the menu. I thought I was already on the local heat. Is that why I had the blandest bowl last Tuesday?”
“I wasn’t in that day. I left a note, but if your server wasn’t Lisa, then they probably ignored it,” he explained, his hand stroking down Daisy’s body. The puppy looked perfectly content to be sitting between the two of them. “And I would like to point out that bowl you had on Tuesday was the same recipe you started out on.”
She shook her head. “No. It was so bland. Have you been sneaking cayenne pepper in?”
“No. I would go into the kitchen and mix the tourist jambalaya with the one Remy makes for locals. It wasn’t much at first. Just half a scoop. You seemed to like it. You’re now eating the local stuff exclusively.”
It was weird but she was kind of proud of that since she’d always been told she wouldn’t like spicy food. Her father talked about how it gave him heartburn and her mother wouldn’t touch it. “Why would you do that? Were you trying to see if you could get me to lose my cool?”
He frowned as though the idea had never occurred to him. “No. I thought you would like it, but I would never give the local stuff to an out-of-towner unless I knew for a fact they could handle it. Remy believes firmly in an amount of cayenne it takes a while to build up to. I got the idea because when Lila first came to town, Lisa started cutting her normal coffee with chicory, and Lila eventually came to love it. Sometimes it’s all that’s available in some homes. I know it seems sneaky, and if you hadn’t liked it the first time, I would have told you what I did and had you try it without any pepper.”
He’d tried to ease her way. “So you do this for everyone? Is it a Guidry’s tradition?”
“Not at all. Remy gave me hell when he caught me doing it. I just thought you would like it. We sometimes run out of the other, but we always have the local stuff. At first that bland jambalaya was the only thing you were willing to try. That changed over time, but in the beginning, I wanted to make sure you could always have something to eat.”
There were not tears pulsing behind her eyes. Nope. She was having some kind of allergic reaction to something in the air and that was all there was to it. It wasn’t that he’d done something incredibly sweet with absolutely no thought to getting anything out of it for himself.
“I think you should kiss me now.” She suddenly realized she’d been waiting to say those words all night, ever since that first kiss had been interrupted. She had a chance to get herself out of this, but she wasn’t going to take it. What she was going to take was this week. She would take it and enjoy it. It could be her reward for surviving.
Something like relief went across his face and his hand came out, touching her hair. “I’m glad. My brother had me . . . well, it doesn’t matter.”
She was going to ask him what had happened with his brother tonight, but then his lips were on hers and she stopped thinking about anything but how well that man could kiss.
Zep always seemed to take things so lightly, but there was nothing light about the way he kissed. He focused in on her, his lips moving over hers like he was memorizing the way she felt against him. His hands were gentle on her, fingers tangling in her hair. She found herself following the lead he offered her, moving her head this way or that, anything to keep those lips on hers.
Then there was something between them as Daisy whined and tried to get in on the action.
Zep groaned and backed away. “I’m going to have to teach her some manners and how to not block her momma’s friends. Come on, sweet girl. It’s time for bed. I’ll put her in her crate for the night.”
He got up and started moving toward the kitchen/dining room area where Daisy’s crate was sitting until Roxie decided where to put it.
What was she doing? She was trying her hardest not to have feelings, but they were there. They always had been. Something about this man moved her, and she couldn’t shove it away. She’d tried her hardest, but she