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Sam barely registered her movements as he blinked down at the first plate in consternation. It was . . . food. Of that he was certain. It smelled good, looked good, but . . .
“Why the fuck is my breakfast frowning at me?” He could hear the outraged confusion in his own voice. It very accurately reflected what he was feeling. His perfectly fried sunny-side-up eggs were the eyes, crispy rashers of bacon formed frowny eyebrows above them, four grilled tomato wedges were angled into a downturned mouth, and the solitary button mushroom in the center of the plate could only be the nose. There were a few more buttery mushrooms tucked into a bowl beside the plate of toast. The stack of pancakes she popped down next to the toast seemed like overkill, but Sam wasn’t going to complain about the sheer volume of food. Not when it all looked and smelled so good.
But that face . . . He frowned up at Lia, who was blushing again. She slid her eyes away from his and sucked her luscious bottom lip into her mouth. It very nearly succeeded in drawing his attention from his angry-looking breakfast, but one glance down at his plate was enough to distract him from the urge to suck that lip into his own mouth.
“Sorry, I . . . it was an impulse. You kind of annoyed me just now.” He nearly laughed at that reluctant confession. If she found that annoying, his meals were going to look permanently pissed off with him. She didn’t strike him as a very impulsive person, so that information was neatly tucked away for further scrutiny later. Right now, despite the frowny face, he was looking forward to devouring his delicious-smelling breakfast.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” he said agreeably and tucked into his meal with gusto, destroying the censorious bastard on his plate in no time at all. He even managed to down a couple of pancakes after polishing off the eggs and bacon. No sense having them go to waste. And he needed to regain some weight.
Lia was at the sink, doing dishes, and Sam watched her while he ate. She was wearing a perfectly pretty knee-length dress. This one was pastel pink with thinner straps at the shoulders and a white flounce at the hem. Ice cream on a hot summer’s day—that’s what she reminded him of. She wore a frilly white pinafore apron to protect the dress, and the combination made her look like a 1960s housewife.
She turned and caught him staring, and the bright-red flush on her cheeks clashed with the delicate pink of her dress.
“Are you done?” she asked, nodding down at his plate, where nothing but a few streaks of yolk remained of the angry face.
“Yes, thank you. That was quite delicious, princess. You’re a good cook.”
“Any idiot can make a couple of fried eggs, pancakes, and some bacon.”
“True, but few can make them taste this good.” The compliment flustered her, that much was obvious. She patted at her already neat hair—she always seemed to be patting at things when she was out of sorts—and picked up the empty dishes from the table.
“I’ll clean these and we can get going. You may want to grab a jacket, it’s a bit chilly today.”
Sam cast a dubious look outside. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and there wasn’t a breeze stirring so much as a leaf on the massive cherry tree outside the kitchen window.
“If you say so,” he acquiesced gracefully. He wasn’t about to argue when he’d already gotten his way.
CHAPTER FIVE
“What is this place?” Sam asked ten minutes later. Lia had brought her tiny, ancient car to a stop outside a beautiful Cape Dutch–style building off the main road of the tiny town of Riversend. A discreet plaque on the wall just below the house number told him that this wasn’t a private residence, but he wasn’t close enough to read it.
There really wasn’t much going on in this town. Lia had pointed out the “hot spots”—pub, eatery, Methodist church, random shops, Catholic church, Spencer Carlisle’s huge sporting goods store, Anglican church, library, mosque, grocery store, her father’s veterinary practice—in very little time. It certainly unsettled a veteran sinner like Sam to be around so many places of worship.
Once they’d turned off Main Road into the “suburbs,” it had been nothing but cute house after cute house. Before they reached their mystery destination, she’d pointed out Daisy’s little dollhouse, telling him she, Lia, would be moving there soon.
“Twice a week, I come here to play the piano for an hour or so.”
“The piano?” he repeated dumbly, and she nodded, flipping the sun visor down and using the mirror to apply bubblegum-flavored lip gloss to her soft, pink mouth. The gloss gave her lips a juicy sheen, tempting Sam to sample that bubblegum taste with his own lips and tongue. She wore very little makeup, just a bit of eyeliner and that lightly rose-tinted gloss, accentuating her two best features.
