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“Only because you haven’t read the latest draft of my suit.” She sipped her coffee, feeling strangely optimistic.She liked being here with him, the morning light streaming through the windows. “And I think we’re going to get to court later this week. The judge is fast-tracking us because he uses the gas station on a regular basis and he nearly had a heart attack when he saw that Geraldine had invited half the nursing home to a hot tub barbecue party in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. His secretary called and asked if we could be ready by Friday. I said yes.”
Quaid frowned. “Well, now I am very annoyed.”
Beyond optimism, she was now feeling flirty. Her confidence was coming back. Or rather showing up. She was absolutely sure she was a badass in the courtroom, but now she could see that ten years of a loveless, mostly sexless marriage had done a number on her when it came to men. “And?”
He looked her up and down, a deeply grumpy expression on his face. “Yeah, I’m still attracted.”
But he made no move on her. Had he rethought his stance from the night before? Or perhaps that moment had been a turning point and they’d missed their shot.
Or something crappy had happened to him since he’d gotten called to the jail.
“You want to talk about the call you got last night?” She moved into the kitchen, going to the refrigerator.
“I don’t think I have time to talk about it,” Quaid shot back. “I apparently have a suit to respond to.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay.” She wasn’t going to push him. He could be touchy. She found eggs and butter and strawberry jam. “Do you have bread for toast? I’m thinking eggs and toast, unless you want to go over to the café.”
He reached up to one of the cabinets, opening it and pulling out a loaf of bread. “I picked up basics yesterday afternoon. It’s mostly stuff for sandwiches and some protein bars. I’m not much of a cook.”
“Then we’re lucky I’m a pretty good cook.” She pulled out the eggs and butter. “Scrambled or fried?”
“So I shut you out and you offer to cook breakfast for me?”
“You think you shut me out?” She wasn’t sure why that shocked him. “Just because you don’t want to talk about what happened last night? It’s none of my business.”
“I’ve found that women I’m involved with tend to view my silence as shutting them out.”
She chuckled. “Well, first of all, we’re not involved. We didn’t even kiss last night. You are a nice man who can’t let a colleague or her super cute dog sleep in her car.” It didn’t bother her that he’d clammed up. He could have multiple reasons for not talking about what had happened the night before. “I was merely offering to be a sounding board if you needed one. As for breakfast, I’m offering you your own food. It’s kind of a good play for me because otherwise I have to go to the café and pretend I’m not hungry because I have no money and hope someone gets tired of listening to my stomach growl.”
He was quiet for a moment. “My life is very complicated. My family dynamic is complex and with my brother back in town, I worry it’s going to get worse. It might be better to not involve you in that situation.”
Well, that was a kick in the gut, but he was right. It was complicated, and the last thing she wanted him to think was that she would sleep with him so he would help her. Still, she didn’t like the fact that this warmth she felt would end so quickly. “I agree. So we’ll be colleagues. I can find a place to stay. I would like to keep using the extra office here if that’s okay, because I need to keep an eye on Sienna. I hope you can be patient with her. I’m going to convince her to take your offer. I just need a few days.”
He held up a hand, stopping her. “Hey, I wasn’t asking you to leave. And I wasn’t saying I’m not interested. I wassaying that my life has become more complex than it was before last night and I don’t want to expose you to something that could be distasteful. I would go home and let you stay here by yourself, but I’m pretty sure I would end up needing to secure your services if I do. I don’t think I would be able to restrain myself from punching my brother.”
That actually wouldn’t be a terrible thing. Quaid could pay in cash.
“Are you thinking about the fee you would charge me?” Quaid asked, his lips quirking up.
She shrugged. “Well, you would be the first private citizen in town to not try to pay me in barter. I’ve been told the absolute best I can hope for is gift cards to the place that sells chicken-fried steak in the middle of the convenience store, or a goat.”
Sienna had explained that the goat would be nice because she was the one who had to mow the lawn, and the goat could take care of that chore for her. Also, they were cute, and she’d promised to train Luna to herd them if they could get two.
Such a weird place to find herself in. She’d gone from Louis Vuitton shopping to treating herself for a job well done by hoping for goats.
Quaid shook his head. “I think I’ll stay here for now. Both places are dangerous for me, but I think I might prefer one outcome to the other. And I’ll eat whatever you put on my plate. I won’t be picky. We can go buy more groceries this afternoon.”
She found a pan and placed it on the stove top. “Danger?”
“Well, the way I look at it, if I go home I will be opening myself to all of my brother’s drama. If I stay here, I’ll probably end up letting you seduce me and get my heart broken when you sashay right back out of town.”
Oh, his brother wasn’t the only dramatic one. “Heartbroken?”
“I think I could get used to having you around,” he admitted. “You’ve already taken on quite a bit of the city work, for which I get paid very little compared to the corporate work. You’ve taken roughly half my Papillon quirk claims, as I like to call them. I got paid nothing for those and you’ve managed to maybe get a couple of livestock out of them.”
“Don’t forget the gas and chips, and that Herve has to fix my car.” She melted some butter and cracked four eggs in before adding in a fifth. Quaid looked like he could eat. “I might need to find out if the tow truck driver needs legal help because I think my car died last night, along with my dignity.”
“Your dignity didn’t die, but I’ll call and get your car towed if we can’t get it started,” he promised.
