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“Hello, for apple pie à la mode? I think I can swing it.” Jackson reached over and plucked his niece from Shane’s stiff embrace, tickling her round baby-belly with just enough pressure to make her squeal with glee. “And for the record, they can smell fear.”
“Show off,” Shane muttered, but he looked more relieved than irritated.
“You know it.” Jackson returned the baby to Brooke’s outstretched arms. “I’ll be back. Until then, could you please not eatallthe potato salad?”
“Only because I’m saving room for pie,” Shane called after him as Jackson made his way through the yard.
After a bit of creative maneuvering, Jackson managed to get his truck free from the throng of vehicles parked on the grassy shoulder leading up to his childhood home. The lingering smell of charcoal from the grill wound its way through his open window, reminding him of the smoky flavors of the burgers he’d flipped. The way the grill marks had formed perfect charcoal outlines across the thick patties, the bright, hearty color of the garden-grown tomatoes, the soft, fluffy pillows of the perfectly toasted potato rolls sandwiching it all together…ahhhhhh. The whole thing had been pure bliss.
Jackson leaned back in the driver’s seat, his mouth watering even though he’d eaten barely a half an hour before. The sexy rasp of a familiar voice ribboned through his memory, unfurling and spreading out in his mind.
And you have yourself an experience…Carly whispered, hot in his ear.
Oh, hell.
Even though he hadn’t seen Carly since the morning of their kiss, the thought of her sure had made itself at home inside his cranium. In fact, thoughts of her were popping up with such unnerving frequency that Jackson had pretty much stopped trying to fight them. What harm could a little daydreaming about a sexy woman do in the grander scheme of things?
You mean aside from the hard-on you’re sporting like the banner at a homecoming parade?
Well, shit. He needed something dull to dwell on, and he needed it quick. A stack of ho-hum papers, neatly bound with a two-inch metal clip à la the Jaws of Life, caught his eye from his passenger seat, snagging his attention with perfect timing.
If reciting random excerpts from thePennsylvania Building Codecouldn’t get his mind on the straight and narrow, nothing would.
By the time Jackson pulled into the parking lot at Joe’s Grocery, his recollection of residential building codes for outdoor storage enclosures was fresh as a daisy, and his XY parts were in a much more cooperative mood. He did a quick visual assessment of how many bags of ice would fit in the cooler he’d stashed in his truck bed and sauntered into Joe’s. The place was a ghost town.
“Hey, Joe. Not a lot of people on account of the holiday, huh?” Jackson grabbed a cart and auto-piloted it in the direction of the frozen food.
“Everyone’s at your ma’s, from what I hear. I’m actually closing up shop in a couple minutes.” Joe gave a friendly grin from behind the deli counter. “But go ahead and grab whatever you need and let me know when you’re ready to check out.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be quick.”
It was a little eerie to have the normally bustling store to himself, and Jackson started to whistle as he made his way toward the freezer cases in the back of the store. Some old tune had been stuck in his head for days now, and he couldn’t seem to place it, let alone get it out of his mind. The oddly familiar notes rolled off his tongue, threatening to drive him batty, but he shrugged it off as he cut through the dried goods aisle to get to the ice cream.
A flash of movement and sudden stillness caught his eye, and he stopped mid-stride next to a display of long grain rice. A woman stood on her tiptoes, her back to him as she reached for the top shelf. A long, dark braid snaked between her shoulder blades, and her arm seemed frozen above her, stopped short by his sudden presence.
“Oh, here. Let me get that for you,” Jackson said, sliding a box of funny-looking pasta from the shelf. The heady smell of wildflowers filled his nostrils, and he dipped his head to look at the woman in equal parts confusion and excitement. In the breath before she turned around, Jackson realized exactly who she was.
She was the woman he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about all week.
And she looked furious.
* * *
“Are you making fun of me?”
The question popped out of Carly’s mouth and seemed to hang in midair for a ten-second eternity before Jackson blinked and took a step back.
“Am I…huh?”
Carly crossed her arms, undeterred by the way Jackson’s white T-shirt hugged every hard plane of his chest like it was custom-sewn for his perfectly chiseled muscles.
Okay, fine. So she wasmostlyundeterred. But he wasn’t so hot that she’d let him pick on her.
“Are you making fun of me?” she repeated, taking the box of orecchiette from him and tossing it into her basket without looking. No way was she buying his whome? act. The minute he’d rounded the aisle and seen her standing there, he’d started whistling “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman”, for God’s sake. Even with her back turned, she’d known that the crooked tune could only be coming from one set of lips.
Why was he so determined to make fun of her? And moreover, why did she care?
“I’m sorry. I thought…” Jackson paused to clear his throat, and Carly was surprised to notice that his cheeks had reddened. “I didn’t, uh, recognize you. I wasn’t trying to make fun of you for not being able to reach the shelf, though.”
