Twelve
There was so much work to be done to close the inn, and Edan was terribly busy. Certainly too busy to concern himself with the coming and going of Jenny and that fucking Italian, as he’d come to think of Lorenzo. And yet, against his better judgment and true nature, Edan found ways to interrupt them. When he found them in the lounge bent over that blasted computer, he’d walked in and announced the internet service would be down for the afternoon.
“But this email is very important,” Lorenzo pleaded with him, his palms together in a prayer pose.
“Sorry, lad. Canna be helped,” Edan said, and had returned to his office and pulled the plug on the Wi-Fi.
When he saw them strolling along the road like lovers in springtime, he found reason to put himself in Hugh’s motorized mule and drive up to disrupt them. Jenny laughed brightly when he honked his horn and startled Lorenzo so badly that he jumped two feet in the air. “What is the reason for this horn!” Lorenzo demanded.
“To move dawdlers along,” Edan said. “Looks like rain,” he added, squinting up at the sky. “Shall I take you back to the inn?” He made certain that Jenny rode next to him, and Lorenzo in the cage in back.
And still he couldn’t stop them. They are constantly whispering to each other and smiling. What could they possibly have to say to one another? They’d known each other for a whole of four days.
Edan realized, of course, that he’d somehow turned himself into a tragic mess. That kiss had taken on a life of its own in his head. As had the feel of her supple body against his.
He hated who he’d become these last few days. He hated that he was clinging to this idea of Audra who, really, when he thought about it, had shown him nothing but animosity in the last year. Oh sure, there had been sex and the dinners together, and quiet evenings—but there had always been an underlying current. And Edan was loyal to a fault, and he believed some things were worth fighting for, and he’d tried to make things right for her, tried to make Lake Haven up to her.
He should have known she’d hate this life. Audra had wanted a city, to be out of the Highlands. On his frequent trips home, Edan had convinced her and himself that she would be happy at Lake Haven.
She wasn’t happy. It was Scotland all over again, except in America—too remote, too far from life.
He was distracted by these thoughts one particularly sunny morning as he went out of the office to deliver paychecks. In the kitchen, he apparently was not responding appropriately to Rosalyn. She sighed and said, “You should take a few days off, Eddy. Go off and fish somewhere. You’re overworked, aye?”
“Is that your subtle way of telling me you want me to leave your kitchen?”
“No. If I wanted you out of the kitchen I’d bloody well say it. I say it because you’ve been such a bear. I donna think you really want to close the inn.”
Edan scowled as he handed her a paycheck. He walked out without a word because Rosalyn was right—he was disgusted with the world, feeling very uneasy in his skin, as if his parts weren’t fitting together properly. He’d lost his center in the last week.
Ah, well, it would be over soon enough. Jenny had booked room 215 for another week after he’d pressed her. She’d be leaving, as would Lorenzo, as would the Pettimores. The last guests for the Cassian Inn.
His infatuation would fade when he got on a plane bound for Scotland.
If anything, that thought made him feel even more restless.
He stalked down to the farmhouse Ned and Sandra shared with his restlessness and foul mood and their paychecks. He entered the kitchen through the mudroom as he always did—and stopped midstride.
“Well, good morning!” Jenny said. She was up to her elbows in a mixing bowl and there was a splotch of flour on her cheek. She was wearing a dress, covered by Sandra’s familiar apron, embroidered with a band of thistle around the edges.
It took a moment for Edan to make sense of what he was seeing and to check in with reality, and all the grand talk of how the infatuation would fade was smashed with a sledgehammer. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Making nut balls.” She said it as if it were perfectly reasonable that she’d somehow found her way into Sandra’s house and kitchen.
“Does Sandra know you are here, then?” he asked, confused.
Jenny laughed. “Of course she does. She invited me to use her kitchen. You don’t want to hear it—it’s a long story. Okay, I’ll tell you. I had lunch in the restaurant yesterday, and I was dying for something sweet, but all Rosalyn had were these prepackaged cookies. And they were awful, Edan. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but ick. And you know how it is when you have your heart set on something sweet and find out it’s no good? Anyway,” she said, pausing to touch the back of her arm to her nose, “Sandra was there, and I said, ‘You know what they say, sweets and porn are better when they’re homemade,’ and Sandra said she agreed about the sweets but didn’t know about the porn, and neither do I, really, but you know, it’s a joke, and we were talking, and one thing led to another, and I mentioned these delicious nut balls my mom used to make with butter and bourbon and pecans, and Sandra had all those things, and before you know it, she’d invited me over to make them for dinner tonight.”
“But where—”
“She had to run up to the inn for something. Here, will you help me and put some of that wax paper down on the counter?” She smiled sweetly.
Edan cautiously stepped forward and did as she asked. As he stood there, Jenny scooped from the concoction in the bowl, balled it up in her hands, and placed them on the wax paper. “Hey, I was thinking,” she said, and gave him a pert little smile. “Don’t look so alarmed. I was thinking that you should have one of those little shops here so people can buy things from the inn. Like the chutney. You could put it in little mason jars and tie ribbons around it and sell it. Same for these nut balls. Really, if you think about it, you could make all kinds of stuff. Soap, pottery. Maybe even embroider some things. Sandra said she likes to embroider.”
“You mean put in a tourist shop.”
“A farm shop. They aren’t the same thing. People really like the idea of getting organic food made right there, from ingredients found here.”
