“The porch?” He didn’t want to leave this space, felt rooted on this cheap floor, by the warmth of the dessert, his legs sluggish to move.
She misunderstood. “I lit a citronella candle out there. The bugs will stay away.” Her voice was so different, so gentle and sweet. Is that what a half a million bought him? A sexified Betty Crocker?
He jabbed to see what lay beneath the skin. “I don’t really like cobbler.” He let disdain drip into the word, and his heart warmed when her eyes sharpened.
“You’ll eat it and like it, Mr. Masten,” she said in an entirely new version of sweet, one with dark fingers that ran along his skin and dug into the weak spots. He grinned and leaned forward, putting his mouth against her ear, watching her stiffen at the movement. “Ah… there’s my girl.” Another thing she didn’t like. She put her hand on his chest and pushed, and he didn’t yield, instead covering her hand with his.
She yanked back the hand like it was burned. Stepped back and turned away, to the fridge, opening it and reaching down, his eyes catching on the arch of her back, the long stretch of her legs.
“Coming?” Don Waschoniz’s voice came from behind him.
“Yeah,” Cole muttered and didn’t look back, didn’t watch her straighten, didn’t hear the door to the freezer as it was yanked open, the vanilla bean ice cream pulled out.
Don and Ben took rockers, and Cole sat on the top step, his back to the door. He didn’t want to see her come out, didn’t want to see the cozy house framing her. He felt unsteady, like everything he had known, everything he’d had control of, was unraveling. He needed something to be constant, needed something to be in order.
“She seems nice,” Don Waschoniz spoke from behind him, and he turned his head enough to see the man in his peripheral vision. Nice. Not the word he’d originally had in mind to describe Summer Jenkins.
“She’s an incredible cook,” Ben said. “Her—”
“We don’t care about her cooking, Ben,” Cole interrupted tersely.
“Don’t be a dick,” Don said easily. “We’re about to eat some of it, and I haven’t eaten since the Houston airport.”
Cole stood, the change in position necessary since this was apparently going to be a Hollywood jerk-off session. He leaned against the porch column and stared out, the flickering candle casting everyone’s face in a pale orange hue. “What’s taking her so long?” he grumbled. They didn’t need to be fed. They needed Don to look at her face, listen to her talk, see her from different angles and heights. She needed to be the bitchy woman he had met six hours ago, not this other person. She stepped onto the porch, two plates in hand, and he turned his venom on her. “We’re short on time, Summer.”
She glared at him and turned to the two men, passing them each a plate. “Sorry to stick y’all out here, but Mama’s sleeping. She has to be up early, and I thought this could give us a place to talk.” She turned to Cole. “Would you like a plate? Inside you mentioned not liking cobbler…” She blinked wide, innocent eyes at him, and he wanted to, right then, grab her shoulders, and push her against the wall. Put his mouth on her sassy one and—Jesus. He stepped back and almost fell down the steps.
“No,” he snapped, and she smiled again. Her smiles were blood in the water, his demise the closely lurking shark. He looked away, and she sat down in the free seat.
“Summer,” Don spoke through a mouthful of food. “Can you stand over here? Where I can see you? It’s important that I see your face.”
“Certainly.” She moved past him, and he smelled a scent other than pie. Vanilla maybe. She took a position like Cole’s, against a different post, her new spot squarely in front of him, and he shifted. Looked away and wondered how long this whole thing would take. Maybe this was a mistake. Five hundred thousand on a nobody? It was ten percent of what Price had committed to, but still… it was too much for this girl. Don Waschoniz leaned forward, set his plate on the ground, and stood.
“The character we are looking for is a thirty-one year old divorced woman. How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Turn your head to the left. Say something.”
“Like what?” She giggled, and he saw a dimple pop up in her cheek. Jesus. How close did Waschoniz need to stand? He was practically touching her, his hands now moving aside her hair to peer at her neck. That didn’t matter; no one was asking fuckin’ Kristin Stewart to see her neck. “The brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” she drawled, and he laughed.
“No. Tell me about the cobbler. Tell me how you make it.”
“Cobbler?” She laughed again and Don crouched down, looking up at her. “Well… I would have made pie. Pie, in this area, is much more popular. But pie takes a good hour longer than cobbler and so—” Every time she said ‘pie’—the word more Southern than the others—a pulse jumped in Cole’s dick.
“Look at me now. Follow me when I move.” Don stepped toward Cole, and her eyes went that way, a breath of time stalling when her eyes met his, before they were back on Don, and she was speaking again.
“—so I pulled out what I had in the fridge. Cobbler is pretty basic.” She blushed, and he heard a soft exhale on Don’s part. “It’s really just apples, which I had. Honeycrisp or Granny Smith are the best, but these are Pippin apples. So… uh… apples, sugar, lemon juice, uh… butter, of course, and flour, cinnamon, some ground nutmeg and vanilla extract. I’d already done that prep, I was going to put apples on our pancakes in the morning.” Every word out of her mouth was freakin’ silk, and Cole would have bet a thousand bucks, right then, that even Ben had a hard on. Forget The Fortune Bottle. This woman could have a career in food porn.