“And I have a sixth sense that tells me when a bowl needs to be licked,” Katie said. She made a grab for the nearly empty whipped cream bowl. Now four months along with her first child, Katie had bypassed morning sickness in favor of sugar. And she’d appointed herself his designated ‘helper’ which amounted to licking the bowls then handing them back to him to wash.
Josh swatted her hand away. “I’m not done with that. Why don’t you go feed your goats first?”
“Liam volunteered to take care of the animals this morning.”
“When you kick a man out of bed at dawn to feed your barn full of rescued animals, it’s called coercion,” Josh pointed out.
“He offered because Liam is a smart man and he knows I’ll be grateful,” she shot back. “Now, please, please let me lick the bowl.”
Josh rescued the last of the whipped cream, spread it on a not-quite-perfect pie, and handed over the bowl. His sister took her treasure to the kitchen table Brody, the oldest brother and their ringleader since the Summers siblings had lost their father to a sudden heart attack, had built.
“Feeding her cravings again?” Brody’s deep voice announced his presence in the kitchen.
Well, speak of the devil.
Though Brody has always been the ‘Most Likely To Follow the Straight and Narrow’ of the siblings.
“This one is not for me,” Katie said. “I just get to share in the licking duties.”
“Caroline?” Brody asked with a sigh.
Pretending to be preoccupied with his pie, Josh nodded. He’d listened to dozens of long-winded speeches and participated in countless debates hosted by his nosy siblings about his dead-end relationship with the Big Buck’s dishwasher.
She lives over an hour away from Independence Falls.
Josh had shot down Brody’s protest by reminding his big brother that he’d fallen for a woman who’d lived on the other side of the country. Of course, Kat—Josh’s former doctor and the woman partly responsible for helping Josh reclaim his short-term memory in the wake of the logging accident—now lived upstairs.
It’s been a year and you still haven’t shared so much as a pizza.
There was a thread of truth to Chad’s argument. But Josh had countered with she prefers my pies. And he’d left out the fact that they always shared them in the back room of Big Buck’s Bar, hidden away from the curious, small-town gossips that peopled Independence Falls and the neighboring university town where Caroline currently lived and worked—Forever, Oregon.
Josh didn’t want to talk about the fact that Caroline was technically in hiding. His siblings—apart from Chad who’d been sworn to secrecy—didn’t know her full story and Josh planned to keep it that way. And even Chad had never learned the reasons why Caroline had run from her duty to serve her country. If his siblings found out that she’d been attacked by her commanding officer and still feared him, if they learned that there was a warrant out for her arrest . . .
Yeah, his brothers would probably sit on him—with Katie standing nearby and cheering them on—until Josh agreed to try dating a woman who could to split a damn pizza in public without fear of getting arrested if the local police stopped by to say hello.
“Any luck with your favorite Big Buck’s employee?” Chad asked.
“Mind your own business.” Josh took a step back and examined his creation. It screamed homemade and key lime was sure as hell an odd choice for fall in Oregon, but Josh had wanted to try something new.
“But you, baby brother, are my business,” Chad said, adding a heavy dose of melodrama to his voice. “And I’m worried about you. When was the last time you got laid?”
Fourteen months ago. . .
“Also none of your business,” Josh said as he opened the fridge and set the pie inside.
“I’m just saying maybe you should rethink your strategy,” Chad said. “But if you’re happy sharing desserts—”
“She’s not ready,” Josh snapped. “She’s been through a lot . . . not that it’s any of your damn business.”
Katie set the spatula in the bowl and pushed it away. “It’s not,” she said. “But Josh, maybe you should take a step back and consider the fact that whatever happened to her won’t fade into the background.”
Yeah, he’d thought about that. And he’d questioned his sanity pursuing a woman who might never be ready to move on with her life.
“A while back,” Brody said, “you said you wanted to settle down. But you’ve honed in on this one woman . . .” He shook his head and turned to the coffeepot.
“You haven’t even brought her over for dinner,” Katie said. “I’ve only met her at the bar.”
“I think that was a good decision on my part,” Josh said. “You’d interrogate her and probably scare her off.”