“That was pretty great, you’re right.” His eyes told me he was reliving the memory of me on all fours. “But this look appeals to me in a different way.”
I did a quick check of the kitchen to make sure no one was paying us any attention. “In what way?”
“In a quid pro quo kind of way.”
I rolled my eyes. Apparently someone had gotten an A in Willow Springs English. “Why’s that?”
“Because every time you make fun of how tightly my jeans hug my backside, I can throw the same thing right back at you.”
I didn’t need to look to confirm he was inspecting my backside. Lily’s borrowed jeans suddenly seemed to be squeezing the hell out of my ass.
“Don’t you have some cows to milk or something?” I elbowed his stomach. Yep, it was just as hard as it’d been last night.
Jesse laughed and shook his head. “We’re not a dairy farm here, Rowen. We’re a beef ranch.”
Sorry, I didn’t speak hick. His chuckling unsettled me in a couple different ways.
“Then maybe you could go unload another truckload of ginormous bags.” A clamp for my mouth would have so come in handy.
“So that was you spying on me again last night,” he said, his voice so damn confident. “I knew someone was watching me, and I figured it was you.”
I glared at those six pancakes. Still no bubbles. “And why would you figure it was me?”
“Well, you know,” he said.
“No, I don’t know.”
He leaned his hip into the counter. “Given your track record of spying on me.”
“For Pete’s sake,” I said, tempted to dump the bowl of batter over his head. “I wasn’t spying on you in the laundry room. I was hiding from you.”
“You were hiding from me?” He crossed his arms.
I nodded.
“And what about last night when you were watching me from your window? Were you hiding from me then?” My hands actually moved for the batter bowl.
“I had 911 on standby in case you keeled over from a heart attack lifting one of those suckers,” I snapped back. “It was my civic duty. Now, if you’re done harassing me for one morning, I’ve got some pancakes to attend to.”
Jesse glanced at the pancakes, and he looked like he was about to bust up laughing before he caught himself. “I’m done harassing you for one morning. But do you think it’d be all right if I offered a heartfelt apology?”
Say what?
I studied his face to see if it was some kind of trick to get me to continue battling it out with him, but his expression was flat. His eyes clear.
“Proceed,” I said with a wave of my magic spatula.
Jesse sucked in a breath before proceeding. “I’m sorry for what I said last night. I had no right to stick my nose into your business and start making assumptions about your life.” His words flowed with such ease it seemed he’d rehearsed them. “I’ve only known you a couple of days. That’s not long at all. I don’t know you well enough to pretend like I know you and your problems. But I want to know you. I want to know your problems. That is . . . if you want to know me.”
One corner of my mouth pulled up. Luckily, it was on the side he couldn’t see. Jesse could make one hell of an apology. I had to give him that.
But I couldn’t let him off so easily.
“Why do you want to know me better?” I said, checking the outlet to make sure the griddle was still plugged in because those suckers were not bubbling. “So you can tease me more specifically? So you can expose my weakness and take advantage of it?”
Jesse moved a step closer. I felt his upper half against my side. I grabbed the ledge of the counter again. “So when I ask you on a date, I’ll know where to take you to really impress you.” His mouth was so close to my ear I felt the warmth of his breath.
I whipped my head around to meet his eyes. Damn. He was dead serious. His gaze drifted to my mouth right as the kitchen door flew open again.
“Save some of the food for us, Jesse!” a man’s voice ordered good-naturedly as a staggered line of men in hats and boots streamed into the kitchen.
Jesse stepped away from me, but he didn’t look away. Before turning toward the table, he tilted his chin at me. “Check those pancakes. I think they’re smoking.” His dimples set into his cheeks. “What can I say? I have that effect on things.”
I was ready to glare at him when that burnt smell entered my nose. A quick inspection of the griddle revealed that my lovely golden pancakes were, indeed, smoking.
“Shoot,” I said, unsure how I managed to censor myself in the midst of my first attempt at breakfast going up in flames. Or, up in smoke. “They never bubbled!” I fumbled with the spatula and tried to slide it under the center pancakes.
Even through the hustle and bustle of the rest of the ranch hands making their way into the room, I heard Jesse’s amused chuckle from back at the table.
“They don’t bubble once you flip them over, silly,” Lily said, appearing out of nowhere. Grabbing the spatula, she had all of those pancakes off the griddle faster than I could have removed one of them.
“Then how do you know when they’re done?” I asked, grimacing when I saw the damage. One side was golden brown, and the other side was a crispy char black.
Lily dropped a pat of butter onto the griddle, swirled it around, then poured six more pancakes. “You just get a feel for it. Through a lot of trial and error.” Her eyes dropped to the ruined pancakes, and she smiled.