“Aye, and who would manage this farm shop?” he asked as he slid onto a stool.
“Oh, you’d have to hire someone for sure. But the shop would pay for itself.”
If only it were as simple as that.
“I really love homemade jellies and jams, and Sandra’s jam is fabulous. And Rosalyn’s pancake mix. Those two things alone could be a huge hit for you.”
“We donna have the space for mass production—”
“Sandra said she and your aunt talked about it once before.” Jenny glanced up and gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m so sorry about your aunt, by the way. Sandra said you two were very close.”
“Aye, thank you. We were.” Jenny and Sandra apparently had quite a long conversation.
“Well, anyway,” Jenny said, resuming her work, “she said they talked about it, but they weren’t talking about a farm shop, exactly. They just wanted to make items for sale and put them in reception, but you were all like, nooo, we’re a refined establishment.” She arched a brow that challenged him to disagree as she walked to the fridge. She opened it, bent over, and began to rummage around in one of the lower drawers.
It hadn’t exactly been like that, but any thought of correcting the record was dismissed as Edan admired her bum. He imagined it bare to him, smooth and soft and—
She popped up, closed the drawer with her foot and returned to the island with butter. “Do you remember?”
“Pardon?”
“That Sandra and your aunt talked to you about selling a few things.”
Edan had to look away from her sparkling eyes in order to think. “Aye,” he said. The reason he’d said no was because of Audra. She hadn’t wanted to be bothered with it, and in order for the plan to work, they would have needed her help. “I’m not a shop girl, Edan,” she’d said with disdain.
“Would you mind—while I melt this butter, will you make some balls?”
The question sounded so ludicrous that one corner of Edan’s mouth tipped up. “How can I refuse?” He walked around to her side of the island. She picked up some dough and put it in the palm of his hand, then closed his fingers over it. She glanced up through her lashes, and her eyes, bloody hell, they were shining with desire, prompting an unwelcome surge of lust through him. “Just make a little ball,” she said, squeezing his fingers a bit. “Then roll it in this bowl.” She pointed to one that was filled with a powdery substance. “And put it here,” she ended, pointing to the wax paper.
“That’s all?” he asked her.
Her lips curved. “That’s all...for now,” she said, her voice sounding almost like a purr to him. And then she moved away.
Edan began to make the balls while she tended the melting butter. “You’re a cook, then,” he said.
“Sort of. When I was fifteen, I took a cooking class because I was worried Dad wouldn’t eat properly. I liked baking the best. I learned to make pies and cakes and flans, and brownies and muffins…well, you get the picture.”
“Your father must have been greatly appreciative,” Edan said.
“Maybe, but it didn’t last long,” she said with a shrug. “Our kitchen wouldn’t have passed anyone’s health inspection and the baking pans I bought were buried under some other stuff.”
Edan tried to imagine the kitchen of a hoarder. He tried to imagine how Jenny had survived in that environment.
Jenny shifted away from the stove to check his progress, her caramel head bending over the bowl. “And I don’t bake much now, because if I baked for a party of one, I’d blow up like that blowfish Hootie.”
“Hootie and the Blowfish is a band,” Edan said. “No’ a fish.”
“Hmmm?” She looked up, her gaze meeting his. “I’m pretty sure it’s a blowfish.”
“Nope. No’ a fish,” he said, his gaze moving over her pretty face.
“You seem pretty firm about it,” she said, and her lips curved into a smile.
“Some things a man canna let slide,” he muttered. There was an invitation in her eyes, an invitation that sizzled between them, a palpable current as smooth and as hot as the butter melted in the pan. Edan didn’t know what possessed him, but this time, he was the one who was doing the kissing. She was in his arms, and he was tracing the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue. He dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her hips, pulling her into his body. He caught her jaw and tilted her head so that he could draw her bottom lip between his teeth before slipping his tongue into her mouth.
Jenny’s hands slipped up his chest, to his neck and his hair, and her leg came up, sliding along his thigh. He caressed the bare skin above the bodice of her dress and could feel her heart beating against his palm, could feel the warmth of her skin. He moved his hand to her breast, kneading it, then followed the path of his hand with his mouth, sliding his mouth down her chin, to the hollow of her throat, then the swell of her breast. He closed his eyes to the storm brewing in him and allowed himself to feel. No thinking, just feeling. Her skin, her breath, the curve of her body—everything.
The sound of voices outside reached them at the same time. Edan lifted his head and glanced at the door. He sighed, calmly helped her arrange her dress and apron. Jenny was a little more frantic about it, but surprisingly quiet for once. He cupped her chin, and she sighed, her eyes half closed, as he nipped at her lips once more. He then walked out of the kitchen, grabbing up a nutball as he went, and left via the front door.
When Edan stepped outside, he paused to look at the sky overhead and breathe in a deep drink of fresh air. It felt like the first bit of fresh air he’d felt in his lungs in an age—he could almost feel the cobwebs lifting away. His body was thrumming—every nerve, every muscle alive and ready. He hadn’t wanted sex like this since—
“Eddy, my friend!”
Edan jumped and jerked around at the sound of Lorenzo’s voice.
“A beautiful day! We will play today some golf, yes?” Lorenzo waved as he carried on to the mudroom door and disappeared inside the farmhouse.
Edan’s blood went from simmering to pure boil.