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WILLA HAD YET TO DECIDE if the fish had been a good idea or a bad one. The upside was that the meal had been one of the best—and one of the only—she’d had in a while. She got like that, though. Busy to the point that she neglected to eat. Or at least neglected to eat a rounded diet.
She subsisted instead on fresh fruits and vegetables from the farmers’ market. More often than not she ate them raw and on the run, along with the home-baked bread Mrs. Craig brought over once a week. So, in that regard—iodine and iron and all that—the fish had been a good idea.
Joel hadn’t exaggerated his skill with a grill and a handful of charcoal briquettes. She loved a man who could cook. And Joel had been such a good sport. He’d skewered the chunks of peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini she’d chopped, and then popped the kabobs on the fire, roasting the vegetables alongside the foil-wrapped fillets cooking in seasoned butter.
The fish had melted on her tongue. The vegetables had plumped up with sweet juices and burst with kaleidoscopic flavor in her mouth. She’d savored each and every bite, and had eaten way too much. In fact, Willa mused, taping a clean diaper around the squirming baby’s chubby tummy, she felt a lot like Leigh looked.
“What do you think, Sweetie?” she asked, tickling the soft skin above the diaper before asking her next question, her real question—a question that wasn’t about what they’d eaten at all but about the deeper layers of the day. “Was the fish a good idea?”
Leigh answered with a fuss, doing her best to scramble down from the couch. Willa chuckled. Her need for a little female bonding would obviously have to wait. At the moment, the baby’s one-track mind was in play mode. And there was no need to clean her up now only to have to do it again later, especially since clothing was still a problem.
The grocery shopping trip had turned into a very long afternoon. Between fixings for the meal and baby supplies for the week—not to mention the holdup—they’d made more stops than originally planned. And though he would never admit it, Willa knew the going, going, going had tired Joel.
She’d studied his face throughout the day and noticed the imperceptible changes. The grooves at the corners of his mouth had deepened into slashes of exhaustion. And the sunburst of laugh lines fanning out from his eyes had dug deep as if he’d had to pry loose the crow.
She’d noticed it especially after they’d stopped for gas and stayed to uphold the law. That couldn’t have been easy on him. He was already working with a handicap—though the truth of that statement wouldn’t have been easy to prove. The way he’d moved she could’ve believed both the cane and the cast to be props.
But the danger had been real enough and it hadn’t taken the gun to convince her. No, the truth had come later, in Joel’s face as he drove, the way his eyes seemed glassy, though she knew they were singularly focused because he missed every pit in the asphalted road.
He’d been deep in thought and silent, yet by the time he’d next stopped the truck he seemed to have come to a decision. Or at least an acceptance that he’d done the right thing and done it well.
It couldn’t have been easy for him, knowing his niece had been as close to the danger as Willa had been. That factor had to have tipped the scales toward the plan of action he judged best, one he could live with both as an uncle and an officer of the law.
He hadn’t acted rashly, that Willa knew. Both the care he’d taken to see to her safety and Leigh’s and the vulnerable exposure he’d willingly walked into, had increased her admiration for Joel as a man. Yet the outcome had taken its toll.
At their last stop, the fish market, the foot of his cane caught a snag in the doorway’s metal flashing. He’d broken his fall against the nearest display case; the flat of his hand smacking the glass front and jarring a particularly large flounder from his lettuce bed.
Even after leaving the shop with that same fish wrapped in white paper and tucked beneath his arm, Joel still refused to admit his recovering body had reached its limit. Willa had taken charge then and insisted they get Leigh home. She hadn’t offered a reason and Joel hadn’t asked.
So, they’d never made it to Jennifer’s house to pick up more clothes and check on Shadow. First thing in the morning, Joel had said, looking more than a little relieved. He’d stopped Willa then, just as she’d headed for home to check on the dogs before dinner.
His hold had been firm on her upper arm, the look in his eyes deep and intense as he’d made sure she understood he was including her in tomorrow’s plans. And that as far as he was concerned, this particular day was not even close to being over.
It had been hard to concentrate on what needed to be done at the kennels after that. But she’d gotten her strength training for the day with Tic Toc’s tug-o’-war toy plus an aerobic workout with Loverboy and his Frisbee, then scratched Mickey’s ears until the dog was a spineless five pounds in her hands. The Dalmatian pup remained curled in a trembling ball and Willa talked softly until he’d drifted off to sleep.
Once she’d fetched Leigh’s Exersaucer, she and Gordy had returned to Joel’s, and while the adults had cooked, he’d made it his duty to shepherd the baby and her things. Leigh had adored the canine attention. Which is why she was so impatient to get off her uncle’s sofa and back outside to the dog.
