I also used to call for whatever reason—your place or mine, what’s for dinner, this annoying thing just happened and I have to get it off my chest—and he always picked up right away. But now, even when I had something to say, I told myself he was too busy to get a call from me.

Even though it seemed he worked a lot, lately even more, he’d never been too busy to get a call from me. Hell, he’d even told me straight out he was never too busy to take a call from me.

“What’s happening with me?” I whispered to the pillowcase.

No answers swept through my brain. Not liking it, it feeling weird, not having enough experience to know, just knowing I couldn’t let it go on, I got out of bed, leaving a slightly snoring Buford behind and wandering into the dark hall.

I found Jacob in his office, his back to me, facing the computer.

So he was up and working.

“Hey,” I called when I hit the doorway and he swiveled his chair to face me.

His eyes immediately warmed.

That was a good sign.

“Hey,” he replied. “Why you up?”

I moved to him and when I stopped close, I answered, “Bed was empty.”

His eyes got warmer and he curved an arm around my hips, pulling me to the side of the chair and tipping his head way back. I bent at his invitation and touched my mouth to his.

I pulled away, not intending to go very far but not getting there anyway because his other hand lifted and curled around my neck.

I settled in and asked, “Working?”

“Yeah. Case not adding up. Something’s wrong. I can’t get a lock on it.”

That was a good sign too. He left me not because of our messy discussion or unease with what was happening between us driving him away. He left because he had something else on his mind he had to work out.

At this news, I grinned at him and teased, “You, the Mighty Jacob?”

He grinned back and replied, “Yeah. Me.”

I slid a hand up his chest and whispered, “You’ll sort it.”

“Yeah,” he whispered back.

“You’ve got a puzzle you can’t solve, I get you wanting to get on it,” I told him then said, “But I like waking up with you.”

His eyes got even warmer. “I’ll give this a couple hours, come back and read.”

“Thanks, honey.”

“Anytime, baby.”

I slid my hand up further, stopping to curve it around the dark stubble at his jaw and I bent in again for a lip touch.

This time when I pulled back, I stopped, held his gaze and whispered, “Love you, Jacob.”

Heat in his eyes, soft in his face, lips tipping up, so beautiful, all for me, he whispered back, “Love you too, Emme.”

I glided my hand down, drifted my thumb along the corded ridge of his throat, memorized the look on his face and gave him a grin.

I pulled away and Jacob let me go. I turned to the door and stopped dead.

This was because Richard Decker was standing at the door in pajamas, arms crossed, shoulder to the jamb, watching.

“Fuck. Seriously?” Jacob growled.

He’d seen his father too.

I heard his chair roll, felt it moving away, then felt him standing beside me.

I also felt he was angry.

That was when I felt my body grow tight.

Okay, officially it was the next day, so this did not bode well it would be a better one.

“Now that,” his father announced, “that’s what I like to see.”

I relaxed slightly but only because this confused me.

It didn’t confuse Jacob.

I knew this when he bit out, “Dad. Not. Fuckin’. Cool.”

Rich completely ignored him and looked at me. “Today, Emme, I was an ass. I apologize. You were nervous, it was obvious. I kept bein’ an ass. I apologize for that too. I’ll make it up to you by making you my world-famous pancakes tomorrow morning.”

Maybe I was wrong. This sounded like indication that today would be a better one.

“Dad, your pancakes suck,” Jacob replied.

My eyes got big and my head shot back to see him scowling at his father.

He was screwing up a potential good day!

To get him to stop doing that, I elbowed him in the ribs. He acted like he didn’t feel it and kept scowling at his father.

“Forgot. It’s Shane who likes my pancakes,” Rich mumbled.

“They aren’t pancakes. They’re crêpes. And crêpes suck,” Jacob returned

Totally screwing it up!

“Jacob!” I snapped.

He wasn’t done, unfortunately.

“Unless they have that hazelnut chocolate spread in them, something I don’t have.”

“You have a grocery store,” Rich shot back.

“I’m not haulin’ my ass to the grocery store on a Sunday morning for hazelnut spread,” Jacob retorted.

“Then quit bitchin’ about it,” Rich ordered.

“I’m not bitchin’. I’m sayin’, I bought Mom buttermilk for her pancakes, which I actually like. Which is what we’re gonna have. And, incidentally, you hear words as me bitchin’ when instead I’m pissed you’re lurkin’ around spyin’ on Emme and me,” Jacob stated.

I closed my eyes.

“I wasn’t spyin’,” Rich replied.

My eyes shot open because that was a bald-faced lie.

He was leaning in the door watching us!

“You stand in my door without me or Emme knowin’ it and listen in?” Jacob called him on his lie.

“Yeah, but that isn’t spyin’. You hide when you spy. I wasn’t hiding. I was listening.”

Jacob looked to the ceiling.

Truth be told, he had a point. A funny one. So I burst out laughing.

I swallowed it when Jacob stopped looking at the ceiling so he could turn his scowl to me.

“It’s not funny,” he declared. “He’s a nosy bastard. Always was. It wasn’t okay when I was a teenager coppin’ a feel from my girlfriend watchin’ TV in our basement. It’s definitely not okay when I’m a thirty-seven-year-old man havin’ a moment with my girl in my own f**kin’ house.”

All I could think to that statement was that I was glad Jacob eschewed the norm and didn’t cop a feel when his dad was watching.

All I could say was, “You shouldn’t call your dad a bastard.”

“Emme, it was our moment, not his,” Jacob stated.

“This is true but we weren’t exactly hatching plans for our world takeover so now that he knows, we have to kill him,” I pointed out.