Page 24 of You Had Me at Chocolate

“If I get to be half as strong as her I’ll be happy.”

Jude frowned. “What are you talking about? You’re strong.”

She gave a half laugh. “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. Even at eight, you were the strongest, most determined person I’d ever met. Very driven and goal orientated. And you’ve done everything you set out to do. You became a librarian and when you decided you wanted to see the world and stretch your wings, you did that as well.”

Clementine sighed. “I haven’t felt very strong this past week. I’m trying to be for Dad, but I feel like I’m always about two seconds off falling apart.”

“Hey.” Without thinking, Jude reached across and put a hand on her bent knee and gave it a squeeze. “You’ve been through a very worrying time. Even the strongest of people can buckle under extraordinary pressure.”

“I know… I can see that in my dad. It’s really taken it out of him these past few days.” She shook her head. “He’s looking to me for strength and guidance. He’s leaning on me.”

“And you’ll be there for him,” Jude assured. “And I’ll be here for you. To lean on.”

Quirking an eyebrow, she said, “You will, huh?”

“Sure.” He feigned a nonchalant shrug while trying not to think about the ways she could lean on him. “What are friends for, right?”

“Friends…” She looked at him for long speculative moments before her gaze dropped to his hand on her knee. Jude went to withdraw it but she was already sliding hers over top trapping him there. She dropped her cheek to their interlocked fingers and closed her eyes.

After a few beats, she lifted her head, propping her chin where her cheek had been and he didn’t feel trapped, he felt… connected.

“I wish we’d kept in contact,” she murmured.

“Maybe if I’d been a more faithful correspondent we would have.”

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “You went to Paris. You were busy.” Her smile turned a little sad. “We weren’t kids anymore.”

“It was good of you to still send a Christmas card every year. Mom used to read them out to me when she called.”

“That’s nice,” she said, her voice low, the golden glow from the fire wrapping around them like a big warm blanket. She didn’t say anything for a moment or two, just studied his features intently before a slow smile spread across her mouth. “You got handsome.”

Jude blinked at the unexpected compliment then he blushed and thanked god for the darkness and the heat from the fire to blame it on. “I wasn’t always handsome?” he asked, tying to keep it light because he couldn’t let that go to his head.

She shook her head. “You were skinny and gangly and had those ears that stuck out. But you’ve grown into yourself.” Her eyes roamed over his face again as if to be sure of her assessment. “And your hair was the color of rust but now it’s…” Lifting a hand, she furrowed her fingers into the hair at his temple, watching the action.

Jude’s breath hitched at the touch, her short fingernails scraping lightly against his scalp, causing a rash of goose bumps from ear to ear that marched down his nape.

“It’s darkened to this deep, chestnut which is…” Her gaze cut to him. “Very, very handsome.”

This time his breath stopped somewhere between his lungs and his throat. Her gaze drifted to his mouth and his throat turned dry as a chip.

“Okay…” He gave a half-laugh. The atmosphere was loaded now with something that was way more than friendship—it sizzled with it. And she was tired and in an emotionally fragile state. It wasn’t the time for doing what every cell in his body was urging him to do—kiss the hell out of Clementine Jones.

“I think you might have had too much to drink.”

She blinked. “I’ve had three glasses of wine. In three hours. I’m not drunk. I’m not even a little bit tipsy.” But she withdrew her hand from his hair. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’ve let my tongue run away from me. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“It’s fine,” he dismissed, excruciatingly conscious of his hand still on her knee. “I do have big ears.”

Clementine laughed. “You’ve grown into them very nicely though.” Her gaze traveled lower, from one side of his chest to the other. “Your shoulders, too.”

Jude fought to keep his ego in check at her teasing flattery. Fought to keep grounded—this wasn’t flirting. It was an assessment of his changes over the years. “You turned out pretty damn nice yourself.”

“Finally, a compliment.” She gave an exaggerated eye roll. “I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

Jude sobered. “Oh… I noticed.”

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