20
jack
Jack walked into the kitchen, where Morgan was stirring the sauce and boiling water, and doing something interesting with a small loaf of Italian bread. Butter and herbs and more garlic.
He’d not intended to pester Morgan, but the smells were too good, too enticing. And the sight of Morgan in that apron, which had probably belonged to his aunt and was stained along his hips, where someone had wiped many times with their hands, was too much to resist.
The light was on over the stove, and the yellow-and-white kitchen was so cozy, particularly in contrast to the storm outside, that Jack came closer.
His plan had been to tell Morgan thank you for the futon and that he’d made the bed with sheets, as instructed, and that everything smelled so good and he was really hungry, but then Morgan stopped stirring and brought up the wooden spoon with red sauce on it.
“Here,” Morgan said. “Taste.”
