Page 58 of The Treasure House

I felt self-conscious as I set the table, aware that he was watching me. I met his eye and my stomach did a slow-rolling tumble. He didn’t look away. His greenish gaze was clouded and intense.

Doris Day ended abruptly, and the evening hush was thick and luscious in that bare-bulbed kitchen. I could hear the low hum of the little oven, the chatter of birds nesting for the evening, and the distant roar of the ocean against the cliffs. The heavy perfume of flowers mixed with Jake’s salty, woody scent was making me feel light-headed.

The moment drew out, and out, and out.

“Hey, Mom? Jake? Who’s Chet Baker?”

The spell broke and I backed away from the table, flushing. Oh God, had I been staring at him?

Had he been staring at me?

“MOM!”

“I don’t know,” I called back.

“JAKE?”

“I don’t know either, kid. Just play him and see.” Jake seemed unsettled too.

Chet Baker, it turned out, played the sexiest music in the world. A languid trumpet sighed a long, sensual note. Jake shifted in his chair. That music, combined with Jake Abernathy watching me, made serving macaroni and cheese a dizzying exercise.

“Is Chet the singer or the trumpet player?” Flo asked, confused, appearing in the doorway with the liner notes.

Whoever was singing had a soft, fretful voice. Don’t change a hair for me…

“Oh, he’s both,” she said, reading on.

Not if you care for me…

“He’s good-looking too.” Flo held out the album cover so we could see the dark-haired man in the white T-shirt. He had a James Dean/Marlon Brando vibe. “Or he was. He’s probably dead now, isn’t he, if he lived in the black-and-white times?”

“The black-and-white times?” Jake asked.

“When I was a kid, I used to think the past was black and white like the old movies,” Flo told him, dropping her album cover on the sideboard and joining Jake at the table.

“When you were a kid?” He scratched his nose.

“Oh Mom, you put broccoli in it? You want the guy to like you, don’t you?”

“Flo!” I blushed. Oh my God, she had no shame.

“I’ll still like her,” Jake drawled, the longing trumpet in the background making his words sound loaded.

“Way to ruin macaroni and cheese,” Flo grumbled at me.

“Go wash your hands and stop complaining, or you can cook next time.”

“I will,” she grumbled, “and my macaroni will be properly orange. Come on, Jake, you have to wash your hands too.” She shooed him off his chair.

Jake brushed past me on the way to the sink and I felt a shock bolt through me. He felt it too. I could tell by the way he tensed up.

I was so busy pretending not to be unsettled by Jake’s presence that I wasn’t paying attention to Flo, who went hunting through the sideboard for a hand towel. At least I wasn’t paying attention until Flo screamed.

“What is it? Is it a snake?” I’d been having nightmares about snakes slithering in through the open porch.

Jake was already there before I reached her. I heard him swear.

“Is it a snake? A spider? A rat?”