Page 40 of Honeycombs & Homecomings

Cash leaned against one of the chairs at the round kitchen table Jo had brought from the farmhouse. It was a little four-seater that’d been in their kitchen nook. “Are you always this jumpy in the morning?”

She scrambled for her phone, her heart racing faster than an American Quarter horse pounding out a short distance race, as fragments of her dream came back to her. “Allie’s been kidnapped!”

Cash jolted away from the table. “What?!”

Jo grabbed her phone and said, “Call Allie.” Seconds later, her phone was ringing. She glanced at Cash and pulled her thoughts together. “No, sorry. I had a dream.” A freakishly real dream. That dream was why she’d been so jumpy since she’d woken up.

Cash relaxed. “Maybe lead with that next time. You about gave me a heart attack.”

The call rang through to voicemail. “Allie,” she took a deep breath so she’d sound less manic. “Allie, if you’re worried I’m mad at you, I’m not. I just need to know that you’re okay. I had this dream—” She shook her head. She wasn’t going to tell her sister about the dream she’d had that included a dark van, bright city lights like nothing they had a round Harvest Ranch, and — she sniffed — BBQ’d ribs? “Well, never mind that. Just call me. ASAP. I mean it. Or you’re doing all the honey lemon lozenges in the next batch by yourself.”

She disconnected.

“That must have been some dream.”

She scrubbed a hand down her face. “You have no idea.” She lifted the covers, becoming suddenly self-conscious of Cash’s gaze on her. She’d slept in a baggy t-shirt and sleep shorts, so it wasn’t like she was wearing anything immodest, but she still felt practically naked. “Turn around.”

He went to the fridge. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you in pajamas before.”

That was true, he had. In fact, he’d spent several mornings of the week with her and her family. Often arriving early to make them breakfast. She’d never been self-conscious then, but she’d been seventeen when he’d left, and fourteen years was enough to change a person. Cash for example had gotten a little taller, and a lot thicker—not fat in the least, just broad. He’d always been muscular, but he’d also been thin as a twig.

“Yeah, well, I’m not seventeen anymore.” As soon as his head was in the fridge searching for whatever it was he was searching for, she threw the covers back—trying to ignore the chuckle she heard from the kitchen—and dashed to the bathroom.

She could’ve died when she saw herself in the mirror. Not only had she been tossing and turning all night long, shelookedlike she’d been tossing and turning all night long. Her hair was a ratted nest of red fury, and she’d been so caught up in her mind, thinking about everything last night, she’d forgotten to wash her face. Her makeup had smeared under her eyes.

She groaned loud and long, and leaned back against the door, letting her head thud back into it. She needed to be Allie today, and she just wasn’t sure she had the energy for it. She’d barely slept in a week. And she wasn’t Allie—she didn’t have her boundless energy. She set her jaw. “Come on, Jo. Pull it together. You’re doing this forSticky and Sweet.”

She pulled herself away from the door, fists clenched, determination filling her. She needed a shower. A good scrub from head to toe, and some clean clothes. She could do this.

She thought of Cash in the other room, only a door between them, and heat flushed over her. She quickly locked the door, not that she thought he’d ever come through it—he was too much a gentleman for that—then turned on the shower and got to work. If she was going to pull off Allie after the night she’d had—the week she’d had!—it’d take steaming hot water and a miracle.

***

Cash moved effortlessly around the tiny kitchen, enjoying its small size, yet ample counter space. This kitchen was the kind of space he would’ve loved to have had when he’d first moved to California. Until the first year after he’d opened his first restaurant, he’d lived in apartments with kitchens that’d been laid out by someone with no notion of how to cook.

This place may be small, but it was a lovely set up with a kitchen made for a chef. He loved it here, and he knew Jo and Allie would grow to love it too.

He’d let loose a chuckle when a groan followed by a thud against the door came from the bathroom, knowing she had to be horrified by her appearance. He’d known she would be, but he’d found her rumpled look endearing. When he’d sneaked up earlier and found her unconscious, her fiery hair splayed across the pillow, her lips slightly parted, and her makeup smeared under her eyes, he’d had to fight the urge to sit next to her and wake her with butterfly kisses.

He’d banished the thought the moment it’d entered his head, but it hadn’t been easy. She wasn’t his to kiss and hold.

When they were teens, he’d always thought she was pretty, but the years away had taken her unrefined girlishness and morphed it into the beauty of a dazzling woman. She’d pushed back some of the fearlessness he’d known her for as a girl, but he’d seen little sparks of it coming through in bursts all day yesterday, and those things combined with the whole package that was Jo made Cash wonder why some guy hadn’t already spoken for her. The men in this town had to be daft. Maybe with exception to that Brandon character.

Brandon. Even just thinking his name irritated Cash.

Cash pulled a little notebook from his back pocket and jotted down the ingredients he had here and then started playing with ideas of what he could make the Warners tonight. He’d been so taken by the foods he’d been eating since arriving Tuesday night, that he decided to create a meal inspired by his home state and home town. The possibilities sent a thrill of excitement through him that made him pause a beat. What he’d just felt mirrored what he’d seen on Jo’s face and heard in her tone while she’d been talking about her honey yesterday.

He smiled. When he’d come home, he’d told himself it was to find something he was missing. He never dreamed he actually might. He glanced up at the door and thought of Jo on the other side. Pulling her luscious thick hair back into a ponytail, applying lip gloss, getting dressed, and felt an ache near the vicinity of his heart.

She was right. He needed to control his emotions better. He’d pushed his trip back Sunday to stay and help her, but then he’d be going home. It didn’t matter that the very idea of leaving this place, leaving her, seemed the exact opposite of what he’d just felt coming up with a recipe for dinner. Depressing and uninspiring. It didn’t matter that he’d been more at home here now than he ever had as a kid or did now in Santa Ana. Or that being near her seemed to have breathed life into him he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.

On and off since he’d broken off his engagement to Shelly, he’d wondered if he’d made a massive mistake. Now he knew for sure he hadn’t and that gave him a sense of freedom he hadn’t realized he needed.

Half an hour later, the door to the bathroom swung out with a burst of steam, and Cash was mesmerized as Jo moved through it like an angel walking out of the mist, her red hair hung in loose waves about her shoulders over a cream sweater, and she wore weathered jeans with another pair of high-heeled boots.

He sucked in a breath.

Her hands shot to her hair. “Mother Hubbard!” She did an about face. “I swear I’d forget my head right now if it wasn’t attached.”

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