Melt for You (Slow Burn #2)(76)

He shakes his head and sighs dramatically. “Christ on a crutch, Miss Snufflebottom, you’re hopeless. Take the bloody things before I smack you upside the head with ’em.”

I cross to him and take the huge bouquet from his arms. “These are my favorite.” Smiling, I touch the bright-yellow petals. “They always remind me of home. My mom got them fresh from the farmers market every Friday when I was growing up.”

“I know.”

I look at him, furrowing my brow. “Have you been going through my trash or something?”

He smiles. “Mrs. Dinwiddle enjoys a good gossip.”

I laugh. “True. But . . .”

He sees my confusion and takes pity on me. “It’s our last supper, lass. The occasion seemed to call for flowers.”

“That sounds uncomfortably biblical, but thanks.” I examine his face, fresh shaven and shining. “I see you discovered you own a razor.”

He runs a hand over his jaw. “Aye. I was startin’ to appear a bit cavemannish.” His gaze drops to mine. “You fancy the proper pretty boy look, so I thought it bein’ a special night and all, I’d make an effort.”

“Scruff suits you better,” I say without thinking. “You’re way too manly to be overgroomed. All your rough edges are much more . . .”

Cam is grinning at me like a cat that just scarfed up a nice fat canary.

I huff out an aggravated breath. “Oh, shut up, prancer,” I mutter, and retreat into the kitchen to find a vase.

“No, I don’t think I will, lassie,” Cam drawls, following me. “At least not until you tell me how that sentence ends.” He sits at the kitchen table, threads his fingers behind his head, and beams at me.

“It ends with me jabbing a sharp object into your eye.” I bang around in the pantry and the cupboards under the sink until I find a vase tall enough to fit the sunflowers, then busy myself with arranging them, all the while acutely aware of Cam’s shit-eating grin aimed in my direction.

“Hot? Sexy? Devastating?” he muses aloud, clearly enjoying my embarrassment. “Hmm. She’s mute on the subject. I must be g’tting close.”

“You’re getting close to serious bodily injury. Be quiet.”

His laugh is delighted. I glance over at him and am struck by how different he looks now than he did in all those pictures I saw of him on the internet. He looks happy and at ease, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Like he belongs right there in that chair at my kitchen table.

“How come you never smile in photographs?”

His laugh dies, his smile fades, and his eyes take on a strange hardness. I sense I’ve stepped into a minefield, but I’m already here. Might as well jump right in.

“I mean, I see you smiling and laughing all the time, like you are right now, but in pictures you always look kind of . . . miserable.”

Silent, Cam looks at me for what feels like a long time. Then he says, “You can’t really be that na?ve.”

His gruff tone surprises me, as do his words. “What do you mean?”

“I mean spend a little time thinkin’ about what you just asked me, woman, and you’ll find your goddamn answer.”

I refuse to be intimidated by him, and send the same fuming stare he’s sending me right back at him. “Why are you mad at me? You said I could ask you anything!”

Our gazes clash like swords, but he’s hurt my feelings, so I won’t be the first to look away. I haven’t done anything but ask an innocent question. It’s not my fault his moods change faster than the weather.

“Ah, lassie.” He scrubs his hands over his face. His low chuckle sounds impossibly sad. “You’ll be the death of me.”

“Yeah, maybe, if you keep acting like a dick. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got pruning shears in my hand.”

He starts to laugh, low at first, building on that sad chuckle, but then he’s into full-blown guffaws, his head thrown back, one fist pounding the table.

“You’re so friggin’ weird,” I grumble, and continue arranging the sunflowers.

“And you can’t see past the end of your nose, but here we are anyway.”

“You and your ambiguous statements are gonna be the death of me, prancer. Speaking of bad vision, I have a question.”

When I turn, I find him smiling. “Of course you do.”

“Do you think I should ditch the glasses?”

“For what, a monocle?”

“Yes, a monocle,” I say sarcastically. “They’re so in style. Can you be serious for a second? This is important.”

He arranges his face into a semblance of sternness. “Aye. This is me bein’ serious. You can tell by my forbidding brow.”

When I just stare at him with a sour look, his fake serious expression is killed by another dazzling smile.

“Okay, okay. Don’t put a hex on me. The question is if I think you should ditch your glasses?”

“That is the question.”

He cocks his head, purses his lips, and takes so long examining my face I begin to blush.

“Take a picture, prancer, it’ll last longer,” I mutter, embarrassed.

“I’m tryin’ to decide how to phrase somethin’ so it won’t offend your missish nerves.”