Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(24)

Making a mental note to smack Montrose later—twice—Jacob powered through. “Any decisions I may have come to before you hit me with your car were invalidated the moment you hit me with your car.”

Eve had the grace to look awkward. “Er, yes, sorry about that.” She turned and hurried over to the stove, grabbing a box of eggs. “The thing is, I thought helping out while you were under the weather might go some way toward atoning for that grieving mistake.”

Jacob scowled at the back of her head. There was nothing worse than someone making a valid point during an argument he intended to win. “Look,” he began. But then Eve moved toward the pantry, grabbed a fresh loaf of bread, and shut the pantry door . . . with her hip.

And good God, what a hip.

Jacob’s jaw clenched as several muscles in his body tightened without permission. His eyes glued to Eve’s back of their own accord, focusing on the place where her knotted apron strings grazed the strip of bare skin between her borrowed T-shirt and her jeans. “Don’t do that,” he growled. Really, it was a growl. Like a dog. Jacob immediately wanted to shoot himself.

She turned around, a line appearing between her eyebrows. “Do what?”

And now his choices were: either to say out loud Don’t move things with your body that belongs to you, or to pretend he’d made an involuntary noise as part of a concussion-related seizure. “Nothing,” he muttered, biting the inside of his cheek. “Look, I’m . . . glad things are going well down here. And that you started breakfast, and so on.”

Eve smiled, a real smile—the bright, sunshine one that lit up entire rooms, possibly entire worlds. He felt a bit dazed. As a concussed man who’d only just woken up, it probably wasn’t safe for him to be exposed to such things. “I’m sorry,” she said teasingly, “was that a compliment?”

His reply was automatic. “No.”

“A positive comment of some sort directed at me, then? Ah, ah.” She held up a finger to cut off his response. “Don’t bother to answer. I’m quite certain it was.” And then she was off, back to the stove again, leaving Jacob feeling . . . odd. Flushed. Perhaps he should go back to the hospital. His reactions were all wrong this morning, and he was becoming concerned.

“This conversation isn’t over,” he said, which made no sense, because it clearly should be. He was sliding backward down a very steep hill, and Eve was pushing him with one finger and laughing all the way. “The fact remains that I didn’t hire you, and—” He paused beside her, squinting at the flash of white hiding beneath the braids she’d pinned over her ears. “Bloody hell, are you still wearing that fucking earbud?”

She flicked him a cool look. “Language, Mr. Wayne. I’m sure the guests don’t want your foul mouth served with their tea.”

“I—you—” Jacob was pretty sure steam had just shot out of his ears.

“Trust me,” she went on, “you want me to wear the earbud. Music helps me concentrate on the order of things.”

That made not a lick of sense.

But then, Jacob supposed, his own methods of focusing had never made much sense to other people, either.

“And the alternative,” she went on, “is to let me sing to myself, which would probably disrupt the guests’ eggs something awful.”

“I can’t decide if you’re serious or if you’re just being a—”

“Returning to the subject at hand, I think I have a solution to your latest stick up the arse,” she said, briskly cutting him off. “Yesterday, before—well, before—you were blathering on about a trial, correct?”

“Incorrect,” he shot back. “I do not blather.”

She stared at him for a moment before murmuring, “Dear God, you are so much fun.”

He hadn’t picked up any of the usual indicators—excessive emphasis on unexpected words, for example—but that absolutely had to be sarcasm. Even if Eve was currently watching him with a gleam of amusement in her eye.

“Anyway,” she continued, “the point is, you wanted to trial me. So trial me.”

He frowned. “I beg your pardon?” A trial? Surely she didn’t mean—

“Let me make you breakfast.” Apparently she did mean. Interesting. “Here, sit down.” She wrapped a hand around his elbow, and Jacob jolted like he’d been shocked. Shit. She snatched her hand away. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “Er, sorry. Do you not like to be—I shouldn’t have—”

“Bruises,” he lied through gritted teeth. Because he couldn’t exactly say, It appears physical contact with you has an atypical effect on my nervous system. And yet, it did. An effect that made him hyperaware of the flimsy jersey pajama pants he currently wore, pants that did nothing to hide an erection.

Not that he had an erection. That would be ridiculous. That would be obscene.

He was just a little bit worried that he might eventually get one, perhaps, for some reason. Who knew? You could never be too careful about these things.

“I’m going back upstairs,” he blurted, striding toward the door. “Going upstairs to . . . change. And things. Later. I’ll come down later. To . . . test you. Erm . . . keep up the barely acceptable work.”

“Barely acceptable?!”