be a bad idea. Plus, I’m pretty sure he has the hots for you, and that would be awkward.”
“I’m not dating him either. You think having a sister dating your neighbor’s bad? I am never going to date my neighbor.” She winced and then beamed at me. “Sorry.”
“Ouch,” I said. I wondered why that dig hurt. I didn’t want her to date me. Maybe I needed to start adding Bailey’s Irish cream to my coffee in the morning on the weekends. I was losing my damn mind.
“Okay, let’s get to work.”
“You do not have to help me.”
“I’m in the mood, and I’m being nice. It’s a neighborly thing. You can make me lunch.”
I laughed. “I was just telling my dad that I can’t cook. I can probably make you a pasta salad from a box. Will that work?”
“That sounds lovely. I love pasta. Even though I probably shouldn’t have it.”
My gaze traveled down her curves, and I cleared my throat and then met her eyes. Her pupils dilated, and she licked her lips.
Hell, she’d caught me looking. And it seemed she liked it.
Again, what was wrong with me?
“You can eat as much pasta as you want,” I muttered and shook my head. “Anyway, let’s get to gardening.”
“And you can tell me how your parents are doing, I was going to call them earlier, but I hate bugging them.”
We both went down to our hands and knees again and worked on the garden. I shook my head. “I don’t think you could ever be a bother to them, Annabelle.”
She froze for a second before tilting her head at me. “That is a sudden change of heart,” she said carefully.
“I’m trying, Annabelle. Not doing a perfect job of it, but I’m trying.”
She smiled, swallowed hard, and we both went back to work.
By the time we were done gardening, we were covered in dirt, laughing, and we had done her backyard, mine, and my front yard—she had already worked on her front yard by the time I came outside. And now I knew way too much about gardening.
I hated it.
“I’m going to call your brother. I know he probably won’t work on my yard because he hates me, but he has to know somebody I can use.”
Annabelle laughed as she washed her hands in the sink while I started the water to boil for the pasta.
“He doesn’t hate you.” She paused. “Okay, he might a little, but he’ll like you when he gets to know who you are now. I did, eventually.”
“Okay, that hurt.”
“Sorry, we’re just very good at that.”
“It seems we are. Now, I have soda, water, and lemonade that I made to make my mom happy, but I don’t really drink it.”
“If it’s still good, I’ll drink it,” Annabelle said, shaking her head. “And you know I was kidding about lunch. But now I’m starving, so thank you.”
“I put you to work doing manual labor. I think the least I can do is feed you some semi-crunchy pasta.”
“Maybe I should be making lunch,” she said on a laugh.
“No, I can do this. I hope.”
She laughed again and then moved out of the way so I could get her some lemonade. We made the pasta, and I cooled it down quickly while she stirred up the olive oil, water, and the seasoning packet. We mixed it all together, added cut-up chicken I had from some leftover takeout, and ended up with a decent lunch.
“Hey, this is good,” she said. “Probably horrible for you and full of preservatives, but it’s been a while since I had one.”
“Sometimes it just hits the spot when you don’t want to make food or grab a hamburger on your way home.”
“Yes. I’m trying to do better about that, so I have lots of salad fixings at home all the time. But maybe I need to start keeping pasta salad fixings. I’m sure I could replicate that with my own seasonings.”
“And now I think I’m even hungrier,” I said and practically devoured my half of the pasta.
She ate her half, and we cleaned up, laughed, talked, and had a good evening.
“Here, let me help you with the dishes,” she said, moving past me. Her skin brushed mine. I still had a hard time telling myself that it was only me. I saw the heat in her gaze, the way she bit her lip, and I wondered what was going on.
The tension in the kitchen was palpable, yet I told myself I imagined it. But as my hand brushed