He heard his brother sigh. “I’m worried about you,” he said quietly.
“I understand that. I was worried about you, too, until Eden came along. She’s good for you.”
Even before his brother spoke, he could practically hear his smile through the phone.
“I don’t know how I got so lucky.”
Law poured the rest of the drink down the sink. “I don’t know either, but I also think she got lucky, too.”
“Quit being a sap. See why I worry?”
Law laughed. He couldn’t help being a sap when it came to Eden and Asher—his brother had knocked it out of the park the day he’d rescued that woman.
“Law,” Asher growled.
Law grabbed a beer—that he knew, wasn’t expired—out of the fridge, then he picked up his phone. “Seriously, you need to back off now. I’m doing better. Making the decision to go to that group session was a big deal. It meant I knew that I was not in the best headspace. Okay?”
“So, you went to some kind of group, and not a psychologist?”
Law set down the beer next to the couch and sat down. He took the phone off speaker so he could enunciate clearly. “Asher, I said back off. I am dealing with this. I just fucking told you that I acknowledged that this has me twisted up. I told you that I’m trying to get my head right. The last thing I need is you crawling up my ass. Are we clear?”
Ash didn’t say anything, but two could play that game. Law put down his phone and took off the cap and took a swig. Finally, he heard Ash talk.
“I hear you.”
“Can I have that in writing? Maybe notarized?”
“You’re an asshole, you know that Lawson?”
“I’m hanging up now, big brother.”
Jill looked at her phone for the eighty-third time, willing it to ring. How pathetic. Even more pathetic was the batch of chocolate chip cookies she’d made. You only made cookies if you were really into a guy. The last time she’d made them was when she had dated Carl, who ended up being a total loser. A total loser.
The timer dinged and she looked in the oven. Golden brown, as they should be. She pulled them out and placed them on the stovetop.
“You have two choices. You eat five thousand calories’ worth of cookies or call the hottest, nicest guy you’ve met in forever and see if he can be wooed by cookies.”
Jill threw off the oven mitts and picked up a cookie that was far too hot and took a bite.
“Hot. Hot. Hot.” She waved her hand in front of her mouth to cool it down but continued to chew on the molten chocolatey goodness. She looked at her phone resting on the kitchen island. Still no message or missed call. She was going to have to pull up her big-girl panties and call him.
She finished the rest of the cookie and considered her game plan. It was Sunday. What time was football? Did he watch football? Would she be interrupting something? Maybe he was working.
“Darn it, quit with the doubts. You’re just making a phone call!” She pushed back the loose hair from her forehead and felt something sticky. Oh, for goodness sake. She looked at her fingers. Yep, chocolate was in her hair.
“Good going, Keiler.”
After a half-hour, she was freshly showered and her hair was clean and shiny, no chocolate in sight. And, she didn’t look half-bad in her skinny jeans and flowered tank top. A little bit of mascara and lip gloss and she was ready. She went to the kitchen and piled the cookies onto a plate, stacked the extras in a Tupperware container, and made a grab for her phone. She saw the screen, then promptly dropped it in the sink. It barely missed the mixing bowl filled with water to soak.
Thank God!
She grinned. Lawson had called. She pressed play on her voicemail.
Jill, this is Law Thorne, I wanted to see if you would be available to go out to dinner anytime this coming week, either weekday or weekend, my schedule is pretty free. I know this goes against the macho code, letting it all hang out this way, but I really would like to see you again.
Jill gripped the phone tightly so she didn’t drop it again. She would, too, she was so darned excited. It hadn’t been her imagination; his voice was sexy.
“I’m going to be giving chocolate chip cookies to Law!” She pumped her fist in the air.
She pressed redial and felt her fingertips tingle when she heard the smile in his deep voice as he answered. She pictured a dimple.
“Jill. This is promising.”
“I was surprised when you mentioned the macho code. I thought you were a Marine,” she teased.
“A Marine wouldn’t let it all hang out like that. He would’ve arranged for a date back at the diner. I made a rookie mistake.”
She felt a huge grin spread across her face. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I just baked two-dozen chocolate chip cookies with you in mind, so I think it’s safe to say we’re on the same wavelength.”
He paused.
“My front porch is covered, and it has a couple of chairs out front, if you would like to come on over,” he offered. “And if the milk is expired, I’ll go pick some up fresh before you show up.”
“Expired?”
“Apparently, I haven’t been going to the store as often as I should.”
“You’re near Pendleton, right? Give me your address and I’ll be over in about forty-five minutes.”
He gave it to her and hung up.
Not until she was packing up the cookies did she realize he was arranging it so she would feel comfortable by sitting outside. He had a point; normally, she’d go on two or three dates before she’d invite a man over to her house or go to his, or she would meet his friends first. Maybe it was because she met Law at the grief counseling group, but she felt like she could trust him, and this just further proved it.
Her phone rang again. This time, she saw it was Lesley. That was really odd. The woman had only called to check in with her when she’d first started the group session.
She would listen to the message later. She had cookies to deliver!
