“I’m a little offended. A man doesn’t bring a borrowed cake for an apology.” He lifted the platter and gave it a waggle. “We’ve got lemon velvet with French buttercream here. You oughta get it out of the heat soon, though. The sun melted the frosting some on the way over. It’s a hike to get up over here, you know it?”
Oops, he was feeling around for an invitation. Duh, and she was still standing in her door like some kind of freak. “Um, come in.” The least she could do was feed him some cake and try to act like a normal person. She stepped aside and racked her brain for small talk that didn’t involve anything on four hooves. “You know, I can’t quite place your accent. You said you were from Louisiana, but I’ve met lots of people from there at rodeos, and they didn’t sound quite like you.”
“Well, you can tell I’m from the South because I interrupted your workout with dessert.” He tipped his head toward the yoga mat she’d left by the couch. She smiled, and his grin brightened a couple more watts. “Seriously, though, I think I’ve got a little bayou country from my days on my uncle’s horse ranch, cut with the rhythm of the Lower Ninth, maybe some southern drawl creeping in from the Mississippi border. And New Orleans has a sound all its own, always has.” Between one word and the next, his words straightened to all square corners instead of luscious curves. “Then again, if my mother is listening, I sound strictly like the Yankee university she helped pay for.”
“Your mom doesn’t like your accent?” Andra frowned. “Doesn’t she have one?”
“Mama thought I wouldn’t get a decent job unless I talked like a white banker from Wisconsin.” He shrugged.
Her eyes widened. “That’s not fair. Why should you have to fake an accent to get a job?”
“That’s the way the world works. People have ideas about what intelligence should sound like, and I don’t expect I’m going to change all of them on my own.” He winked. “I tutored English composition for work study all through college, so I can play the game. I have to admit, though, sometimes it’s nice to sound like home.”
Andra laughed, a little self-consciously. “I don’t think I even realized we had an accent up north until you imitated it.”
“Oh, it’s an accent all right, sweetheart. And you’ve got it thick as anything.”
Heat crept into her skin at the endearment, though she didn’t get the feeling he was really flirting with her. She glanced away, the afterimage of him seared on her lids. His deep-brown eyes were a couple of shades darker than his skin, and they always seemed to be laughing. He was handsome, with high cheekbones and sensual lips. The kind of man she would have looked twice at, once.
He was also the first non-Lawler man she’d had in her house since it was built.
Andra shook herself. Normal people did not make their guests spend the entire visit standing in the foyer. As she led him farther inside, their shapes were reflected in the French doors separating the living area from her bedroom, their distressed white paint framing glistening glass panes. She’d rescued the doors from her mom’s room before they tore down the old house, and Dad hung them on a barn door rail for her so they slid aside, taking up less space.
“The kitchen’s right here.” She gestured, then dropped her hand quickly. Her whole house was basically two rooms plus a bath, and he wasn’t blind. She didn’t need to map out the refrigerator and sink for his comprehension.
He gave a low whistle. “My sweet God. My mama would kill for this kitchen. Do you mind if I take a picture for her?”
“Uh, sure. If you want to. Here, I’ll take that.” She lifted the cake from his hands. For its size, it was surprisingly light, as if it were whipped from sugared air with a touch of cream. She set it on the table while LJ took out his phone and snapped a picture of her open barn-wood shelves stacked with white dishes, and the riverstone-pebbled wall behind the sink.
He grinned as he shook his head and tapped out a quick text to go with the pictures. “My little cake is just about embarrassed to be seen in a place this nice.”
He leaned back against her counter, crossing his feet at the ankles as he texted, and she bit the inside of her lip. Originally, she’d painted this room white so it would look bright and cheery, but it had always seemed blank instead. LJ’s smile belonged in her homey little kitchen in a way she never had.
Andra blinked and looked away. “I’ll get some silverware.” She rattled through one drawer, and the one below it, but neither held a cake knife or a pie server. Instead, she settled on a couple of forks and a butcher knife. By the time she was finished, LJ had already lifted plates off her shelves and set them on her round café table.
“This place looks pretty new.” He ripped two paper towels off the roll and tucked one under the edge of each plate for a napkin. “You lived here long?”
“A few years.” She sat down. Wait, was that too weird? She didn’t have anything else to keep her hands busy, but he was still bustling around her kitchen as if she were the visitor. “My family helped me build it after college.” She managed a smile. “After the dorms and a couple of years of apartments, I was ready for my own space instead of moving back into Dad’s house.”
LJ went back to the front door and took off his hat, hanging it on a hook next to her jacket before toeing off his boots.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. These floors have seen plenty of boots.”
He shrugged, padding back to the kitchen in his socks. He hooked a foot around a chair leg and pulled it out, relaxing into the seat. She didn’t often see him without his hat, and her gaze kept flicking back to him. His hair was buzzed so close it was barely more than a shadow of black, leaving nothing to detract from the distracting line of his jaw. And his lips.
“You built this?” His brows bounced up, and he glanced around the great room, scanning the lines a little more analytically this time. “I’m going to pretend like I’m not impressed right now.”
