Dammit, she had a dozen things she needed to check on. “No, I’ve got it.” She moved to get up; he stood to help her. She also wanted to tell him to quit being so fucking nice to her. It threw her off-balance. She didn’t trust it.
Ashley and Mia came back in, immediately spied her thickly wrapped boo-boo, and asked no less than nine million questions. Did she bleed? Did it hurt? Where was all the blood? Would there be blood in the food? Did she think she was going to lose the finger? At least their presence prevented any more strangeness with their dad, and Starla was able to get through with making dinner and serve it at a decent hour. By the time she dropped into a chair at Jared’s dining room table, she was exhausted, and eating was nowhere near the top of her list of priorities. But she forced herself. It would look weird if she wouldn’t eat her own food. Plus, it was pretty damn good, if she did say so herself. It even seemed to please the two finicky seven-year-olds, and their dad went in for seconds before all four of them attacked the chocolate chip cookies.
Mission accomplished. Now she could get the hell out of here. Only, she didn’t really want to. It was nice to be in the company of people she didn’t want to strangle. At home, there was nothing but Julie and Doug festering on the couch.
Jared excused the girls from the table, and they ran off for bath time. Starla watched them go with a strange desperation. Left alone with him, what other kind of weirdness was going to come up?
She didn’t want to wait around to find out. Standing, she began to clear the dishes from the table, but of course, he wasn’t having it.
“Hey, sit down. You cooked. I’ll clean up later.”
“I tend to make a gigantic mess. Really, let me help.”
“No. Sit. Do you want a beer?” he asked over his shoulder as he headed back toward the kitchen with his hands full of dirty dishes. Starla dropped back into her seat and stared glumly at her wrapped finger. It still throbbed despite the ibuprofen she’d taken soon after he’d played doctor for her. She was utterly torn, but as usual, she knew the right thing to do. It was just so damn hard for her to do it.
“Thanks, but I’d better not.”
This was why she preferred to know what was expected when she agreed to meeting up with someone. But this whole thing had been her idea, hadn’t it? She shot out of her chair again, too restless to sit still. Jared stood in the kitchen scraping food remnants into the disposal, and her breath caught again at the way his jeans fit the delectable curve of his ass. God, she could imagine sinking her fingernails into that.
“Are you sure?” he asked her.
“I should probably go.”
He flipped a switch on the wall, and the disposal growled to life. Turning to look at her, he leaned his hip against the counter and wiped his hands with a dish towel. “I feel bad that we haven’t had much time to talk. You’ve been in here working the whole time.”
Yeah, but you look so insanely gorgeous right now, and your eyes are so blue, and if I stay, if I stay… I don’t know if I’ll be able to control myself.
Not that she had to worry. He had kids—how to explain to them that Daddy’s new “friend” stayed the night? He wouldn’t let it happen. She was safe.
Keep telling yourself that.
“All right. Maybe one beer.”
***
The girls were snug in bed, bathed and dressed in their jammies with one story read—that was all Jared had allowed them; otherwise, they would’ve kept him up all night. But they hadn’t wanted him to read the story. They had both wanted Starla to read it for them. Amazing how they’d both taken to her. Jared had never thought he would see the day both of his girls agreed on something. He’d been ready to tell them not to bother her, but she’d taken the storybook from him and given it a shot. He should have warned her it would be more a case of the girls reading the story to her than vice versa. She handled it like a pro.
Now, the two of them sat out on his deck at the patio table, beers in hand, stars bright above. He loved it out here for the simple reason that you could see every star in the sky, watch for meteors, and contemplate the vastness of the Milky Way stretching above. No town noise, no distant traffic, nothing but the sounds of nature…at least when his neighbors didn’t have the volume cranked up.
Starla nursed her beer carefully, one knee drawn up to her chest and the other bent around. He liked it when she gazed up at the sky; he could admire the graceful lines of her neck.
“So, you weren’t kidding,” he said when the conversation had lulled. “You’re a great cook. How did that come about?”
She turned a little smile on him. “Did you think I was lying?”
“Nah. Just curious.”
“Well, let’s see. Lots of Sunday dinners at my grandparents’ when I was growing up, for one. Any girl old enough to reach the counter was expected to pitch in. I learned a lot.”
“You come from a big family?”
“Six sisters, four brothers.”