Chapter 4
Luckily, when Law checked out his fridge, he had milk that wasn’t expired, so he had time to clean up. He was hoping he could talk her into a dinner out. There was a good seafood place not too far from his house.
When he got out of the shower and stood in front of the mirror to shave, his reflection confronted him with something he hadn’t seen in a long while. A real grin.
“Where have you been?” he asked his reflection.
Good question.
Law damn near dropped his razor as his head whipped around at the sound of Xavier’s voice.
“What the hell?!”
Great. Now he was having auditory hallucinations.
“I am not my mother.” His voice was emphatic. She was the one who swore that Xavier had talked to her. That was so not his gig.
However...
Law sighed as he smeared shaving cream on his face. His big brother Xave would be giving him a great deal of shit for having his head so far up his ass for the last thirteen months.
“Not my fault,” he muttered as he started swiping through the foam. “The blame totally lies on you, Xavier Winston Thorne.”
He tilted his head, then realized he was waiting for some sort of rebuttal and rolled his eyes.
“Lawson, you have problems.”
He concentrated on shaving. Not an easy task, because had to work around that damn smile. The thought of seeing Jill, and Xavier giving him shit from the grave, all of it made him happy. Only fifty percent of it meant he was crazy.
By the time he had a pair of chinos and a T-shirt on, he heard her car pulling up next to his truck in the driveway. Chocolate chip cookies were nice, but a chance to see the pretty brunette was definitely the high point of the afternoon. He had the door open and stood at the top of his porch by the time she got out of her car. She was balancing a plate and she blew him away. Yeah, she filled out the tank top really well, but it was the way her eyes lit up that really tickled him.
“Let me help you with that,” he said as he jogged down his steps.
“That’d be great.” Jill handed over the plate, then reached in for a plastic grocery bag.
“What’s in there?”
“I actually baked more than the two-dozen cookies that I admitted to. Here are the other three.” She handed him the bag with a Tupperware container in it. “I figured you could have these for later.”
“Sweet.”
She glanced over his shoulder. “You have a nice set-up.”
“My mother insisted on going furniture shopping the last time she was in the States.”
“You said she lived in Belgium, right? That seems odd when her sons were all in the U.S. military.”
Law took the opportunity to place his hand on her lower back and guide her up the stairs. “It’s a long and complicated story.”
“Just the kind I like.” She sat down on the loveseat instead of a chair, he noted with satisfaction.
“Did you really want milk?” Law asked as he opened the screen door.
“Absolutely.”
He went inside and poured two glasses. He brought them out along with some paper towels.
“So, what do you want to know?” He asked as he settled in beside her.
“Give me complicated. I told you mine at the diner.”
Law bit into a cookie. Then finished the other half. He sipped some milk and watched as Jill sat back against the arm of the couch.
“My mother grew up in Brussels. My dad went over to Belgium to work at NATO. When he met her, he said it was game over.”
“What did your dad do?”
“He was in Army Intelligence and liaised with members of NATO security. It was supposed to be a temporary job, but he managed to extend it into two years until he got Maman to agree to marry him and move to the States.”
“Maman, I like that. You speak French?”
Law nodded.
“More than French?”
“It comes with the territory.”
She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “You know, you seem to have an aversion to answering questions. I thought we got past that the other night.”
She was right.
“Farsi, Arabic, French, and German. Oh yeah, Spanish of course. I live here in SoCal. What about you?”
“I lived in Houston working as an EMT—how could I not learn Spanish? It’s not great, but it’s pretty good,” she grinned.
“You have a beautiful smile and you bake great cookies. I’d love to take you to dinner tonight.” Law said in Spanish.
“Thank you for the compliments, and I would love to go to dinner,” she responded in kind.
Law laughed and nodded his head in appreciation. “I’d say your language skills are up to snuff,” he switched back to English. “Did you work in the suburbs or the city while you were in Houston?” Law watched her swing her crossed leg and his eye was drawn to her toe ring…again. Was there anything about this woman that didn’t turn him on?
Her leg stopped swinging and she stared at him. “I worked downtown, but remember, you were going to tell me the complicated story?”
“You’re right. Talking about myself goes against the grain.” He gave her a rueful grin. “I’d promise to do better, but I’m probably going to need to be reminded.”
“I might be up for it. Depends on how good the restaurant is.”
She sure as hell isn’t a pushover.
Oh yeah, I hate it when I run roughshod over women.
“Okay, so Dad talked Maman into coming to the States. She was from a tightknit family and it hurt for her to leave them, but boy, were they something together. You could just feel how much they cared about each other. After the first year here Xave was born, two years after that came Ash, then two years after that came me.”
“So, all of you boys followed in your father’s footsteps by joining the military. He must have been proud.”
“He didn’t live to see it. He was on a helicopter that went down. He and five others were killed instantly. That happened when I was ten, so he never saw any of us join the service.”
An image of his father appeared before him. God, he missed him. That was two men he missed with all his heart.
