He popped off the chair, enormously more comfortable in the kitchen than observing. They worked together easily, moving around the space, only bumping into each other once and Jonah might have let that happen.
From here, he could see the TV over the fireplace in the den, where a man in a Weather Channel-branded rain poncho stood on a beach somewhere, the slicker blowing straight out, the rain blurring the shot, and the reporter bracing against the wind as he screamed the latest on the storm surge.
The long red swirl of Norman sat in the corner of the screen churning slowly toward the panhandle like it had all the time in the world.
It was a stark reminder that there was a hurricane out there, an actual named storm bearing down on the coast where most of his family was in an Airbnb somewhere called Rock Hill, except for the old grannies, who were currently at a biker bar.
They’d all checked in on the Summer House group chat, but everyone felt a bit far-flung.
By rights, he should have been a knot of nerves but…nerves just evaporated when he glanced at Pepper’s face in the warm kitchen light. Against all reason and weather, he was happy.
“You’re staring,” she said, not looking up.
“I’m supervising.”
“And you’ve grated enough cheddar for a family of nine.”
“Atlas is a big eater,” he cracked.
“Atlas is asleep and on formula.”
“He’s aspirational. Maybe tonight should be his first taste of cheese.”
She shot him a look. “Then you handle the diapers, pal.”
They both laughed, the sound louder than the goon on TV, and the banter didn’t stop while they stir-fried the veggies, mixed the omelets, and slid them onto plates like a team of short-order cooks.
They ate on the den sofa with folding tables because it really did feel wrong not to “watch the storm” on TV, as she put it. Apparently, it was something that a person who grew up in the path of hurricanes always did.
Being from Atlanta by way of California, he had no clue, so he went with the flow. Atlas slept on under the dogs’ watchful eyes, arms flung up over his head in the boneless surrender of a baby who had decided the freight train outside was as good as the white noise machine he favored.
“You killed it,” he said after one bite of omelet perfection. “I have a whole culinary degree in progress and you didn’t even go to school for it and you just—do this.”
“Thanks. Remember, I grew up in restaurant kitchens. I was peeling shrimp at nine. It’s not a gift, it’s a childhood.” She nudged a pepper around her plate. “My dad would put me ona stool at the pass and I’d watch the whole service like it was a movie. Other kids had cartoons. I had the Saturday rush.”
“Honestly? That sounds kind of wonderful.”
“It was. And it wasn’t. He was always there and never there, if that makes sense. Behind the line. Right in front of me and a hundred miles away.” She said it lightly, which was one of her tells. She always sounded airy about things that, in truth, weren’t light at all. “I got very good at loving someone across a kitchen.”
“And your mom?”
“I think I told you they split up when I was young. I had two homes, two sets of clothes and toys, two separate lives.”
He studied her, curious about, well, everything. He wanted to bombard her with personal questions, but tried not to. But he was still trying to suss out why her father had quite clearly warned him to stay away from his daughter. He didn’t ask, but guessed that she still hadn’t told Marcel that Jonah was her nanny client or that he was spending the storm here.
She’d have to eventually…he hoped. This couldn’t be all there was with a woman he shared such natural and real chemistry with. Could it?
The wind hit the house with a long, flat shove, howling and rattling some windows. Again, the rafters moaned, and the lights dipped, flickered, then came back.
The man on TV said “landfall” in four hours.
Pepper pushed up, getting her plate. “I don’t think anything is going to happen,” she said, looking at Atlas.
“But I’d like him out of harm’s way,” Jonah finished, standing, too. “Let’s clean up and move him to your room.”
As the storm intensified and they determined they were in a “band” of wind and rain, Atlas woke and started to cry. All the intimacy of the moment shifted into action mode as he transferred the Pack ’n Play to her room, and gathered the dogs in there, too.
Pepper’s bedroom was small and warm and unmistakably hers. The rest of the ranch was tidy and a tad masculine, but this room was slightly disorderly, wildly colorful, and all things feminine.
