The Complete Eagle Cove

Chapter 4 -2

Jessica jolted out of a dead sleep, the kind that only happened after her brain refused to shut off with the lights. Like a combination of drunk, hungover, and three-day old dishes. She’d laid awake for hours in a mashed-up collage of her stumbling career, the amazing meal, and Greg’s harsh words—that she’d thoroughly earned. He seemed like a nice guy doing his best to be honest and she’d slapped him with “What the hell, Slater.” Real nice. Jessica heard the grandfather clock downstairs chime two before she’d finally plummeting into true sleep.

She tried to shake off the dream that someone had been shouting Greg Slater’s name. Someone with her own voice. Jessica really had to file a complaint with the dreams department for writing such a crappy story. Guy dreams were supposed to be about handsome and sexy ones who flowed with charm. Instead she’d woken from a dream of a handsome and sexy guy who scowled like a ticked-off golden retriever—all happy, then all sad, then all happy, then…

Scrubbing at her face did little to break the mental back loop; she did not want to be thinking about Greg Slater first thing in the morning.

A quick glance showed Natalya was already up and out. The window was open and the air was warm so Jessica dragged on some shorts, waved at Linda all armed to thrash some poor Terminator’s a*s, and headed downstairs in search of cocoa—with marshmallows, goddamn it, and to hell with Greg Slater.

Aunt Gina had an instant hot water tap, so Jessica went with powdered mix and stumbled out onto the porch clutching onto her mug for dear life.

Mom was standing at the porch rail looking down at…Greg Slater just climbing the last steps up from the beach.

Greg stopped and had that same damn smile that had earned him a plate of hash browns down his pants just yesterday. Short memory if he’d forgotten the dangers. He’d forgotten. His eyes tracked down her body.

“Sorry, but you can’t blame me for smiling at this. You just can’t, Jessica.”

She looked down at herself. Her oversized nightshirt was dark blue with a faded pink declaration: I’m a woman. What’s your superpower? And it was just long enough, barely, to completely hide the fact that she was wearing shorts—shorts that didn’t hide all that much more than Greg’s running togs did. He wore lime green Nikes, gym shorts that did reveal a very nicely muscled set of legs, and a t-shirt that said: The rules of the kitchen: 1. The chef is always right. 2. See Rule #1. 3. See Rule #2.

“Is that so?”

Greg looked down to see what t-shirt he’d dragged on and then grinned back up at her, “Ab-so-tively!”

“And…” she loved it when guys just set themselves up for failure, “…since we’re not in a kitchen, does that mean that you’re always wrong?”

“Jessica!” Mom said it more as a sigh than a reprimand. “I called Greg to come up to talk about the wedding.”

“You called him?” She sipped her cocoa and the heat tried to kick start her brain. She’d started to wonder if he’d appeared in answer to her dream calling him, but it had been her mother. That was some comfort to her firm belief in how the world worked. Just as strongly as being in Eagle Cove chipped away at that world view.

Greg went up on his toes and leaned in close to peek into her mug. “Are there marshmallows in there?”

“Of course!” Then she glanced down, she’d forgotten them in her sleepy state. “Damn!”

Greg dropped back on his heels just too damn pleased with himself.

For being a woman she wasn’t feeling very superpowerful this morning. She wasn’t going to retreat, well not far. She settled onto the porch swing.

She considered doing the whole making-a-show thing of slowly crossing her legs and…being a complete b***h. Her mother had left a rumpled quilt on the swing and Jessica pulled it over her legs as she sat.

Greg settled at a small table by the rail.

Mom patted Jessica’s knee through the cover.

Jessica sipped her cocoa and offered Greg her most pleasant smile as her mother offered coffee and went in to fetch it.

Now her question had changed to What the Hell, Baxter? She should be teasing him and making him suffer for thinking that a ludicrous high school crush could possibly still mean anything so many years later. But she was touched.

And she had even less idea what the hell about that, than her career.