“Oh, we hired out some of the plumbing and all the electric. Curt helped a lot. He’s one of the grooms. You’ve probably met him. And an architect fixed up my basic plans.” She shrugged. “I still drove plenty of nails, though.” Not that it mattered. What did she care if he thought she was the kind of girl who sat back and waited for other people to build her house?
LJ picked up the knife to cut the cake, saying something she didn’t catch. The blade looked impossibly long and sharp in his huge hand. Her fingers clenched in her lap, and she deliberately looked at the clean white of the cabinets below the sink.
Relax. There’s a whole room here, not just a knife.
LJ glanced over, then reversed his grip, handing the knife handle-first across the table to her. “Must have left my manners at home today, helping myself to your cake in your house.” He smiled. “Lemon velvet’s my favorite, is all. If I get grabby, feel free to slap my hands.”
Andra took the knife. The metal reflected her image back at her, including her “May The HORSE Be With You” T-shirt. The one with the hay-colored stain at the shoulder. Yeah, she was so prepared for guests.
Suddenly, the thought of another hour of pretending they weren’t both thinking about it seemed overwhelming.
“It was a panic attack.” She laid down the knife and met his gaze without flinching. “I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”
He nodded. “Was it because I startled you, coming out of the shadows like that?”
Something about the fact that he wasn’t squirming in his seat made it easier to talk about. “I was assaulted in college, and ever since . . . I get those occasionally.”
His eyes unfocused for a bare instant, and he swallowed.
She turned the cake platter, trying to decide how many pieces to divide it into and also giving him a minute to process. Somebody would have mentioned it in front of him eventually, and now they could move past it. “I love what you’ve done with Taz, by the way. I saw her following
you all over the ranch yesterday. Has she gotten any better about being near lariats?”
LJ didn’t seem to hear her. He picked up his fork and turned it in his hands. Then he tapped the end twice on the table and set it down. When his eyes came back up, they were dark, almost angry. Andra drew back from the table, her breath snagging at his reaction before she realized it probably wasn’t her he was upset at.
LJ gave her a smile, but it was a crutch’s awkward hobble compared to the smooth spread of his usual one. “I . . . wish that hadn’t happened to you.”
The words were so halting that it took her a second to process what he’d said. When she did, it was like every rib in her chest eased a little more open. Nobody had ever said that. Their eyes had said it, their pitying, twisted expressions, but those words seemed off-limits for reasons she could never have explained. “Yeah.” She half laughed. “Me too.”
“Thank you for trusting me enough to be honest.” His eyes didn’t fidget away from hers, and she nodded, a feeling expanding in the air between them. Something big, too big for strangers. Whatever it was, it didn’t throw LJ off his stride. He got up from the table. “You want milk with your cake? It’s better with milk.”
“Sure,” she said without thinking. She hadn’t talked about this stuff for so long, because no matter who it was, saying anything about her attack killed the conversation and the mood. But LJ seemed to be able to take in the enormity of it all and still look her in the face. Then again, her brother had told her he was just as easy with the horses. Nothing shook LJ up, and he was always willing to make up a new technique on the spot if his old one wasn’t working. Few trainers were humble enough to be that flexible.
He flicked open the fridge. “Grocery day, huh?”
“What?”
He arched an eyebrow. “You have orange juice, half a pack of American cheese, and . . .” He peeked in the fridge again. “A pickle. One pickle.”
“There’s plenty of food in the freezer.” She glanced away. She hadn’t promised him dinner, so what business was it of his what she kept on hand?
He opened her freezer, then quickly snapped it back shut, turning wide eyes toward her. “Do you realize you have a microwavable Salisbury steak in there?”
“No.” Who knew what was in there? Some kind of steak seemed a likely option, though.
“Stacia made rack of lamb last night.” He crossed his arms. “With plum sauce. From scratch. Pretty sure that means you ain’t got any excuse to be choking down microwave dinners.”
Andra frowned. “Eating at the main house is like having lunch in a junior high cafeteria. I can barely hear myself think.”
He snickered.
“What?” She half smiled, even though she wasn’t sure what they were laughing at. It was just nice he was teasing her instead of getting all awkward and stiff, the way most people did when they found out about the attack.
“The cafeteria comparison is kind of fair considering there was a food fight last night. One that ended with a tater tot in your daddy’s hair and a scowl on his face that I think rated at least a six on the Richter scale.”
“Tater tots with a rack of lamb and plum sauce?” She wrinkled her nose. “Really?”
“I thought it was weird, too. That’s not a Montana thing?”
She laughed. “Maybe more like a Stacia thing. She always traded for everybody’s tater tots back when we were in school.”
“That explains it. Turns out tots aren’t half-bad in plum sauce, if you go for the crispy ones.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.”
Four
“Uh, you do?” Andra frowned. “You have to do what exactly?”
He opened the fridge and dropped to a knee in front of it, holding up his phone to click a picture before he swiveled and took a shot of the door, too.
Her eyes widened, then she jumped forward to swipe a moldy, half-used cube of butter out of the door rack. She threw it in the trash with enough force to make the can rattle.
