Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley, #2)(26)
Everyone had stopped eating. Leo’s forkful of prawns was poised a few inches from his mouth, frozen there as he listened to me position this in the worst possible way. Oscar gave me a long, hard look, then shrugged and returned his attention to his plate. “There’s no story here.”
Hmmm. No one without a story has ever said there’s no story here. But this wasn’t the time to dig.
“You know what, let’s table this for now. Let me finish touring the town, get to know the DNA a bit more, before we start thinking about anything concrete.” I turned to Oscar. “So, I hear you’ve got a huge barn. Care to show it me sometime?”
Roxie started coughing, and Leo handed her a glass of water and patted her on the back. “You okay there, Sugar Snap?”
I just grinned at Oscar. Who actually grinned back. Now that I’d talked to him, and been kissed by him, my old confidence had returned. He’d be putty in my hands soon enough—they always were.
Oscar leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table. “My barn is enormous.”
My internal soundtrack immediately began to play Salt-N-Pepa’s “Shoop,” but it was hard to hear over Roxie’s coughing.
After lunch was over, Roxie and Leo left to clean up, leaving me alone with Oscar.
“So, all kidding aside, I did really hear about your barn. Roxie said it’s over two hundred years old?”
“Two hundred and seven, built out of local fieldstone.”
“And has the farm been in your family all that time?”
“Nope.”
“Let me guess: two hundred and six?”
“Nope.” He didn’t say much, but the corner of his mouth lifted.
I snorted. “You really do have a knack for scintillating conversation, as I’m sure you’ve been told.”
“Says the girl who, until today, only knew two words,” he said, lifting an eyebrow as well.
As a blush came into my cheeks, his warm hands closed around mine. “I say plenty.” His voice was low and soothing. “When the mood strikes.”
All the air left the room. And then thirty seconds later, so did he. When Roxie and Leo came back into the room, I was grinning like a schoolgirl. Or an idiot.
“How do you always manage to con me into doing dishes, Callahan?”
“You do the dishes because your cooking sucks, Grayson.”
I nodded at the suds in the sink. “Not to put too fine a point on it.”
“Hey, They Might Be Giants, you’re slacking.” Roxie set down a stack of plates she’d just cleared from the table. “Get your ass in gear or I’ll make you come down to the diner and prep potatoes.”
“This isn’t culinary school; you can’t pretend to boss me around anymore,” I said, taking the plates. “You boss Leo around like this?”
“Only when he wants me to.” She winked and went back to clearing the table. “Believe me, Leo is happy to do the dishes if he knows I’ll keep cooking for him.”
“Well look at you, little miss I’ll Never Fall in Love, cooking for her man and happy to do it. Not to mention his rug rat.”
“I’m getting soft in my old age, what can I say?” she said, wiping the table. “Is it terrible to admit that there are nights when I look across at the two of them, enjoying my fried chicken or meat loaf or stuffed peppers and I think, why the hell did I wait so long to give over to this?”
“You did it when you were supposed to,” I replied, rinsing the last dish. “And who the hell makes stuffed peppers for a kid? You should be reported; that’s just wrong.”
“It did feel very fated—coming back home after all these years, stumbling into Leo and his nuts . . . maybe it was supposed to happen.” Dreamily she came to rest next to me at the sink. “Think Oscar might stumble into you with his nuts?”
“He’s a dairy farmer,” I said, laughing. “I’ve been more focused on his milk can.”
Roxie snorted. “He is ridiculously good-looking.”
“I know!” I cried, turning to face her and leaning against the sink. “He kissed me.”
“Shut up.”
“I sure won’t. He kissed me in the barn. And he told me I had a great big ass.”
“Whoa, what?” She looked around for a torch and a pitchfork.
“Easy, stand down. He put a comma in exactly the right place.”
“He didn’t put anything else in the right place, did he?”
I smiled. “Not yet.”
“Well, thank God. It’s been messing with my head to think that there was a man out there that Natalie Grayson couldn’t snare. It was, like, a whole new world order.”
“Oh stop it.”
“Seriously, there’s never been a guy that you couldn’t figure out, sort out, wrap around your finger, and make him move heaven and earth just to be with you.”
I swallowed. “Come on, Rox.” I turned back to the sink, rinsing out the final bit of suds as she prattled on behind me.
“You’ve always been the Dude Whisperer. You can see right through them, decide what makes them tick, then relax and enjoy, knowing that they’re yours for as long as you want. No man stands a chance with Natalie Grayson.”