Page 22 of You Had Me at Chocolate

God, where did she even start?

He nodded. “Hungry.”

“Well, yes, actually, that too.” As if to prove the point, her stomach growled loudly.

“Dinner is about half an hour away. Why don’t I pour you a glass of wine and you go have a nice long soak in the bath? Then get into your PJs and I’ll have dinner on the table when you’re done and after that you can crawl into bed and flake out for the night.”

Ridiculously, her eyes watered again. “I didn’t expect you to cook for me.” He’d already done enough cooking.

He shrugged. “It’s the only thing I can do.”

Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Clem observed, “You sure came into my life at the right time.”

“I told you, our twelve-year-old selves must have known something.” He grinned. “Even if we got our wires crossed a little.”

Clem wanted to slide back into his arms again but fought the urge. She wasn’t crying now and given her current emotional state it wouldn’t be wise to mix up her feelings. Especially when he was looking about as mouth-watering as whatever was cooking.

“Let me get you that wine. Red okay?”

She nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

He turned and strode back to the kitchen. Clem stayed rooted to the spot listening to him shuffle around and then he was back again, crossing the distance and handing her a decent slug of wine in a heavy cut-crystal tumbler.

“Go have a bath,” he said, his lips quirking in an amused little moue as Clem stood there absently staring at him, glass in hand. “I’ll take your bag to your room.”

A meal, some wine, a bath, and even bellhop duties. Jude Barlow, arrogant, reality cooking-show star was a bona fide sweetheart.

“Thank you,” she said, her legs finally obeying frantic signals from her brain to shift her ass. Because if she didn’t, she might just toss her glass of wine against the wall and thank him in a way that was not appropriate for friends.

And then where would they be?

*

Jude threw another log on the fire and prodded at the wood with a poker as the flames flared and were sucked straight up the flue. They’d retired to the living room after dinner. He’d expected her to go straight to her room—she’d looked thoroughly exhausted when she’d first arrived—but a bath and a full belly seemed to have revived her and, when he’d tried to shoo her to bed she’d said not yet and he’d suggested a movie together.

Perhaps he should have gone to his bed. Made himself scarce. Then she might not have felt obligated to sit up with him. But she’d insisted it wasn’t obligation, that she just wanted to chill and not think or talk before hitting the sack and who was he to deny her that? Given how much she’d unburdened throughout dinner about her mother’s progress and the abundance of research she’d been doing, he couldn’t blame her for wanting to chill.

Although chilling in front of the TV had a very different connotation these days…

Connotations that were hard to ignore when she was looking warm and cozy on the couch, her legs tucked up under her, drinking her third glass of wine and chomping on the salty caramel popcorn he’d made, her hair floating around her head in a bouncy cloud.

And then there were those PJs…

Jude had seen his fair share of women’s night apparel—if only for a few moments before being discarded. He’d seen silk and satin and lace that hugged and skimmed and clung. He’d seen fancy bras and barely there thongs. He’d seen studs and snaps and rhinestones holding together wispy pieces of fabric that left nothing to the imagination.

There should be nothing remotely sexy about flannel and cotton.

But fucking hell, there was. Soft red-striped flannel pants and a snug red T-shirt that had I will Dewey decimate you stamped across the front. He’d laughed when he’d first seen it and then he’d realized he was staring at her chest trying to figure out if she was wearing a bra and had given himself a mental slap.

She was sad and anxious and tired. She didn’t need some guy checking out her goods.

Oh, and they were friends.

So, they’d watched the television, her at one end of the three-seater couch, him at the other, keeping his eyes glued on the screen. The only time Jude had allowed himself to look anywhere else was when he’d stoked the fire. Clementine had, thankfully, made it easier by staying curled in her corner of the couch, content, it seemed, not to chat or draw his attention.

When he’d come to Marietta a week ago, he’d had one driving purpose—to follow through on the pinkie swear he’d made to Clementine when he’d been twelve. It had been a mistake, an idiotic impulse fueled by jet lag and desperation, with no real plan attached. Just a fistful of memories that a year away from everything had made him nostalgic for.

But meeting Clementine again had shaken something awake inside him, something that he was coming to realize, even in this short time, had always been there but he’d been too young to understand or articulate. And then too distant and self-absorbed to follow through.

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