Page 96 of Dallas

“Samantha, you’re making the image of you in a storage unit not seem that bad. I’m sorry,” he said before she even had a chance to react to his jackassedness. “That was uncalled for and I don’t want you sleeping in a storage unit on a nest of baby mice.”

“Jace, I know you worship at the altar of bleach and disinfectant spray. I have a certified kitchen and a food handler’s card, plus, I passed my last health inspection with a score of ninety-nine. So I don’t think you really have to worry. I shall not desecrate the temple of cleanliness.”

“I’m not that crazy, Sam. I’ll deal.”

“Darling, Jace, I’ve known you since we were sixteen. Youarethat crazy.”

“It’s better to care about being clean than to be attached to your dirt.”

He cringed, knowing they were having a shared memory. Of his childhood home, the piles of things, his mother ’s over-attachment to all of it. Her inability to throw one damn thing away.

For a while it had spilled over into his room. Until he’d reclaimed it. Until he’d thrown out every piece of garbage and disinfected every corner and told her anything that crossed the threshold was going in the dumpster. He had to have a haven, or he would have really gone insane.

But he’d had his bedroom. He’d had the store and Mrs. Brown. And he’d had Sam.

His room and the store had provided escape. Mrs. Brown had provided the tough love, the guidance, the financial help when he’d wanted to start his beef ranch.

Sam had provided the smiles. The laughter. Sam made everything feel a little bit lighter. A little more colorful.

It was just ungrateful to begrudge her or Poppy a place in his home. Of course, his opinion on that would likely continue to fluctuate depending on how messy the dog proved to be.

“All right, yeah,” he said. “I’m that crazy. But I like to have control over my house and I know you understand that.”

Samantha did understand that. She remembered what Jace’s house had been like. She’d known him for more than a year before he’d let her inside, and when he had, his humiliation had been palpable. It was the only time she’d seen her friend near tears—that moment he’d let her walk through the rubble that was his childhood home.

Through the trash his mother treasured more than she had her husband who’d left and her son who was slowly going insane living in it.

She stood and picked up her empty bowl, crossing to Jace’s spot and taking his bowl too. “Don’t worry, Jace, I’ll be good,” she said, bending down and kissing his cheek.

The moment her lips touched Jace’s skin, she knew she’d made a big mistake. She didn’t just go around kissing him on the cheek. She’d done it before, but she didn’t make a habit of it. And for some reason, this time had sent a rush of heat over her skin, a flame through her veins.

Calm down, woman. It was a kiss on the cheek, not second base.

Her body didn’t get the memo. Her lips burned and her nipples tightened, begging silently for attention because they knew she sure as hell wasn’t going to beg for him to touch her.

Nope. She was not.

She cleared her throat. “I’ll even do dishes.”

She turned and headed toward the kitchen and Poppy stood and followed her, her tags jingling with each footstep. There was something perfect about this moment. Something so domestic and calm.

Except for the lingering crackle of fire on her lips. That wasn’t calm at all.

This moment, except the crackle, embodied all the things she’d always wanted but never had. But she wouldhave her own home soon. And it would have Poppy. It wouldn’t have Jace, but he would still be in her life.

That was all that mattered.

For now, she had his big, beautiful kitchen. Spotless and perfect. Like everything else in his house. She’d always admired the way he’d transcended his upbringing. The way he’d made something so orderly out of the chaos he’d been raised in.

She was afraid she’d inherited her mother’s transient, hippie dippy nature. And in terms of her taste in incense, she didn’t mind. But the restlessness she felt, the dissatisfaction with her surroundings... those seemed to be ingrained deep in her.

But instead of moving, she bought a new lampshade and curtains. Her feet were itchiest when it came to jobs. She’d had more jobs than most people twice her age. Not because she couldn’t do the jobs she got, and not because the businesses she’d started had all failed, but because she’d simply never found anything to latch onto.

But Mrs. Brown had taught her to bake. Survival skills, the older woman had said. And that had always been a part of her life. So when the bakery downtown had gone up for sale, Sam had scraped together her meager life savings and poured herself into her new project with a vengeance. When she was bored, she infused buttercream frosting with lavender instead of selling everything.

The next big step in defeating her restlessness was buying a house. And then when she needed a change, she’d paint a wall.

She was rising above like a mother effing phoenix.

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