Lawson felt the soft touch of Jill’s hand resting on his leg. “That must have been so hard for you and the rest of your family.”
“It was. We tried to be there for our mother, especially Xavier, since he was the oldest. But she refused to let any of us try to switch roles. She remained the parent, and we were her boys. Looking back on it, I realize that she went to bed a lot earlier than she had when dad was alive, but that was the only change in her routine. I think that was her alone-time to mourn.”
“She sounds incredible.”
“Maybe,” he said slowly.
Jill lifted an eyebrow in question.
“I think if our family had learned how to process bad emotions after dad died, maybe Xavier would have felt comfortable sharing how much pain he was in and wouldn’t have killed himself.”
Her hand tightened on the clenched muscle of his thigh.
“That’s not the kind of thing they teach in school. Yeah, reading, writing and ‘rithmatic, they’ll teach us that,” she said with gentle humor. “But saving for our retirement, or how to figure out how to deal with what we’re feeling? Nope. Then, if our parents don’t show us the way, we’re shoved out of the nest like blind baby birds.”
“I’ve never really looked at it that way. Those of us who join the military right out of high school sure as hell don’t learn much of that stuff. Sometimes your emotional growth is even stunted. At least Ash and I went to college before we enlisted, but Xave went straight in at eighteen. Ash was the one who took the girly psych stuff. I played ball.”
Jill smirked. “Of course you did.”
“Hey. Should I be complimented or offended?”
“Yes,” she answered with a straight face.
He got up from the love seat and held out his hand. “If I have to put up with your smart mouth, I’m going to need more sustenance, woman. Time for dinner.”
Law had been on a lot of dates, but by far, this was the best. He’d never felt this comfortable just sitting and talking with a woman. It was almost like he was out with one of his friends, not out on a date. Except his body knew for damn sure that she was a woman.
“Come on, you’re kidding me, right?”
“No, for real. They got a camel in the barracks and he spit in the captain’s eye.”
“You are so full of BS.”
“Seriously, it was my friend Clancy who arranged it.”
She picked up her glass of wine and took a dainty sip. Jill arched her eyebrow and grinned at him. “I bet you a hundred dollars if I asked Clancy, on his honor, if this was true, he would say ‘no.’”
Lawson roared with laughter. “How’d you know I was feeding you bullshit? Most people fall for that story.”
“Oh, Law, I believed you, all right. It’s just I worked with so many EMTs, firemen, and policemen who loved to play this game, that I just continued to call BS., and nine times out of ten they fessed up they were pulling my leg.”
“You believed me?” He took another roll and slathered it with butter. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“Oh yeah, I believed you. In my house growing up, we were all very serious. Teasing hardly ever happened. Lorraine’s family was much more laid back and joked a lot. It was sad when she first came to live with us. It took a year for her to regain her upbeat nature.” Lawson saw Jill eyeing the empty basket and kicked himself for taking the last roll. He’d have shared his, but he’d wolfed it down.
Just then the entrees were served.
“Is there anything else I can get for you?” the waiter asked.
“Another basket of bread would be good,” Law answered. He loved seeing Jill’s eyes light up.
“This looks wonderful, how did you find this place?” she asked as she cut into her halibut.
<
br /> “Clancy told me about it.”
“He comes up a lot. I take it he’s a good friend?”
“He’s one of the best. Almost like a brother.” He took a big bite out of his steak, the better way not to talk about brothers.
Jill gave him a wry look. Apparently she realized why his mouth was suddenly full. He watched her take a bite of her fish, and swallow. And savor. And damn near moan her pleasure.
Law grabbed for his water so he could choke down his filet. She was killing him.
“Lawson?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you sure you’re not in Navy Intelligence, instead of being a Marine Raider?”
“Huh?”
“You sure do know how to evade a question.” She took a sip of wine.
“You sure do know how to pause for an answer,” he grinned. “I like it.”
“You’re reminding me of my brother’s fiancée. She doesn’t pull any punches either. Doesn’t let him get away with a damn thing.” Lawson pictured Eden and smiled.
“It sounds like you admire her.”
“I do.”
“Then I’m happy,” Jill held up her wine glass in salute.
“So Clancy, he and I were in boot camp together. He didn’t come in as a college grad, but he had gone to a trade school to become an electrician, but they found out he made a better manager on construction sites. According to him, the only thing he learned was how to herd cats and keep people from being killed. So voilà, he was perfect to join special forces.”
“And your degree?”
“Sports and health sciences. I really thought I wanted to coach at a collegiate or professional level.”
“What changed?”
“Listening to Asher and Xavier. Really understanding the value of service. I wanted to serve my country, to coach and lead men in the field, and know that I was making this world safer and better.”
He watched as Jill set down her glass of wine and sat back in her chair. He felt a tad bit uncomfortable at the way she focused on him.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that put any better. I’ve worked with a few former military men and women back in Houston. They all served for different reasons. A lot of them signed up just after nine-eleven. Some later. But I like your reason the best.”
Lawson & Jill: Romantic Suspense (Night Storm Legacy Book 1) Page 3