“Is Cody working Saturday?”
She nodded as she began clearing the dinner dishes. “He wants to get his hours in as quickly as possible.”
“Good.” He gathered the bread platter and her wine glass and set them on the counter. “Look, don’t get too close to him. You’re thinking about what you can do to help him. The answer is nothing. Just stay out of it.”
She gave him a smile that said she’d do whatever she damned well pleased, but covered it with a polite, “I’ve got it. Thanks for coming over.”
“The house doesn’t have a dishwasher,” he said.
“I don’t mind at all,” she replied, “I think Duke’s ready to go.”
“Thanks for dinner,” he said.
4
LUCAS RIDGEWAY LOOKED good in pink.
Alana’s cheeks flushed as she walked from her house to the Heirloom for breakfast, more than the damp spring air could explain away. But remembering Lucas’s tanned face and hair-roughened body against her pale pink sheets sent electric heat flashing along her nerves.
Really good. Dark and rough and at her disposal in a way she never would have expected. He was constantly in motion, assessing, thinking, analyzing. His gaze stopped moving only to take in details, then move on. The spur-of-the-moment suggestion to renovate the bathroom was a case in point. Lucas didn’t like to sit still. Grass didn’t grow under him. She didn’t think he’d have the patience to sit still as stone while she lost herself in his textures and tastes. Stubble against her lips. A trace of salt on his abdomen. The thin skin of his shaft on her tongue.
Looks like there was one area in his life where Lucas knew how to slow down.
Lucky her.
She didn’t feel that she could turn down his request to renovate the kitchen, though. Spending nights and weekends picking out wallpaper or paint and a new vanity with a big tough guy used to getting his way would be a good learning experience, maybe even better than spending nights in his bed.
She hauled open the door to the Heirloom Café with a little more force than necessary. A big, satisfying meal followed by an hour in bed with a big, satisfying male had combined to make her sleep like a baby. The bell over the door clanged rather than jingled, and heads swiveled to look at her. She smiled, then headed for the counter, mentally prioritizing her day. In addition to the library, Mrs. Battle wanted to talk strategy for the renovation proposal, and Freddie needed the position paper from the human-trafficking conference two years earlier—
“The usual?” Peggy asked.
“Yes, but would you add one of your skillet platters to the order? Also to-go.”
“You want home fries or hash browns?”
She remembered Cody’s cheekbones, the pale skin, his frame that bordered on skeletal. “Home fries, and toast, and a side of sausage, please. And juice.”
“Did you miss supper last night?” Peggy asked as she clipped the order to the wheel above the counter and spun it to face Eugene, the cook.
“I’m picking something up for a friend.”
“Your friend wouldn’t be Chief Ridgeway, would it?”
Alana felt her eyes widen. “No. Why would you think that?”
“Because Mrs. Denison across the street saw him go into your house around seven and not come out again until nine.” Peggy gave her a broad smile. “He was barefoot, she said. And he took Duke with him.”
She can’t tell you had sex last night. You showered and washed your hair and put on fresh clothes, and that possessive bite to your neck—that was a purely animal reminder that no matter if I was on top, he was still in charge—didn’t leave a mark. “Chief Ridgeway wants to renovate the kitchen before I leave so he can rent it again as soon as possible,” she said, striving for a casual tone. “I’ve already been here months longer than we’d planned. He came over at suppertime, so we ate and talked about the project.”
“Oh,” Peggy said, deflated. “Not very exciting.”
“I’m a librarian. Nothing exciting happens to me.” Except last night. Last night a tall, dangerous, remote man walked barefoot into your kitchen, then into your bed. Except it’s technically his bed.
Desire flashed low and white-hot in her abdomen.
“Take a seat,” Peggy said. “The skillet platter will be a minute.”
She sat down and picked up a copy of the local newspaper a previous customer had discarded in the rack by the door and skimmed the headlines. Peggy set a plastic bag containing a Styrofoam box, her bowl of oatmeal, and two shrink-wrapped packages of plastic utensils on the counter a few minutes later.
“Where is Gunther Jensen’s house?” she asked before Peggy could inquire into Alana’s breakfast companion.