Always on My Mind Read online

  Oh, there was going to be a later.

  “There you kids are,” Dee said, coming out with the plate of pastries that Leah had made for her. Jack ground his teeth and kept working on the fuses as Dee offered the plate to Ali, who happily partook.

  “Oh my God,” the florist said with a moan as she took her first bite of a pastry. “So good. Did you know that her grandma swears that Leah somehow makes these with restorative powers? You’ll feel like a million bucks after you eat her stuff, Dee.”

  Dee smiled. “I already feel like a million bucks, but it’s not the food. It’s thanks to Jack finally getting his head on straight and being with Leah.”

  Ali stilled, and then, eyes wide, turned to Leah.

  But Leah was now choking on a scone, and probably, Jack thought with grim satisfaction, a good amount of guilt as well. She pointed to her throat, indicating she couldn’t talk.

  Ali pivoted and looked at Jack.

  Jack peered deeply into the electrical panel, wishing it would ignite. Where was a fire when he needed one?

  “Big news, right?” Dee asked Ali happily.

  “Leah dating my boyfriend’s BFF? Yep,” Ali said. “That’s big news all right. The biggest.”

  “They didn’t want anyone to know,” Dee said, completely oblivious to the fact that Leah was behind her back making a knife-across-her-throat gesture at Ali.

  “Silly kids,” Dee said. “As if you can keep a secret in this town.”

  “Silly kids,” Ali agreed, smiling widely at the still-motioning Leah. “They should know better.”

  “Yeah, well, I have to go,” Leah said. “Stuff.” She gestured vaguely to the bakery. “In the oven.” And with one last glare at Ali, she vanished back inside the bakery.

  Dee beamed at Jack and then followed after her.

  Jack got the last fuse back in. The power came back on. He turned and nearly plowed into Ali, who was still grinning. “What?” he said.

  “Nothing.” But she laughed.

  He gave her a steely-eyed stare, which didn’t appear to intimidate her in the least. In fact, she laughed again, obviously delighted. “It’s just that you spent most of last month watching me squirm as Luke and I fell in love,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah?” he said. “So?”

  “So,” she said, and poked him in the chest, “it’s going to be fun watching you squirm for a change.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “No, Jack,” she said, heading back into her shop. “It’s not what you think.”

  He stared at the door as she shut it gently in his face. “What the hell does that mean?” he asked.

  But the door didn’t answer him.

  Chapter 4

  When Jack returned to the bakery, Leah was in the kitchen, furiously whipping something in a bowl, her cell phone pinched between her ear and her shoulder.

  “We have to talk,” he said.

  Leah gestured that she needed a minute.

  Jack leaned against a counter and crossed his arms, prepared to wait her out.

  She gave him a few side glances as she whipped the hell out of whatever was in the bowl. “Uh-huh,” she said into her phone. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

  Something in her voice clued him in, and he pushed away from the counter, heading toward her.

  With a squeak, she stopped whipping. “Uh-huh,” she said, faster now, and in a higher octave. She held up a finger, indicating she wanted him to wait a minute.

  But oh hell no was he going to wait another damn second. Instead, he reached for her phone.

  “Hey,” she hissed. “I’m on a very important call—”

  He pulled it from her fingers and looked at the screen.

  It was black.

  He narrowed his eyes at her.

  She winced and then jumped when the phone rang for real, flashing “Grandma Elsie.”

  “I have to answer that,” Leah said.

  He held it above his head.

  “Jack.”

  “Not until you explain your little stunt in there.” In case she wasn’t clear on which “little stunt,” he jabbed a finger to the front of the bakery, where through the small window between the kitchen and front room, he could see his mom once again at the table waiting for him. She was talking to Riley, who’d just showed up for work.

  Probably telling Riley all about him and Leah being a thing. Jesus.

  Leah used his momentary distraction to push him back to the counter and tried to crawl up his body for her still-ringing phone. With those heels, she was plastered to him, chest to chest, hips to hips, thighs to thighs, all their parts lining up neatly—and damn if he didn’t forget about her phone.

  Which is how she snatched it from him with ease. “Hi, Grandma,” she said breathlessly, shooting Jack a reproachful look before turning her back to him. “You okay?”

  “No,” Jack said, checking out her ass.

  Behind her back, Leah waved her hand at him. “Shh!”

  Still recovering from their full-body contact, he had to let out a long breath as he realized that once again he’d been the only one to feel anything.

  And why the hell was he feeling anything at all?

  Frustrated, he strode out to the front room and found his mom happily consuming a raspberry tart. “What the hell does it mean if I notice a woman’s shoes?” he asked her.

  She smiled sweetly.

  “What’s that? What does that smile mean?” he asked.

  She refused to answer.

  Leah spent the rest of the day baking like mad, an ear cocked to the door for Jack. She was torn between the terrible hope that he got a call from work—not a serious call, mind you, maybe just a cat up in a tree—and getting the inevitable awkward conversation between them over with. The problem was that she couldn’t envision the conversation. No doubt he’d start with a what the hell, Leah, and she’d say…what? What could she possibly say? I’m sorry I let my stupid, pathetic crush out of the bag? No. Hell no. Maybe she could say well, I thought pretend was better than nothing. No, that was even more revealing.

  Okay, so the real problem was that she had no excuse.

  None.

  Yes, she’d wanted to ease Dee’s mind, but they both knew there were far better ways.

  Thankfully, Riley worked the front of the shop for her, serving their customers and allowing Leah to avoid having to face anyone. But eventually Riley had to leave to make the day’s deliveries.

  The moment she did, of course, was the moment the bell chimed. Leah came out from the kitchen just as Ben McDaniel walked in.

  Ben was Jack’s cousin, and when he wasn’t in a third-world country designing and building water systems for war-torn lands with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he and Jack shared a duplex a few blocks down, near the fire station.

  Leah smiled at him, and knowing he wasn’t one for small talk, she turned to pour him a coffee, black, and bagged up a bear claw.

  His standard fare.

  He paid, and then instead of leaving as he usually did, he leaned against the counter and drank his coffee, watching her over the lid. Deceptively chill and laid-back, he gave off an almost surfer-guy vibe, but in truth he was about as badass as they came.

  “What?” she finally asked.

  “You tell me what.”

  She lifted a shoulder. Look at her being all cool and casual. One had to be with Ben; he could spot a weakness a mile away. “I can’t tell you if I won Sweet Wars.”

  He shook his head. Not that.

  “I’m not talking about this morning,” she said. At least not until she talked to Jack. Which she hoped to do…never.

  Ben dug into his bear claw, looking as if he had all the time in the world, and for all she knew, he did. He’d just come back from being on loan to the Department of Defense for the past eight months in Iraq. Before that, it had been Haiti and the earthquake aftermath, and before that, Japan’s tsunami, and so on.

  But before any of those adventures, once up