And then, Wanna build a life with you, Emmanuelle.

I clenched my teeth.

And I clenched my teeth because seeing Jacob holding his namesake in my mind’s eye, hearing his words ringing in my ears, I felt nothing.

Nothing but sheer terror.

Chapter Thirteen

Puzzles

Two weeks six days later…

I was pulling the utility knife through drywall when I heard my phone ring in the kitchen.

I dropped the knife, dashed from the makeshift workstation I’d set up in the dining room and snatched it up just in time, seeing the display said “Jacob calling.”

I put it to my ear. “Hey, honey.”

“Where are you?”

He didn’t sound happy.

I felt my brows draw together and answered, “At home, cutting drywall to patch over the electrical work.” I paused before I went on with a smile, “Having Buford around, I’m now determined to become a puppy momma. And that would be to an actual puppy, as in one who’s just been weaned. Not a dog who’s still a puppy to me, he just old enough to know he should no longer chew everything. So I need to do something with this exposed wiring.”

“You’re cutting drywall,” he stated, still sounding unhappy, and I still didn’t get it.

I was cutting drywall, not boiling bunnies.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else doing something else?”

I blinked, cast my mind out, remembered and couldn’t believe I forgot.

But I did. Totally. It didn’t even enter my head from waking up until now. All my thoughts were on drywall and puppies. I’d even woken up to Jacob kissing me before he took off to do whatever Jacob Things he’d been taking off to do recently in the early morning and then I went back to sleep.

He hadn’t said “see you later” but then he probably didn’t think he had to.

How could that be?

My eyes flew to the clock on the microwave, my heart sank and feeling the unhappy vibes beating at me over the phone, I whispered, “Oh no.”

“Yeah,” Jacob bit off.

“I got caught up. I’m so sorry. I need to shower,” I told him. “But I’ll be quick then I’ll be over.”

“That’d be good,” he replied, still angry.

“Are they there yet?”

“Just called. They’re ten, fifteen minutes out.”

Oh no!

“I’ll hurry,” I promised.

“Right,” he clipped. “Later.”

Then he was gone.

He never ended a call like that.

Totally angry.

But there was a reason he was angry. His parents arrived in Denver three hours ago. And I was supposed to be at Jacob’s half an hour ago in order to be there when they got there so we could start bonding without delay.

Now, with shower, meet-the-parents prep and travel time, I’d be way late. In other words, there was no time to waste since there was no time at all.

So I did what I promised.

I raced upstairs and hurried.

* * *

I opened Jacob’s back door thinking inanely, from the SUV I saw in his driveway, his parents didn’t mess around with rentals. The minute I got the door open, I saw Buford who, as always, came to greet me.

“Hey, puppy,” I murmured, bending and giving him a rubdown, which, out of necessity, had to be a quick rubdown since I had to get my behind into the house to meet Jacob’s parents.

I gave him an extra ear scratch to make up for it, straightened and saw Jacob moving down the hall.

This did not bode well. Jacob never met me in the back hall.

I smiled at him hesitantly. “Hey, honey. Sorry. I hurried as best I could. Did they have an okay trip?”

He stopped, did a top to toe with his eyes, didn’t answer my question and asked his own, “Where’s your bag?”

“My what?” I asked.

“Bag, Emme. Your overnight bag. Did you leave it in Cletus?”

“Persephone,” I corrected automatically, but didn’t get the usual grin that came fast and easy whenever we were talking about my Bronco.

Instead, his mouth got tight.

It was a scary look and indicated he was still angry.

I didn’t know what to do with this. I didn’t think Jacob had ever been angry with me. Not real angry, as in we weren’t fighting about gun control, which he didn’t really care what I thought about, he just liked fighting about it. But instead, he was actually upset with me.

It did not feel very good to have him upset with me, not at all. More so because he had reason.

And further, I didn’t understand why he was asking about my bag.

“I, well… didn’t bring a bag,” I admitted.

His mouth got tighter.

Then he muttered as he reached out and grabbed my hand, “Doesn’t matter. You got enough shit in the bathroom here to work with and you can sleep in one of my tees.”

I did have enough “shit” in his bathroom. That was, if he was referring to shampoo and moisturizer and stuff. I’d doubled up on a few things so I didn’t have to lug so much around all the time.

But sleep in one of his tees?

I wasn’t spending the night with his parents there. I may have forgotten about meeting them but I didn’t forget about us making plans for me to spend the night. I would have remembered that, as in discussed it and declined the option.

It was okay for Jacob to spend the night at my house when Mom and Dad were around. They knew him.

His parents didn’t know me.

They might think I was a floozy. The last impression a girl wanted to give the parents of the man she loved on first meeting them was that she was a floozy.

I wanted to tug my hand to stop his advance in order to explain this to him as he was now dragging me down the hall, but I didn’t figure that would better his mood. So I let him drag me down the hall.

We moved through the opening to the great room and I saw Jacob’s dad sitting at a stool at the bar and his mom standing behind it. Both of them were sipping coffee.

Even though I met them only once and spent maybe ten minutes with them, I remembered them vividly. This was because Jacob meant a lot to me so meeting his parents would too.

This was also because they were a surprise.

He got his coloring from his mother. Same hair, same eyes, same olive skin tone.

She was, however, relatively petite. She couldn’t be over five foot five. And she was rounded. It was in a pleasant way that she obviously liked because she didn’t try to hide it. She also didn’t hold herself like she wasn’t comfortable with it.