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“What’s going on?”
Beth stopped chopping onions and dashed a hand across her teary eyes, squinting at her cousin propped in the kitchen doorway.
“I’m making you my world-famous lasagne, that’s what. Personally, I think you’re taking this whole invalid thing a tad far. I’m betting you ditch the crutches the moment I’m out the door and dance around here naked.”
Lana quirked an eyebrow and stared down at her baggy brown cords, shapeless beige sweater, and scuffed lace-up boots, her usual conservative stay-at-home garb. “You think?”
Beth laughed, wishing Lana would let her give her a make over. It might help Lana to loosen up, act her age, have a little fun, maybe go the whole hog and find a guy. “Well, maybe not. Now, vamoose. You have a master chef at work here.”
Lana shook her head and hobbled toward the island bench where she propped on a stool. “Sorry. Not leaving until you tell me what’s up.”
“All this lazing around has given you an overactive imagination. There’s nothing wrong.”
Beth resumed dicing, needing to keep her hands busy and her mind focused on getting the recipe right; anything to keep her mind off the extremely X-rated fantasies—though they could officially be classed as memories now—of Aidan.
Lana picked up a wooden spoon and banged it on the side of a stainless steel cookie container. “Spill it. You only ever make lasagne as comfort food and you’ve just hummed the entire repertoire of every eighties band from that easy listening playlist you obsessively play. So time to ‘fess up. Something’s wrong.”
Turning away from Lana’s probing stare, Beth winced at what she was about to do. Considering her cousin would have to work with Aidan once her ankle healed it was only fair she told her the truth. Besides, Lana had been her confidante, best friend, and sister rolled into one forever and Beth was busting to tell her what had gone down—literally—with Aidan.
After rinsing her hands under the cold tap and drying off, she turned back to face Lana, who was patiently staring at her with a quirked eyebrow. Beth drew out a kitchen chair and pointed to it.
“You better sit down. I have a feeling you’re going to need to when you finish hearing this.”
Concern bracketed Lana’s mouth in an instant. “Are you okay? It’s nothing serious?”
Beth sat on the chair opposite Lana and said, “Depends on your definition of serious. If you think sleeping with the boss is serious, well then, it’s—”
“You didwhat?” Lana sat bolt upright so quickly one of her crutches toppled and slammed against the floor with a bang.
“It’s no big deal, really,” Beth hurried on, more than a little intimidated by the appalled expression on her cousin’s face. “We’ve had this flirting thing going on from the start and we kinda got carried away after that silent auction fundraiser and—”
Lana shook her head and held up her hands. “Whoa. Tell me this is yet another example of your warped sense of humour. Tell me you didn’t really sleep with Aidan Voss.”
Beth tried to keep a straight face and failed. She couldn’t, because the instant Lana mentioned Aidan’s name she couldn’t keep the satisfied smile off her face.
“Okay, I didn’t sleep with Aidan Voss…considering there wasn’t much sleep involved.”
Lana groaned and dropped her head in her hands. “This can’t be happening.”
Banishing thoughts of how fabulous the minimal sleeping she’d had with Aidan had been, she sobered up for her cousin’s sake.
“Look, it’s not that bad. We’re both consenting adults, it’s not really going anywhere, and once I’m out of the museum it’ll all be forgotten.”
Lana’s head snapped up as she pinned her with an accusatory glance. “But what if it doesn’t end well? Where does that leave me, my job?”
Beth lowered her gaze, preferring to trace the chocolate brown and aqua circles on Lana’s fifties tablecloth rather than face the blind panic in her cousin’s eyes.
Lana’s sharp intake of breath sounded like a clap of thunder in the growing silence. “What else have you done?”
Knowing Lana wouldn’t buy her best innocent look—she never had, all those times Beth had swapped book reports, ‘borrowed’ her best jewellery, pilfered the last of her favorite chocolate bar—she tried one on for size anyway.
“He knows how important your job is. I made sure he understands that.”
“You made sure he understands that…” Lana parroted, before bolting upright for the second time in as many minutes, her face turning scarlet. “Why? What have you—”
“Settle down, Cuz. I reinforced how important your reputation at the museum is to keep my job after he virtually fired me, but everything’s cool now.”
Extremely cool, considering how they’d blown each other’s minds last night.
