“Dalton,” Chance said, warning in his deep timbre. “Back off this one. Jenner’s right.”
Something heavy was in the air, pressing against her shoulders, lifting the fine hairs on her body. There was another moment of silence before Dalton dropped his gaze and nodded slightly. He ghosted her a glance, but his eyes looked strange. They looked lighter, more caramel than dark chocolate, and she blinked hard to clear her vision. But when she opened her eyes again, he was already striding toward the hallway.
“Night,” he called behind him. And then his door shut a little too soundly.
She opened her mouth to ask what had just happened, but Jenner beat her to it. “You hungry?” he asked gruffly. “I’m making a grilled cheese. I can make one for you while I’m at it.”
“And me,” Chance said, turning the page of his magazine and leaning back into the couch with his feet propped up on the table, like Jenner and Dalton having dominance battles was a daily occurrence.
“Uh, sure. I’ll take one, too.” Hell no, she wasn’t going to turn down a sexy-as-hell man cooking for her. Even if he was just being polite.
Lena set her half-finished fly on the table and trotted into the kitchen, slipping and sliding across the polished floors in her warm socks. “Where’s Lennard?” she asked as Jenner shoved a loaf of bread toward her.
“Cut us some slices, will you? Lennard’s out with the horses. He’s a freak about getting everything just right with the packing the day before a tour. In the hunting season, he’s even worse. I keep thinking one of these years he’ll trust us to handle everything, but he goes over and over the packing three times at least.”
“Does he ever find anything wrong with the way you pack?”
“No,” Chance called from the great room. Another magazine page sounded. “He’s just a control freak.”
“Yeah, but his diligence is why this place thrived for so long,” Jenner murmured distractedly.
She pulled a knife from a block on the countertop and smiled privately. Lennard had told her about Jenner turning down offers from other outfitters just to invest his money here and dig his heels in. She respected him more for giving Lennard the credit instead of bragging about his own importance. Jenner was a loyal man, and when his elbow bumped hers as he worked beside her, a strange fluttering feeling filled her middle.
When she’d imagined a grilled cheese dinner, she hadn’t thought it would be so grand. Jenner cooked lemon pepper asparagus in a pan while she chopped a colorful fruit salad, and the grilled cheeses he made were the fanciest she’d ever seen. Three types of cheeses were melted right into the middle of butter-toasted French bread with the perfect amount of squish and crunch. Jenner left a trio of filled plates on the counter, and as they were sitting down at the giant twelve-seater dining table with the wagon wheel chandelier above them lighting the room, Dalton appeared to tuck into their meal with them.
“Sorry,” he murmured to Jenner as he sat across the table from her.
Jenner jerked his chin dismissively from the seat right next to Lena. “Don’t worry about it.”
The tension in the air dissipated almost immediately, and Chance passed out cold beers. And bless that man, he didn’t even joke about a fruity cocktail for her as he popped the cap off and handed one over.
“To a successful trip,” Dalton toasted, holding his beer up. He’d said it to everyone, but his eyes were steady on Jenner.
Lennard walked in right as they tinked the glass bottles, then joined them with his own plate and frothy drink. Conversation was easy after that, and the joking and teasing commenced, much to Lena’s relief. She hated worrying that any of the earlier tension had been because of her. Beside her, Jenner ate four sandwiches to her one, but she supposed a man his size needed a lot of calories to sustain himself. And when she finished her last bite and pushed her plate away by inches, Jenner leaned back in his chair, his arm hooked on the ladder back of her seat.
She wanted to think he was being possessive, but from his little duck-and-run this morning, he likely was relaxed and had accepted her as one of the guys. This is how it happened with any man she had found interesting since Adam. The friend-zone swallowed her up quickly out in the field. Something about her made her great surrogate sister material, but little more. And for some reason, watching Jenner smile at something Chance had said, that thought made her really sad this time. She was attracted to him, but it was more than that. The more she got to know about the quiet giant of a man, the more she wanted to know, and the more she respected him. But he saw her as a little buddy at most, and there was tragedy in that.
“Lena,” Dalton said, looking troubled. “Did you hear me?”
“Huh?” she said, blinking rapidly and ripping her gaze away from Jenner.