Willa lifted the baby from the leather cushions and headed toward the kitchen door, doing her best not to snoop as she moved from the one room to the other. Yes, she and Joel had become amazingly well acquainted in an incredibly short span of time.
But that didn’t give her the right to wonder why there was an unmailed envelope and nothing else on his mantel. Why he had no throw rugs on his hardwood floor, no pictures on his walls. Why the only pieces of furniture in the living room were the sofa and a big-screen TV. She wondered, regardless, and wanted the right to do just that, the right to ask and have him answer.
Which is why the fish had been a bad idea.
More than once today the three of them had been mistaken for a family. A young couple with a child. They’d had way too much fun shopping this afternoon, laughing and teasing and shamelessly flirting. At least until Joel had taken his tumble in the fish market. The drive home, after that, had been subdued.
Willa had taken the assumptions in stride, savored them probably more than she should have, but, hey, a girl was entitled to dream. Joel had been the one quick to set everyone straight, the waitress and cashier at the diner, the fisherman who’d sold them the flounder in the market, the sales clerk who’d rung them up at the grocery store.
Joel might deny he was a family man, or at least husband and father material, but his quick denials were doing more to convince Willa otherwise. Not that what she believed mattered. Just that Joel would one day need to learn this for himself. She suspected that as with most men, all it would take would be the right woman. Funny how men hated admitting that truth.
A part of her thought she would like very much to get to know the Wolf Man better. Her practical side was, well, more practical. It would hardly be fair to work on a permanent relationship when neither of them met the other’s idea of a partner.
But in the meantime, the attraction between them had amazing possibilities. She worked long, hard hours to make sure her business thrived. Loneliness lurked on the edges of her life but it wasn’t a constant nag. Certainly not an enemy. She was happy, and she was sure Joel was the same. That didn’t mean they couldn’t—or shouldn’t—enjoy one another’s company.
A man and woman being friends and lovers was not an unheard-of concept, and the more she thought, the more she was certain she and Joel could have a very good time for as long as the fun lasted.
“Here we are,” she said, stepping out of the kitchen. Joel was sprawled in a lounger on the redwood deck built along the back of the house. They’d finished eating a half hour ago, yet Willa felt a wave of heat when she walked past the grill to put a momentarily content Leigh into her seat.
“Dinner was wonderful.” Willa settled back into the cedar lounger next to Joel’s. Legs crossed at the ankle, arms braced on the rests, she released a purr of contentment. “I like to cook, but I seem never to have time for anything more elaborate than a pot of soup.”
“It was good, wasn’t it?” He turned his head and blinked sleepily. “And thanks for the suggestion. The fish was a great idea.”
She didn’t contradict him, even though she’d already worked through that argument in her mind, albeit unsatisfactorily. “Just don’t get too comfortable over there. Your little one is about ready for a bath and bedtime.”
Joel stretched his arms high overhead, arching his back like a big cat. She half expected a deep rumbling roar. She half expected him to scoot to the right, settle back, and pat the empty space at his side, making room for her to join him. He didn’t and she admitted to an unexpected disappointment.
“I think your warning’s about ten minutes too late.” He rubbed at his eyes, passed his hand down his face and chuckled. “I’m already too comfortable.”
She was sure that he was. And that her head would fit nicely against his shoulder. “So I see.”
“Yep. Fat and happy and ready to curl up and sleep for a day or two.”
“Too much food’ll do that to you.”
“So will too much beer, too much time in the weight room, too much... sun.” His mouth twitched as he fought a grin. He thought she’d thought he was going to say sex.
Typical man. Of course, she had thought he was going to say sex. But she wasn’t about to admit it. “Hmm. The evils of excess.”
“No, the pleasure of enjoying a good thing. Being able to sleep like a baby is one of the best.”
She wanted to watch him sleep. She wanted to sleep next to him, to snuggle into his side, to feel his warmth, to breathe deeply of his skin. He was a protector, an honorable man. He took care of his own and did it well.
He had what she didn’t. The love of a family.
This particular family was growing on her rapidly, adding another layer to the comforts she held close. She glanced from Joel to Leigh whose head was bobbing, whose tiny fists were rubbing tiny eyes.
Willa smiled and nodded towards Leigh. “You mean the ability to sleep anytime and anywhere? That trait seems to run in your family.”
“Ah, the munchkin. I’d better get her tucked in for the night.” Joel swung around and sat sideways on the lounger, his casted foot bumping up against Willa’s seat. He braced one palm on the arm of the chair, the other on his good thigh and pushed to his feet.
And then he frowned. The cane rested on the deck just behind his heel. He realized where it was just as Willa did. She dipped forward from her chair as Joel came down.
His face was oh so close. She could smell the smoke of the evening on his clothes, detect the subtler scents of soap and aftershave. Cupping his cheek with her palm before he’d fully straightened seemed the thing to do.
So she did.