“It’sperfect,” he said, his eyes on that stack of cookies.
On that encouraging note, Jenny and Trudy headed downstairs together.
“I’ll bring you and Erik the same in the library in just a few minutes,” Trudy said, turning into the kitchen when they reached the first floor again.
Jenny continued on to the library, feeling surprisingly okay about leaving Gael upstairs to enjoy himself.
This was exactly the kind of thing she could never dare to consider in the city, where she felt like she had to have her eyes on the boy at all times. There wasn’t a hotel in existence where she would have left him on his own.
Maybe that made her overprotective, but Jenny was just fine with that.
“Is he okay?” Erik asked, standing from the small table by the fireplace as she came in. “We could always just talk up there if you’re more comfortablewith it.”
“He’s really happy,” Jenny said, smiling. “He said he needed someme time, if you can believe it.”
“I think he wanted us to spend time alone together,” Erik said, arching one brow. “That’s usually a pivotal scene in a fake engagement plot.”
“No,” Jenny breathed.
But he was almost certainly right. As soon as he said it, she knew it was just what would have happened onRidley Hospital.
“That boy was a born storyteller,” Erik chuckled, pulling out Jenny’s chair for her.
“You know, I was thinking the same thing the other day,” Jenny said, sitting. “That maybe one day he would be writing for one of those shows.”
“There are worse jobs,” Erik said as he sat down again.
“He’s too sweet for Hollywood,” Jenny said, shaking her head.
“You might be right about that,” Erik agreed, chuckling. “Maybe he’ll write the great American novel instead.”
“Maybe he will,” Jenny agreed.
“Speaking of stories, I guess we need to make up ours,” Erik said, leaning forward to put his elbows on the little table.
Jenny caught a hint of his forest scent and suddenly couldn’t stop noticing his brawny arms, and how green his eyes were.
“I don’t know,” she ventured without thinking. “Don’t we already have one?”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than her cheeks began to burn.
“Here we go,” Trudy sang out as she entered the library with another silver tray, saving Jenny from her own embarrassment.
She set it on the table between them—a plate piled with grilled cheese sandwiches, two small bowls of tomato soup, a plate of beautiful sugar cookies, and two mugs of hot cocoa.
“How does that look?” Trudy asked. “Can I bring you anything else?”
“You don’t have cinnamon, do you?” Jenny asked.
“I sure do,” Trudy said with a smile, pulling a little container from her apron. “I wondered if Gael got that trick from you.”
“Actually, I got it from him,” Jenny said, laughing. “And I think he got it from his grandmother.”
“What’s the cinnamon for?” Erik asked as Jenny took the container from Trudy.
“The hot chocolate,” Jenny told him. “Give it a try, if you want. I think you’ll love it.”
Anyone else might have politely declined, or maybe dotted a bit of the spice on one spoonful to try it. But Erik Anderson shook the cinnamon generously over his mug and gave it a stir.
