Kady gave him a look that should have warned him but didn’t. “I’ve seen a few in history books.”
Tarik took one of the apples she’d just peeled. “Maybe you should get Uncle Hannibal to show you how to work that stove.”
“Or maybe Luke would show me,” she said sweetly.
“Trying to make me jealous?”
“Trying to improve my sex life,” she said without thinking.
“Oh?” he said with interest as he took a step toward her. “I could—”
“You take one step closer and you’ll be missing some body parts.”
Smiling, he stepped away. “I’ll leave you to it then, and I shall look forward to dinner. But, remember, nothing outlandish. Just something simple, like, like . . .”
“How about spaghetti and apple pie? Or is spaghetti too foreign for your very conventional family?” she asked innocently. Hannibal and his two “children” were anything but conventional.
“No, no, that’s fine,” he said, smiling, seeming to enjoy that he was making her angry. “If you need me, I’ll be outside. I want to see that Harley Wendell was on. Good-looking machine, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid I’ve never been butch enough to learn much about motorcycles. Tell me, does she also chew tobacco and play football with the men?”
As he bit into his apple, he gave her a look that nearly singed her hair. “Wendell does whatever she wants whenever she wants with whomever she wants.”
“Yes, and I can see that it has made her into a very nice person.”
As Tarik left, chuckling, closing the door behind him, Kady threw a handful of apple peels at him.
After Tarik left, she was thinking about that dreadful red-haired—
“May I help?” Luke said meekly from the doorway. “And can you really cook?”
There was a sweetness about him that reminded her of Cole. She smiled and gestured for him to join her. “Come in and talk to me while I cook. Tell me everything about your family.”
Luke helped himself to a slice of apple. “About the Jordans or about my cousin Tarik in particular?”
“I have no interest in him whatever. None. He is free to do whatever he wants. He can—” She stopped because Luke was grinning at her.
“Right. And the way the two of you look at each other could set the barn on fire. So where do you want me to start? With his mother, his father, or his girlfriends?”
Kady kept her eyes down on the apples she was peeling and didn’t look up at him.
Luke lowered his voice. “Or would you rather that I tell you about his dreams?”
“What dreams?” she said sharply.
“Of a little girl on a pony. A little girl with lots of dark hair in a fat braid down her back. Actually, she had a braid very much like yours. Interested?”
“Maybe,” she said as though she didn’t want to hear every word.
“Oh, well, then, I guess I better go outside and help my sister tune her carburetor.”
“Sit!” Kady ordered, pointing with the knife.
“And what do I get if I rat on my own flesh and blood?”
“A meal better than any you’ve ever eaten in your life,” she said seriously.
With eyes wide, Luke stared at her. “Alexandria, Virginia! Onions! Kady with a d. That’s who you are.”