Page 35 of Hot Pursuit
Jo softened her tone. “Have the luxury of what?”
“I…” He paused, lifting his gaze to hers. There was a question in his eyes, silently asking how much he could trust her, how much he should tell her, how much she already knew. And then he sighed, stretched his fingers, and took a deep breath. “I was twelve when my dad passed away. My mom was inconsolable. My younger brother was already a little rascal, but without my dad around, he got worse. And my sister needed someone she could depend on, someone to be strong. So I became that person to them. I had to grow up, fast. And part of growing up is learning the rules and following them, being a role model. Not all of us had the luxury of youth.”
He finished quietly, almost like a confession.
Deep in her chest, something stung, a familiar ache.
She’d only been fourteen when her mother died, but where Nate’s mother had turned weak, her father had been strong. There were no siblings she’d had to worry about. No one she’d needed to take care of. Instead of growing up, Jo had held on to her childhood for all it was worth. In many ways, she still was holding on to the past, onto Daddy’s little girl, the one who was too afraid to turn into a woman without her mother around to guide her.
“Okay,” Jo told him.
“Okay?” he asked, unabashed surprise in his voice that she wasn’t pressing for more information.
“Your turn.”
He didn’t hesitate. “So, what is it about baking?”
Of all the questions in the world!
“Really?” she blurted, unable to rein in the snort that followed it. Very unladylike. Not at all sexy. Yet it still made him smile. “You’re so hung up on my baking. Must have really impressed you with my coopies.”
Jo winked.
He arched a brow. “You got a question. I get a question too.”
That wasn’t a denial.
But instead of retorting, Jo bit her lip to keep the remark in and sighed. He was right. He’d been open and honest, and he deserved the same from her. That was the whole point of this exercise, after all—to prove to each other they were more than cop and criminal. They were human.
“I don’t really know. I’ve always loved it,” Jo began, blinking quickly to stifle the sudden pools of water in her eyes as her memories rewound, to a place she rarely ever went—the place before her life flipped upside down and turned into what it was today. “All my best memories are in the kitchen. Every Christmas morning, my mom and I would wake up early while my dad put out the presents, and we’d bake a fresh batch of cinnamon buns in the shape of a tree. And the day after Thanksgiving, we’d spend hours making gingerbread men and decorating gingerbread cottages and castles and haunted mansions, until the entire house smelled of allspice and nutmeg. On Easter, she always made the best carrot cake, one I still haven’t been able to perfect no matter how many times I try. And when my dad was away on business, sometimes we’d skip dinner altogether and just put a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies in the oven, then dip them in milk, for the calcium she always said, and eat until our bellies hurt.”
Jo couldn’t help but laugh at the memory of the two of them curled on the couch, clutching their stomachs in pain, taking just one more bite as a romantic comedy played on the screen. A girl’s weekend. Her favorite kind.
She swallowed the clog in her throat and continued, flicking her gaze to Nate’s. As soon as she noticed the sympathy and understanding in his eyes, she looked away. Because it was too much right then, too endearing. “I got my first Easy-Bake oven when I was eight, and it’s still the best present I ever received. I used it all the time, until the knobs were gray with wear because the pink had rubbed off. But it was the best. And even after my mom died, I couldn’t stop. The kitchen became painful at times, an escape at others, but the baking remained. A constant. I always wanted to go to culinary school, but, well…” Jo shrugged and scratched her nails against her empty coffee cup, just to have something to do. “Life happened, as they say.”
Her gaze darted to Nate.
His lips were drawn in a line and his brows were pressed together with something almost like worry or concern…maybe even caring. “Okay.”
Jo rolled her lips into her mouth, but they spread into a smile anyway. “Okay.”
He stood abruptly, grabbed the muffin wrappers from the table, and crunched both of their empty coffee cups in his hands before depositing them into a garbage bin nearby. And then he walked back and stood over her chair, offering her a hand.
“Jolene Carter, I’m at your mercy.”
She took the help he offered, letting his more-than-capable biceps pull her to a standing position. “Why, Agent Parker, that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said.”
Just like that, a silent truce was established.
And maybe something else too.
Something she was too afraid to acknowledge as she shook her hand free and strutted out the door, leaving him to follow in her wake as she led him on what was sure to be both the greatest and most annoying day of his life.
- 14 -
Nate
When Jo said she’d saved this day to explore New York City, she’d meant explore. Good lord. They’d spent three hours on a bus tour—a hop-on, hop-off double-decker bus tour under the relentless heat of the sun with stops everywhere. From Battery Park on the southernmost tip of Manhattan, where Jo had forced him to pose for a photograph with the Statue of Liberty in the background, to Times Square, which had provided nothing more than a headache from the lights and noise, to the Empire State Building, where she’d somehow produced VIP tickets to take the elevator to the top. Nate still wasn’t convinced everything about that particular stop had been legal, but he was trying a new thing with Jolene Carter—trust.
