maybe a little bit frightened,” he said softly. “Definitely not a jerk.” He kicked a chair away from the table, and then another, sitting in one and gesturing for her to sit in the other.
“Oh, I’m not staying.”
“Sit,” he said. “Please?”
Apparently she was a sucker for the please, because she sat and together they mowed their way through the food. “Amazing,” he said on a moan, eating with the same laid-back easiness he did everything else. “Been a long time since someone cooked for me.”
“No girlfriend?”
“Been a long time for that too.”
She smiled. “You expect me to believe a guy like you is celibate?”
“I didn’t say celibate.”
He laughed when she rolled her eyes. Okay, so he was seeing people. And why wouldn’t he be? Look at him.
“What did you mean, a guy like me?” he wanted to know.
She snorted. “Not touching that one, cowboy.”
He smiled, but it faded. “I’m not a good bet,” he finally said, answering her “no girlfriend” question. “Always on call, and the job comes first. Apparently, that’s annoying and frustrating, and I get it. My life hasn’t exactly lent itself to relationships.”
Made sense. Up until this year, her life hadn’t lent itself to relationships either. It made her wonder if he ever felt the same loneliness she did, and if so, maybe she’d invite him along to the hike tonight.
No, that made no sense at all. After all, she was changing her life, settling down . . . and he wasn’t. In fact, he was temporary here, very temporary, and he’d just admitted he wasn’t relationship material. “There’s a midnight full moon hike tomorrow,” she heard herself say. Apparently her mouth wasn’t taking direction from her brain.
His eyes cut to hers. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He just held her gaze.
He was going to make her ask him. “Do you want to go?” she asked.
“With you?”
She narrowed her eyes, her “never mind!” on the tip of her tongue, but she caught the glint of humor in his eyes and realized he was teasing her. “No,” she said. “With Santa Claus.”
He laughed, and . . . still didn’t answer.
“You know what? Forget it.” She stood to gather the plates. “It was a dumb idea.”
He put his hands over hers to stop her and then took over the job of repacking everything up, doing it with greater efficiency than she could’ve managed. “I’d like to go,” he said. “Thanks for thinking of me.”
Good thing he wasn’t a mind reader or he’d know just how much she’d been thinking of him.
Reaching for her hands again, he drew her closer and bent his knees a little so he could look right into her eyes. “And thanks for breakfast.”
She nodded and then licked her suddenly dry lips, which were shockingly close to his. At the movement, his gaze dropped to her mouth. And like magic, hers trembled open.
That’s when someone cleared their throat from the doorway.
Caleb.
Ivy yanked her hands from Kel’s and grabbed her bag, flinging it over her shoulder. “I was just leaving.”
Caleb didn’t move from the doorway. Instead, he divided a gaze between the two of them. “Interesting.”
“Nope,” Ivy said, lips still tingling from the near kiss that she’d wanted shockingly badly. “Nothing interesting to see here.”
Caleb, eyes on his cousin, just grinned. “Uh-huh.”
Kel didn’t grin back, or react at all. Nope, the cowboy was calm and stoic, giving nothing away. Apparently they taught ’em well in Idaho.
“Thought we decided you should go see your sister and your new baby niece tonight,” Caleb said. “Or your mom.”
“Thought we decided you were staying the hell out of it,” Kel replied.
“Fine.” Caleb lifted his hands. “Staying out of it.”
“If only I could believe that,” Kel said.
The banter was light. There was an ease to their interactions that spoke of a very long and very close relationship.
Ivy both envied that and felt the need to run far and fast. Because she didn’t have that kind of easy affection with . . . anyone.
Although in the deep, dark of the night when they’d been in the small space of her truck, side by side in the mess, working together in a way that had seemed shockingly intimate . . . that had felt very intimate.
And so did right now in an office where they weren’t even alone.
Scary stuff. Really scary. So much so that she could feel a mini freak-out coming on. She was good at that, very good. So while Kel and Caleb were still exchanging barbs in the way that only men seemed to be able