“I know you must find me irresistible, but do please try to control yourself,” she said shortly and with dripping sarcasm.
His eyes softened. He smiled as he looked down at her. “Must I?” he asked in a soft, velvety, deep tone.
Her heart skipped. Her face flamed red as fire. She cleared her throat, walked warily around him and almost fell in her haste to get out of the room.
John had discovered a delicious flaw in their guest, and he was anxious to exploit it. She was keeping secrets. He wanted to know what they were, and if they were dangerous to the family. He liked the taste of her, but he couldn’t afford to overlook her suspicious background.
He decided not to try to pry information out of Tanner, which would have been impossible anyway. But he was friends with the sheriff in Percell. The man had a background in top-secret intelligence work. Maybe he could find out if Josie had her pretty fingers into any deadly pies. He couldn’t afford to trust her. No matter how delicious she tasted.
The Brannts were both nice, and Josie loved their daughter Penelope, who was six months old and smiling.
She held the little girl—she almost had to fight Odalie and Heather and even very, very pregnant Stasia to get the opportunity—and spoke to her in low, loving tones, all eyes and delight.
Once, she looked up at John to encounter a strange, unidentifiable expression on his face as his pale eyes went from Josie to the baby and back again.
She dragged her eyes back down quickly and her focus was immediately back on little gurgling Penelope.
“Isn’t she a doll?” JJ asked as he sat down on the sofa beside her. “I’ve never been around babies, but now I know that I love them. Especially little girl ones,” he added with a laugh, and tickled little Penelope gently.
“She’s such a little doll,” Josie enthused.
“Are you going to the service?” JJ asked her.
She looked at him. “The what?”
“The service.” He lowered his voice. “You know.”
“I don’t,” she replied in the same whisper he was using to tell her.
“For my dad. Cole said it would be this afternoon. He thought Thanksgiving Day would make it easier for me. You know, having people around. Otherwise, it would mostly just be me at the graveyard, since I don’t have any family.”
She bent and hugged him close. “You have all kinds of family. And of course I’ll go.”
“JJ,” John said and his voice was hesitant. “They’re all getting ready to go. You okay?”
“I’m okay, John,” JJ said, stepping back and smiling sadly. “I’m just glad... well, that we have other people coming. Dad would have liked it. He didn’t have a lot of friends ’cause we moved around so much.”
“You’ll have loads,” Josie said softly, trying not to look at John. Her heart was going wild in her chest.
“Let’s go,” John said, and waited for them to go ahead of him to the cars in front of the house.
While the men got the cars lined up and started, Josie took Penelope gently from Maddie’s arms and cuddled her, smiling from ear to ear. “She’s so precious,” she told the child’s beaming mother.
“We think so, but we’re prejudiced,” Maddie chuckled.
Josie cuddling the baby was a sight that affected John so much that instead of smiling he looked like thunder.
Josie saw that expression and it made her uneasy. She cleared her throat and gently handed Penelope back to her mother. “She’s just gorgeous,” she told Maddie.
“Thank you,” Maddie said, with a grin. “We don’t even watch TV anymore. We watch Penelope.”
“Babies are fascinating,” Stasia agreed, patting her large stomach.
“And you still don’t know what you’re carrying, right?” Maddie teased.
“We want it to be a secret,” she replied, glancing with adoration at her husband, who was talking cattle with his dad. He glanced back at her and beamed.
“Well, old Mrs. Boyer at the diner says that she’s carrying in front and high, so it’s got to be a boy,” Odalie said with relish.
