anything but the fact Conrad was sitting so close yet so far away. I don’t know why it took just the two of us coming to this cabin for me to see him differently. So much so I know I’m just seconds away from making a fool of myself and kissing him. Speaking of kisses, I was sure he was going to kiss me earlier, and I was here for it. I wouldn’t have stopped him. In fact, I wish I would have leaned in a little sooner.
“I’m starving,” Conrad announces. He throws his cover off his lap and stands. “You?”
“I could eat.” Or I could settle for making out here on the couch.
“Come on.” He holds his hand out for me, and I don’t hesitate to feel his skin against mine, even with just the simple act of him pulling me from the couch. “Feed me, woman.” He laughs once I’m on my feet.
“You need to feed me.” I give him a look that says his macho man stuff isn’t working on me.
“How about we feed each other?” His eyes heat, and I have to fight the urge to jump him. Images of all the ways we could “feed each other” roll through my mind like a movie reel.
What the hell is wrong with me? This is Conrad. My sister’s future brother-in-law. I can’t be having these feelings for him. I can’t complicate the relationship my sister has with Grant’s brother. I won’t do that. I need to just keep my hormones in check for a couple more days, and when everyone else finally gets here, all of this sexual tension will fade away. It’s just the two of us being snowed in together. It has to be.
“We’ll cook together. Maybe I can teach you a thing or two,” he teases.
“You do know I work at a bakery, right?” I ask, following along behind him to the kitchen like a lost puppy.
“You do know that Lena Riggins is my mother, right?” he fires back with a smirk.
“Touché.” I laugh. “So what are we making?”
“Let’s see what we’ve got.” He drops my hand, and I miss the contact immediately.
I watch as he rummages through the cabinets and then the refrigerator and freezer before he turns to face me. “Well, Chef Riggins, what’s it going to be?”
“How about… drum roll, please.” He waits for me to tap my hands against the counter before announcing. “Hamburger Helper.”
I throw my head back in laughter. “You had me thinking we were going to have a big four-course meal, and the best you can come up with is Hamburger Helper?”
“What? I love this stuff, and it’s easy to make,” he defends.
“I’m not dissing Hamburger Helper. What are our options?”
“We have…” He clears his throat and turns back to the cabinet. “Cheeseburger macaroni, or three-cheese lasagna.”
“Hmm.” I tap my index finger against my chin, pretending to ponder my options when really there is no contest. The lasagna wins hands down every time. “Do we have any garlic bread?”
He nods, opens the freezer, and produces a box of frozen garlic bread. “It’s breadsticks, which is better,” he says, holding up the box.
“Perfect. Three-cheese lasagna it is.”
He gives me a boyish grin that tugs at something in my chest. “A woman after my own heart.” He winks and gets to work, pulling out a pan and a pound of hamburger from the freezer.
“Where are the baking sheets?” I ask, holding up the box of breadsticks.
“That cabinet over there.” He points to a lower cabinet next to the refrigerator.
After reaching into the cabinet, I pull out the baking sheet and busy myself placing the breadsticks evenly spaced apart. “Do you cook a lot?” I ask.
“I’ve started to cook more meals at home than I used to. It used to be me, and one or more of my brothers would grab dinner and a few drinks, or we would end up at Mom and Dad’s. Now that Royce, Owen, and Grant are coupled up, we do less of that. Marshall and I still do from time to time, but it gets old after a while. It used to be a way to just hang out with my brothers, now it’s the same, but with just Marsh and me, we don’t do it as often.”
“Do the others never join you?”
“No, they do, just not as often as they used to. It’s fine. I get it. If I had a woman waiting for me at home, knowing I got to fall asleep