All There Is (Juniper Hills Book 1)

by Violet Duke

  It was all a thing of beauty, really.

  “Wine is good for you,” he argued innocently. That was a health fact, wasn’t it? “Sort of like . . . decaf coffee.” His grin broadened when her eyes narrowed to slits. “I can bring a nice robust red and a crisp white to pair with the food.” Now he was just pulling crap he’d heard on TV. Wasn’t there also a pink wine? He bet she’d really get annoyed with a pink wine. And exactly how sparkly were those sparkly wines?

  Emma didn’t last long at all. “Oh, will you just bring beer,” she growled. “Craft or microbrews are what most folks here drink. Bottled. Local ales or dark lagers if you can.”

  He wasn’t sure what he was finding a bigger turn-on, all the dirty talk with the beer or the fact that she was using that bossy, riled-up tone of hers. Probably both.

  Truth be told, Jake had always thought of himself as a fairly uncomplicated guy. But evidently he had very complicated tastes and triggers. Case in point, against all that was sensible and sound, it appeared he was becoming a bit of an addict when it came to getting a rise out of Emma, and making those sexy freckles of hers firecracker hot. He just couldn’t seem to help himself. It was like being near those bright-red buttons you weren’t supposed to push lest the world combust or something. That “or something” was undoubtedly going to make the next few months the most ill-advised and straight-up volatile ones of his life.

  A part of him felt as if this was something he’d been seeking for a long time.

  Chapter Ten

  Megan’s barbecue was a huge hit.

  And Emma was over the moon. She hadn’t been exaggerating last night when she’d said to Jake that this cookout was a big deal for her sister. A chance for Megan to finally start venturing a bit further out of her shell like she’d been wanting to for so long. Granted, Emma still couldn’t quite wrap her brain around Jake being the nudge Megan had needed for this monumental step in her life, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  Emma peered at the grinning smile of the garden gnome currently keeping her excellent cookout company in Megan’s backyard. “I’m so proud of her, Gnomeo,” she gushed. “I mean look at her. A born hostess! And did you see her face earlier when she got Jake to agree to the library job? Gah.” She clutched at her heart. “My baby sis may not have mastered her full lioness roar yet, but she’s getting there.”

  She clinked bottlenecks with Gnomeo, who had her first empty. Though she was a girl who loved her beer, she was still a lightweight who usually drank only one a night. Which was why those brew sampler variety packs were so perfect for her. And why on nights like this when she doubled down on her limit, she ended up being a cheap date . . . for a garden gnome.

  “Gnomeo,” she whisper-confessed. “I think I’m a bit tipsy.” Tipsy enough that her having a heart-to-heart with a ceramic figurine she’d liberated from Megan’s tulip bed wasn’t all that weird. But not nearly tipsy enough that she wasn’t questioning how an inanimate object was chuckling back in response. There it was again.

  Wide-eyed, she decided to do a much-needed test to see if the gnome had indeed come alive. Slowly, warily, she leaned forward to do some very scientific finger poking.

  “I brought you a bottle of water.”

  “Holy crap!” Emma jumped three feet in the air and whirled around. “Dagnabbit, I thought you were the gnome.”

  “Wow, you sure know how to low-kick a man in his misters.”

  God that voice.

  Hearing Jake’s deep growl tinged with amusement suddenly made her feel shockingly sober. The power of insta-lust to burn off the effects of alcohol. Huh, I wonder if we could bottle his voice and create an app? We could make a fortune!

  It was possible she wasn’t quite as sober as she’d thought.

  Jake casually slid the beer bottle she’d been nursing out of her reach and took a seat next to her so she’d have to snake her arm all the way around him if she wanted to retrieve it.

  Dooo it! Go get it! Ooh, then put it in his lap so you can go get it again!

  Her inebriated inner vixen was a total hussy.

  “Jake, I think I’m a little drunk.”

  He took a sip of his water and just grinned back at her.

  “I’m finishing my second bottle of beer already.”

  His lips twitched again. “Never took you for such a big drinker.”

