Elijah followed her with a chuckle and pointed out the window. “On that first day they were here, did you ever think you’d see them doing that?” He was so close to Jayden that his heart threw in an extra beat. He wanted to do more than flirt or nudge her with his shoulder at the dinner table. He visualized taking her in his arms and kissing her full lips until they looked bee stung, then scooping her up like a bride and . . .
The picture in his mind disappeared when she spoke. “I had my doubts as to whether any one of them would even be here after the first week.”
“Not me,” Elijah said. “I’m a little surprised that we even lost one out of the bunch. They all looked like little scared first-grade girls when I yelled at them to drop their suitcases. On my first session here, one girl hurled her bags at me like they were rockets. That got her the first demerit, even though she didn’t know the rules. She was in the Brewster County Jail before suppertime. This is a pretty calm bunch compared to that first one.”
“Were you a drill sergeant in the service?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nope, but I used to do a damn good impression of my sergeant. It’s a good thing he never caught me, or I’d have spent some time in the brig for sure. Mostly my team and I did classified work—rescue missions, reconnaissance, that kind of thing.”
“You could tell me the details, but you’d have to kill me, right?” She turned toward him with a smile.
“Something like that.” He grinned. “But enough about me. I’d rather talk about you.”
“You know almost everything there is to know about me. You’ve got my résumé on file. Which reminds me, do you keep a list of potential folks who would like to come here for one of the sessions? Novalene and Diana aren’t coming back,” she said.
“Of course we do,” he answered. “We’ve got lots of counselors who would like a part-time job in the summer, but we don’t have a file for cooks or for folks to help on the grounds when we don’t have girls at the camp.”
“Guess you’d better start one then.” She picked up a tea towel, dried the pot, and put it back where it belonged.
Elijah sure wished Jayden would stay and take the job. Did that mean he was crazy? He couldn’t ever remember having that kind of feeling with any other woman. He headed out toward the barn, thinking about Jayden the whole way. He started to call Henry to talk to him about his feelings, but that seemed silly.
“Remember your training, Elijah Thomas,” he muttered. “Keep business and pleasure separate. Jayden is your employee. Sure, you’ve flirted, and she even said she’d go on a date with you, but be sure you’re not still bad luck when it comes to folks you care about.”
He remembered when Tim teased him about trying to analyze his feelings, but nowadays he realized that just meant he needed time to think. Men, especially guys like him who had done the work he had in the air force, did not worry for hours on end about a woman. They flirted, they either got lucky or they didn’t, and then they went home and had a beer or two and forgot all about it. He didn’t want that kind of relationship with Jayden. He wanted more, and he needed to think about it.
“Just a little time,” he whispered.
I believe that I’m ready to settle down, and that’s why I’m questioning why Jayden is twisting me up in knots to the point that I make up excuses to spend a few minutes with her when I can, he thought.
“You talking to yourself?” Jayden startled him when she spoke from a few feet away. “Have we driven you completely bonkers?”
Not y’all, he thought, just you, Jayden Bennett.
“Just thinking out loud,” he said. “We’ll divide up the girls so that Keelan and Ashlyn are riding in different vehicles.”
“That’s smart thinking,” she agreed.
Elijah’s heart did a couple of flips at just the sound of her voice. Dammit! He shouldn’t let himself get all stirred up over a woman who would be going home to the big city in only three weeks.
The heart wants what the heart wants. Henry’s voice couldn’t have been any clearer if the man had been standing right behind him.