“My mama’s not going to believe this is the fridge of a grown-ass woman.” He stood up, already texting away.
“You cannot text your mother pictures of my refrigerator!” Andra made a grab for the phone, and he shot it high over his head where she couldn’t reach, clicking once with his thumb.
“Too late, already done.” He stuffed the phone into his pocket, went back to the table, and cut a huge wedge of cake without bothering to divide up the rest.
“Isn’t there some kind of release form you have to sign to take pictures of someone’s private business?”
He licked frosting off the knife blade, eyes dancing. “Maybe business a little privater than half of a pack of American cheese.”
She gaped at him.
“I know, I know.” He rolled his eyes. “More private, not privater.”
She snatched the knife from him, taking it to the sink to cover her stunned blush. “How am I supposed to cut a piece for myself when you already licked the knife?” she muttered.
She couldn’t believe he’d made an actual joke. To her. And it had been a borderline dirty joke, at that. Everyone in this county had followed the trial of her assailant, and no one had so much as given her a sideways smirk since the day she moved home from college. People were too uncomfortable now to ever have fun with her. Gossip, however, was a whole different animal. She knew behind closed doors, they whispered and speculated, and more than one of them thought she was at fault for what had happened to her. But in public? No one had dared make an off-color comment to her in over five years. It was ridiculous: like they thought the attack had damaged her sense of humor or something.
“This is only an appetizer,” he said, as he cut the cake. “Trust me, we don’t have time for a full serving right now. Wait for it . . .” Even before he’d fully lifted his hand to point to his pocket, it chimed with a new text message. Followed by another and another, the first chime not even finishing before the next started. “Told you so.”
He grabbed a plate with his right hand and raised the cake platter with his left, jogging it just right to get the loose piece of cake to tumble out onto the plate, landing frosting-side down and cracking his perfectly fluffy sunshine-yellow cake layers apart.
She came back to cut her own piece, but he nudged her aside to snatch up a fork and stab it into the cake. “Grab your shoes. We’ve got to go.” He shoved the bite in his mouth and rolled his eyes in dramatic ecstasy. “Hot damn, I’m good.” He snatched another piece up on the fork. “One for the road?” He held it up, and the cake was in her mouth before she was certain how it’d happened.
And then smooth vanilla melted on her tongue and lemon struck the perfect sting to balance it, her mouth watering even as she chewed. “Oh my God.”
LJ laughed. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.” He flashed to the front door and stomped into his boots. Then he ruined the whole effort of taking them off by coming back across the kitchen and stealing another “bite” that was nearly half the slice.
“Hey, leave some for me!” Andra grabbed the fork out of his hand, laughing when he coughed on his enormous mouthful. She got herself a little more frosting this time, but as she was going back in for more, LJ stole her fork and tossed it in the sink with a ring of metal against porcelain. His phone chimed again.
“See?” he said, as if that were the closing statement to an argument they hadn’t actually been having. “Gotta go.” He grabbed her hand.
She threw a longing look back at the cake even as he towed her across the kitchen. “Where?”
LJ dropped his hat onto his head as she stuffed her feet into her boots. He opened the door and spun her out through it without ever releasing her.
He’s holding my hand.
Okay, but was he holding her hand or “holding” her hand? Before she could sort it out, LJ let her go, h
opping off the porch without touching a single step. “Wanna take the palomino express or stick to the boot train?” He motioned to the pasture next to the house, where her horse, Gracie, had paused in her grazing to watch them cross the yard.
“Depends. Where are we going, exactly?”
His pocket chimed again. “Yeah, no time to mess with horses.”
He turned his back on the paddock. LJ strode up the hill, and Andra had to break into a jog for a second to catch up with his long legs. The grass rattled beneath their feet, already starting to dry to brown under the relentless bake of the summer sun.
“What’s the deal with keeping that mare here instead of the main stables, anyway?” he asked. “You move her just for the commute? She’s pretty flashy to play glorified taxicab.” He allowed a glance over his shoulder, and he sped up again when his pocket chimed.
Gracie was her best friend, but that wasn’t the kind of thing an equine professional was supposed to say. Andra lifted her chin. “Her name is Allure’s Graceling Queen. She’s mine, but she’s also one of the ranch’s retired champions. So many of our other projects need riding time that if I didn’t ride her to work and back, I’d hardly ever get on her.”
“Pretty name.”
She let a little bit of a smile curve her mouth. “I named her after a book. It was about a girl with the gift of being able to win any fight.”
“She can’t be more than eight.” He turned off instead of taking the worn furrow in the grass that headed toward the barn. “Little young to be out to pasture, huh?”
“She won Hi-Point All-Around Champion at Congress last year.” Andra lifted her chin a touch. “Not too many mountains to climb after that.”
He stopped on the long covered porch of the staff housing building. Each apartment opened onto the porch, and he stood one door up from Stacia’s. Andra glanced over at that door and then behind her, uncertain what was down here that he wanted to show her.
Unbreak Me Page 3