  Even though it was dark, Emma could see his eyes dancing with amusement. Note to self: Build a sarcasm detector into the Insta-Lust Sobriety App.

  “I don’t usually drink so fast,” she confessed, her eyes dropping to that ruggedly sexy cleft chin of his, partially buried in that scruffy lumberjack beard she was dying to pet. “I think I tanked that first bottle because you’d just arrived. You make me nervous.”

  Oh, great. Seemed her inebriated inner vixen was a very honest hussy.

  Jake took another drink of water. “If I wasn’t getting behind the wheel tonight, trust me, I’d be in the same boat. But since I’ve got that three-hour drive ahead of me, I had to settle for a heaping bowl of bourbon chili to take the edge off before I came over here.”

  She blinked in surprise. “So I make you nervous, too?”

  “You scare the crap out of me, sweets,” he corrected.

  Her shoulders fell. “Oh. Have I been awful?” Having Jake walk back into her life had been hard, yes, but that was no excuse for any unkind behavior on her part. She’d tried really hard to treat him like she did all the other guys in town.

  “Of course not. You’ve been great.” His gruff voice softened, and the corner of his mouth drew up on one side. “Considering how much I provoke you, you’ve been a saint.”

  She gaped at him, too vindicated to scowl. “So you have been doing it on purpose! I knew it! Megan thought I might just have an abnormally short fuse around you.”

  Jake had the grace to at least look sheepish. “What can I say? You make it really fun to chop away at that fuse of yours.”

  Arms crossed, she tried not to get charmed by those twinkling green eyes that promised even more fuse chopping to come. “You’re kind of insufferable—you know that, right?”

  He winked. “Only around you.”

  She opted not to reply, choosing instead to focus on getting those slap-happy butterflies in her stomach to stop reacting to that wink.

  The guy was still the ballsy smart-ass who’d always been able to make her both laugh and swoon harder than anyone else could. Earlier, when he’d arrived with three fabulous cases of seasonal microbrew samplers she’d never tried before, she’d had to bite her cheek to keep from chuckling when she spied the bottle of glittery pink sparkling wine he’d brought, as well. The punk. But he’d caught her 100 percent unaware when he’d also furnished a variety pack of specialty root beers for Megan’s nonalcoholic drinking pleasure.

  It was stuff like that that made him the swoon whisperer.

  Heck, he was whispering something right now to her inner hussy, just by running his eyes over her face as if drinking her all in. Slowly. Appreciatively.

  “You should eat something, sweetheart,” he said huskily. “Soak up some of that beer.”

  Keeping tabs on whether she was getting enough to eat at the party? That swoon whisperer handbook was good. A fact he further proved by promptly standing as soon as she did, forcing her to bat down a few more F0 gale tornado butterflies in her tummy.

  Charming gentleman manners. Evidently one of her knee weakeners. Good to know.

  Soon as they made their way to the backyard deck, Jake immediately became the center of attention again, as he had been for the past hour—after he’d formally accepted the library job. A decision he credited equally to Megan’s persuasive skills and red potato salad.

  Both compliments had earned smiles from Megan so radiant, Emma had gotten a contact high. The man was a prince.

  “So, Jake,” called out Megan, “how are you liking our little town? Folks been treating you well so far?”

  Despite his
continued inability to look Megan fully in the eye, he said, “Everyone’s been great, and the town is awesome. Shoot, I’d move here in a heartbeat.”

  Emma did a double take at the more-intoxicating-than-beer notion of Jake being close enough for her to see every day.

  Jake arched a brow over her reaction. “Why so surprised? I love it here. You’ve got history and character in spades, both of which I’d take over a cookie-cutter new development with shiny bells and whistles.” His eyes dared her to disagree with him.

  Seriously? Of all the men to cross her path, the universe chose Jake Rowan to share her exact thoughts about this town. “I agree completely,” she admitted.

  “I’ll drink to that.” Dennis, Megan’s boss, raised his beer bottle in salute.

  Everyone followed suit, which earned another effervescent grin from Megan, who was gleefully joining in the toast with a fluted glass of her special root beer.

