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“So you’re supportive of this plan?” she said to him.
A boyish grin crept onto his face. “I’m starving.”
“Then I’ll see what I can do.” She got up and pulled on her panties along with one of Brant’s T-shirts, which came halfway to her knees, and opened the door.
“You’re going to do it?” Miles said when he saw her.
“I’m going to do it,” she confirmed and went down the hall to see what they had in the kitchen.
She found a package of English muffins on the counter, something she hadn’t expected them to have, which gave her an idea—as long as she could find the rest of the necessary ingredients.
Brant came into the kitchen a few minutes later, wearing only a pair of faded jeans and looking as sexy as she’d ever seen a man look. “Do we have everything you need?” he asked. “If not, I could run over to the Quick Mart at the gas station.”
The gas station would just have the basics, but the brothers had eggs, butter, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and cayenne pepper—everything she needed to make a good hollandaise sauce. “I’ve got it,” she said.
Brant scratched his chest. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing, really,” she said as she measured various ingredients into a saucepan.
He came up behind her while she was using a fork in lieu of a wire whisk to mix the sauce, slid his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck. “You look so damn good in my shirt. I can’t believe I didn’t try to keep you in bed a little longer.”
She leaned back into him. “You must like food as much as sex.”
“No way.”
“Well, you haven’t tasted my eggs benedict,” she said.
“I’ve tastedyou. And nothing could be sweeter.” She got goose bumps as he pulled her earlobe into his mouth. But then he stepped away; they heard someone coming.
“Smells great in here.” Ranson stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her at the stove. “Well, damn. I didn’t realize we had so much company. Apparently, everyone who went to the lake yesterday got lucky. I can’t believe I missed out.”
Talulah could tell he was kidding, and she knew the joke involved her staying over, but she didn’t fully understand his meaning until Kurt walked in half a second later with a sleep-tousled Kate. Obviously, she’d spent the night, too.
“Oh, now I get it,” Talulah said. “We’re just missing Jane.”
Miles, who joined them a second later, had obviously heard them talking because he scowled when he said, “Jane thinks she’s too old for me.”
Brant mussed his brother’s hair. “Poor Miles, trying to overreach,” he said, and they all laughed.
To Brant, it felt perfectly natural to have Talulah at the house. She fit in well with his brothers and seemed to enjoy their jokes. They showed her no mercy, but she teased them right back, and there was plenty of laughter. It was definitely a plus that she loved to cook, because it created a direct path to their hearts. By the end of breakfast, when they were thanking her and telling her how delicious the meal had been, Brant could tell they really liked her in spite of being conditioned to think the worst because of Charlie.
He made his brothers clean up the kitchen, since he and Talulah had done the cooking. Claiming heandTalulah had prepared the meal was a bit of an overstatement, and they were quick to point that out. But he’d told them he’d ask her to bake another carrot cake if they let him off the hook, and that silenced all complaints.
“I actually made you two carrot cakes last week,” Talulah informed him as they walked back to his room.
“You did?” he said. “Are they at your place? If so, let’s go get ’em.”
“Sorry. I gave one to Ellen and the other to Averil.”
“You gave them both away?” he complained. “Why didn’t you give one to me? I was miserable without you.”
“I was trying to avoid starting something.”
Their situation was a problem. And he didn’t know what they were going to do about it. But not being with her while she was in town wasn’t an option, not if she was willing to be with him. “Then I was even luckier than I realized that Jane got you to the lake yesterday,” he said as he went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. “Who knows how many other cakes I might’ve missed?”
She grinned at him when he came back into the room. “So you want me for my cooking?”
He tugged off the T-shirt she was wearing and drew her bare chest up against his. “Among other things.”
