The Lemon Sisters (Wildstone #3)(51)

As Garrett set the oven, Linc pointed to his jeans. “Did you know you have cat hair all over you?”

Everyone looked at Garrett, who was indeed wearing cat hair from the knees down. He shrugged. “They like me.”

“They’re not rubbing up against you because they like you,” Linc said. “They’re doing it to mark you as their bitch.”

Garrett gave him a banal look. “I beat you in arm wrestling all the time. So who’s whose bitch?” He shifted away from the oven, having to brush up against Brooke to do so.

The last time she’d seen him, she’d been bare-ass naked and he’d been fully dressed. It should’ve pissed her off, but it had done the opposite. It’d turned her on. “I’m up for pizza rolls,” she said. “I’ll be in the outside closet. Someone let me know when they’re ready.”

“It’s a pool house,” Mindy said. “And you’ve already had too much alone time. Wait with us for the artery clogging. Please?”

The “please” was progress, and Brooke let out a long breath. “Just so you know, my alone time is for your safety.”

Mindy made a face and Linc laughed.

“Hey,” Linc said when Mindy glared at him. “You’re the one who needed her own alone time in LA.”

“Marriage,” Garrett said in the tone of an off-camera narrator. “When dating goes too far.”

“Someone tell the old cat lady to stay out of this,” Linc said.

Garrett told Linc he was number one with his middle finger.

THE OVEN DINGED and Brooke pushed past the guys, grabbed a hot mitt, and pulled out the perfectly browned, deliciously cheese-and-meat-stuffed pizza rolls. “Yum.”

Garrett reached past Brooke to grab a pizza roll, which he popped into his mouth. “Shit. Hot . . .” He waved a hand in front of his mouth, which didn’t stop him from taking another.

“I haven’t had pizza rolls since I was a kid,” Brooke said, watching Garrett eat. Did the guy have a hollow leg? Where did he put all the food he inhaled every day?

Catching her staring at him, he picked up another pizza roll and brought it to her lips.

Surprising herself, she opened her mouth and took it, barely resisting biting his fingers while she was at it. He must have seen the urge in her eyes because he laughed low in his throat.

Mindy had her hands on her hips, staring at them both. She turned to Garrett, eyes narrowed. “What was that?”

Clearly Mindy thought Garrett had just made some sort of move. Of course she had no way of knowing it was all old news.

Really old news.

“Can I talk to you a minute?” Mindy asked Garrett.

Oh boy, thought Brooke.

“Sure,” Garrett said easily.

“No,” Brooke said.

“I didn’t ask you,” Mindy said.

When Garrett didn’t make a move to step out of the room with her, Mindy grabbed his arm.

He planted his feet, taking the time to grab a third pizza roll before letting her tow him out the back door by his biceps and across the yard, backing him up against his truck before getting in his face.

Which Brooke knew because she and Linc both moved to the window over the sink to watch. “Your wife is scary,” she said.

“No offense, but all the Lemons are scary.”

He had her there.

Outside, Garrett did the universal male hands-up not-my-fault gesture, and Mindy backed off an inch. Garrett calmly said something and Mindy listened with her head turned away, toward the street. Finally, she nodded.

Garrett straightened up and they hugged. Then, with a ruffle of her hair, he walked off.

He didn’t look back. Fine. Whatever. He really didn’t want her. There were plenty of other men who would.

Probably.

Maybe.

“I thought you were going to fix things between the two of you,” she said to Linc.

“I’m working on it. In fact, I had an announcement to aid my cause, but then you ate a pizza roll out of Garrett’s fingers like you two are a thing.”

“We’re not a thing! And anyway, what is this, high school? What’s your announcement?”

“You’ll see.”

Mindy walked back into the house and Linc took her hand. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said.

“You do?”

“Yeah.” He proudly thrust a file folder into her hands.

Mindy opened the file and looked at the papers. Brooke watched her face go from curiosity to dread.

Clearly, Linc didn’t read the mood change. “I bought you the shop,” he said proudly.

Oh, dear God. Dead husband walking, and he didn’t even know it.

Mindy lifted her head and stared at him. “Wait. Are you serious? You bought me the shop? Without talking to me about it?”

His smile faded some. “We did talk about it, lots of times. It’s all you’ve ever wanted.”

“Yes, years ago . . .” Mindy turned away and started for the door, but stopped and turned back. “But you know what we just talked about? The fact that you work nonstop and we never have any time together. We don’t do date nights, nothing. You travel to do surgeries on weekends at clinics, and I . . . I run this life we planned together, all by myself.” She shook her head. “I already don’t have time to breathe, and you . . .” She stared at him. “I can’t believe you did this, that you clearly talked to my parents and spent that kind of money before discussing it with me.”