  “I do have one kind of strange question, though.” Jake turned his puzzled expression to Emma. “What’s with all the balls of yarn everywhere? I swear every single shop and eating joint in this place has baskets of yarn tucked into every nook and cranny.”

  At that Emma finally felt her nerves dissipate. Thinking about her town was always excellent in that regard. She grinned. “I’m surprised no one’s told you that Juniper Hills is pretty much the go-to hub for specialized hand-spun yarn you can’t find anywhere else in the United States. If you’re looking for it, chances are we have it. If you can’t find a particular color or texture in one of our shops, all we have to do is call around the neighborhood and someone will check their spinning piles at home and walk it on over if they’re done working on it.”

  “Over half the folks here do some yarn spinning or dyeing,” added Dennis’s wife, Sandra. “We have full-time, part-time, and seasonal yarners, and ‘yarn artists’ who make one-of-a-kind yarn I’m still shocked sells for as much as it does. We’ve even got some teens here who’ve been selling their own yarn online since they were kids, and now have enough saved for college.”

  Jake stared at her in disbelief.

  Emma smiled proudly. “Those kids are incredible. Some have gotten really innovative in how they process the fibers and combine textiles. We’re talking yarn unlike anything you’ve ever seen—next-level-type stuff, made with all the traditional handmade detail and care they learned growing up. Using old equipment and tools in new ways, I guess you could say.”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled. “See what I mean? A town with kids that apply old-school love to new-school specialty yarn. Along with the out-of-this-world pudding I keep hearing so much about, that’s a sales pitch and a half to raise a family and grow old here.”

  A soft gasp escaped Emma before she could call it back. She wasn’t sure if it was his casual reference to her pudding or the ovary-wrecking comment he’d made about raising a family here that was affecting her breathing. Both, probably.

  Or it could be because of the way he’d just looked at her.

  It wasn’t his usual quietly intense stare that always made her knees wobbly whenever she’d catch him doing it. No, this one was more reflective. All encompassing. And . . . free. As if he were letting his eyes wander over the contours of a forest to look his fill of the whole picture, yet still managing to observe the individual nuances of every leaf at the same time.

  To be fair, she’d started it. By staring at him first. She hadn’t been able to stop herself when, prompted by his own reference to the topic, he’d gotten up to go ladle himself a helping of her seven-layer pudding trifle. While everyone else chatted more about an insanely soft yarn the oldest Constantini kids had made that was the unexpected love child of an impulsive angora and hemp experiment, Jake settled back down and took his first bite . . .

  “Oh my God.” A sound that was grittier than a gasp and more confounded than anything else tumbled past the spoon between his lips. “What is this?”

  Her stomach dropped.

  Until she heard it. A low, purring groan like he’d made when he’d tasted the Reuben.

  “This has got to be one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth.” He released a reverent male sigh and dug in for seconds, eyelids at half-mast.

  Her heart did a somersault.

  Megan peered over to see what he was eating. “That’s Emma’s nut medley trifle. Good, huh? She makes it with seven kinds of nut puddings with matching cookie crumbles.”

  Instead of answering he made more sexy, stormy noises that made her skin hum.

  No one else seemed to notice. Meanwhile she was squirming in her seat, feeling as if her reservation were being called over a booming restaurant-wide intercom: “Porn, party of one?”

  “Jake, I meant to ask. You from around here?” queried Dennis, effectively dousing all porny thoughts and replacing them with mildly rattled ones. “You sure sound like you are.”

  Emma shot her gaze over at Megan, who was now as stiff as a statue.

  “My family moved around a lot when I was younger,” Jake sidestepped smoothly. “So I’ve lived all over the Midwest. Right now I live a few hours away over in Kansas City.”

  Emma exhaled in relief. She wasn’t sure what exactly worried her so much about folks here discovering Jake’s link to their past. It felt partly like apprehension—over losing something she wasn’t ready to part with—but mostly like plain ol’ protectiveness . . . and not just over Megan.

