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“You lied.” She took over the bacon and eggs while he concentrated on the pancakes.
Now he did turn to face her. “Yes. I lied. Part of the job sometimes.”
She grabbed the bacon with the tongs and put it on the plate, then added more into the pan, stepping back when it sizzled and popped. “You’re really good at it.”
“Cooking?”
“Lying.”
He stacked the pancakes on a platter, then leaned his hip against the counter. “Look, Elena. I’m sorry about not telling you who I really was.”
She couldn’t look at him, not when her emotions were so raw. “You could have kept your distance from me.”
“I could have.” His voice lowered. He moved in and put his arms around her. “I tried to, but it didn’t work. And what happened between us wasn’t part of the job.”
She ached, partly because she was hurt, but also because she needed to feel his arms around her again, to know that what had happened between them had been real.
He tipped her chin up with his fingers, forcing her to meet his gaze. He looked as wounded as she felt inside.
“How am I supposed to believe anything you say now?”
“I don’t know. I’m still Jed. I just have a different background and a different job.”
“So everything you told me was bullshit.”
“Yes.”
She sucked in a breath and pulled out of his embrace, grabbed the tongs and turned the bacon. “All lies. Everything.”
“No. Not everything.”
“That smells great, and I’m starving,” Pete said.
She blinked back tears as Grange and Pete entered the room. She and Jed finished cooking. Everyone piled up their plates and took a seat at the kitchen table.
Pushing thoughts of Jed aside, she turned her focus on Pete. “You live here alone?”
He nodded as he munched on a piece of bacon. “I won it from a sheik in a high-stakes poker game.”
She laughed. “You did not.”
“Actually, he did,” Grange said.
Her eyes widened. “Seriously? The sheik bet his house? This house?”
“This house was nothing to him. To people like us, it would be like betting pocket change. Losing it made him laugh.”
“As I recall,” Grange said, “he wasn’t happy when he lost that hand. Or the house.”
“That’s because he thought he had me beat.”
“What did you have to wager?” Elena asked Pete.
“Not a house, that’s for sure. I think it was my diving watch. The sheik liked all the bells and whistles on it.”
“He put this house up against a watch?”
“It was a nice watch,” Grange said.