  “But you’re a small-town boy at heart—am I right?” prodded Claudia, the soccer mom who worked the library checkout midmornings around her kids’ school pickup schedule.

  Jake’s beard rippled in an almost smile. “You got me. I liked small-town living the best. Definitely made for some great memories growing up.”

  “Any favorite ones?” The ever-inquisitive Blake, a college intern majoring in library science with a minor in anthropology, studied Jake the way he did all humans. “Whenever I get homesick for New Mexico, it’s always interesting which memories I reminisce about most.”

  Emma found herself holding her breath again. This time to make sure she didn’t miss Jake’s response. She wanted to believe he still had some good memories, to believe that juvie and the fire and Peyton’s death hadn’t extinguished them all for him.

  “I think,” he said quietly to his captive audience, “my favorite small-town memories are mostly about the girl next door.” He slid his hooded eyes over to her and snagged her gaze for a full beat. His eyes went from the calm sage green they normally were, to the dark mossy green they sometimes got when he was deep in thought. Instantly, she felt herself get sucked into his orbit like she used to when they were teens. “Looking over my family’s fence and seeing her out in her backyard, giving the sun a reason to shine, was always the best part of my day.”

  “Oh my lord, that’s about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” exclaimed dear old Betty, the weekend librarian who was the spitting image of the granny from the Tweety Bird cartoons.

  As soon as Jake turned his attention back to the group, albeit reluctantly, Emma felt the tether snap, releasing her to hotfoot it to the kitchen in search of the undetermined-as-of-yet excuse for her escape. Paper towels? Yes! The three rolls outside weren’t nearly enough.

  Megan materialized out of nowhere to join her in the pantry as she hunted for the elusive paper towels with the colorful fruit patterns. “You like him.”

  It wasn’t a question or a teasing taunt. It was an observation.

  Or an understatement, rather.

  This was bad. Okay, not bad per se. But dangerous for sure. So dangerous.

  Damn the universe for being twisted enough, mean enough to have her start thinking about Jake in this way again. She couldn’t possibly be having feelings for the man responsible for everything she and her family went through . . . could she?

  Chapter Eleven

  Jake knew he should stop looking at her, stop craving something he could never have.

  But it was impossible.
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br />   He hadn’t been entirely truthful earlier; he was definitely a little drunk . . . simply from being near Emma for the past few hours. All night he’d been drinking in her laughs, her genuine sweetness, her antagonized snark (for which he took full credit). The woman got to his head faster than whiskey, and warmed him from the inside out about the same way, too.

  Talk about lowering his inhibitions.

  At one point he’d even reached over to untangle a few strands of her ponytail that had gotten caught on the tree and brushed his knuckles across her jawline in the process. Though there hadn’t been enough light in the yard for him to see for sure, the sudden blast of heat coming off her cheeks had instantly flooded his brain with teenage memories of that sexy little blush of hers.

  He may as well have tossed back a shot of tequila.

  It’d been all he could do not to drop his lips down onto hers right then and there, or at least pull her closer to a lantern so he could see the tanned, barely there freckles scattered across her cheekbones make an appearance. They were faint, but he knew a lot of girls back in high school who would’ve taken extra measures with makeup to hide them completely. Ditto for most women he knew now. Not Emma. She never used to wear makeup back then, and she still didn’t from what he could tell.

  He dug that. A lot.

  Seeing her cheeks get a tiny bit more flushed with each sip of beer she took reminded him of the afternoon he’d once spent teaching her how to play poker. He’d lost all his peanut M&M’S to her that afternoon, partly because he’d been distracted beyond saving, but mostly because he hadn’t been able to bring himself to fold whenever those freckles—the sweetest tell ever—would reveal fairly blatantly that she was sitting on a winning hand.

  Her candidness had always been the damnedest thing. Now, though, those freckles weren’t so much cute as they were sexy. Fires of hell, everything about the woman was sexy. The way she walked, talked, laughed, and thought. Even the way she’d attempted earlier to cartwheel around Megan’s backyard—not quite successfully—just to see if she still could.