Sweet and Salty (Marshall My Heart #1)

10. Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

J esse

This is a terrible idea. Borderline stalkerish.

Then again, it wasn’t the best idea to go out last night after I closed the hardware store to pick up the ring light at the big box store an hour south of St. Olaf. If she doesn’t want it, what the fuck am I going to do with a ring light? I hadn’t gone on social media before I was in witness protection, much to Esme’s dismay.

But I’m not thinking of Esme. Not anymore. That bridge didn’t just burn, it was torched to ash and soot, barely even a memory. A memory that still stings, but I can get over it. I will get over it.

“It’s an apology, nothing more.” I tuck my chin into the collar of the windbreaker as I cut through the tree line between the cabin and her house. There’s something warm and comforting about stepping onto Laura Marshall’s property. It reminds me a bit of my Grandma’s place, minus the stifling Georgia humidity. Even the sun is warmer on this side of the woods.

This early in the morning, the flat landscape of her farm is well-kept and pleasant. The barn looks inviting, and not just if one happens to be hooved.

My professional eye finds the pigs in the barnyard first. They are clearly well-loved animals, fat and rooting in the dirt at their feet. The dog isn’t out yet. Maybe Laura lets him warm her bed.

No. No, I’m not thinking about Laura in bed.

I’m just going to drop the ring light off at her back door and then head home, get some work done on the shack—sorry, cabin—and then head into the hardware store. Maybe Moe will show up today and spare me from the constant parade of townspeople, all of whom have discovered single relatives of all genders I “just have to meet.”

In some ways, it’s nice, sort of like a golden age musical, and I half expect the town to break into an artistic swim number in the middle of the town square. In other ways, it reminds me of exactly why I shouldn’t find any amusement here whatsoever. This is temporary. This is about as real as one of those Busby Berkley films, and far less shining and glittery. I’m only here until I testify, and then hopefully Johnny Mack and his whole posse will be behind bars and I can return to my real life.

My real life. Working almost twenty hours a day, on the road for most of that, or fielding calls at two in the morning. All for what Esme called “barely minimum wage.” But it had been my dream. I’d loved it, despite the long hours and the exhaustion and the pay that didn’t buy Esme everything she had demanded.

For a moment, I wish a hole would open, there in the middle of a Wisconsin field, and swallow me whole. Maybe it would transport me back to seven years ago, before I ever met Esme or got the job at the race track. I’d still be in Ft. Lauderdale, rolling down the highways and through the swamps in my SUV, doing house calls.

The memory of that tastes so sweet, like a bright cherry-red lollipop bursting on my tongue.

I greet the pigs as I walk by their pen and step up to the back door of the farmhouse. From this perspective, the flowers on the wall are as large as palm fronds, their petals rounded and soft, like they could drift down and cover me at any moment. It would be a soft, cozy death, wrapped in their scent.

Far better than freezing my ass off here next winter.

None of this matters. Focus, Jesse. I have a delivery and an apology.

I knock on the door and immediately regret it. Of course she won’t answer. It’s six in the morning and her bakery doesn’t open for another two hours.

“Just leave it, doofus,” I tell myself. I bend down to set the bag with the ring light and the bubblegum lollipop inside the door jamb.

And at that exact moment, the door opens. Straight into my forehead with a resounding gong-like thud that echoes throughout my body.

“Oh my gosh!”

At least that’s what I think I hear but the knock on my head unleashes a buzzing, whirring sort of noise that dampens everything else.

Don’t pass out; don’t pass out.

I almost pass out.

Two warm hands grip my biceps and hold me aloft. “Do you have a concussion? What on earth are you doing out here? I could have shot you.”

My vision clears enough to see that Laura is in a furry purple robe and blue pajama pants with neon-orange cheese slices on them. And she’s holding what is either a Taser or a very sturdy flashlight.

“Don’t shoot,” I say weakly.

She rolls her eyes and pulls me inside. “Sit. There, at the table. I’ll get you an ice pack.”

I touch the growing knob on my forehead and wince. “That’s a sharp door you have there.”

My vision swirls and darkens before clearing again. She has her hair up in a loose bun atop her head, like a ball of fluffy brown cotton candy.

“My door doesn’t usually get so many complaints.” Laura crosses to the stainless steel freezer, her slippers shucking across the hardwood floors. Now that I can see, her appliances are all top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art models, slightly incongruous in the otherwise vintage farmhouse look she has going. It all makes sense, I suppose, in the mystery that is Laura Marshall.

“Here.” She hands me an ice pack, wrapped in a kitchen towel that’s embroidered with dozens of tiny, bright red cherries. “What are you doing here? It’s the crack of fricking dawn.”

I hold the ice pack to my forehead with one hand and gesture to the bag with the ring light with my other. “I wanted to drop this off. It sounded important. I didn’t know if it could wait until after work.” What a terrible fucking excuse, but I have a concussion. I’m not on my A game. Not that I need an A game with her.

I just need to lie down.

Laura sticks her finger in my face, and my eyelids snap to attention. “No. You cannot go to sleep.”

“But I’m tired. It’s six in the morning.” To prove my point, I yawn.

Laura looks like she’s holding in a laugh. “I have so many nurses in my family who would be screaming in my ear right now, telling me not to let you fall asleep.”

“Concussion protocols have changed.” The ice pack seems to be calming down the pain and heat from my lump. “Sleep is restorative for a lot of things.”

Laura clucks. “If you tell me I should have gone to nursing school, I’m going to have Einstein hit you in the head with his tail.” Hearing his voice, her Golden Retriever wags his long, shaggy tail.

Dogs are the best. I hold out my hand, and Einstein sniffs it once before effectively plastering himself to my side for rubs. My fingers sink into his soft fur. I think I’m in love.

“I won’t.” I say. “I’m sorry I surprised you. I can’t believe you have a Taser.”

“I’m a single woman living alone in the country. Be grateful I didn’t bring out my shotgun.” She moves around the kitchen, pulling out mugs and filling her electric kettle. “Do you want coffee or tea?”

Einstein barks and leaves me to follow his mom around the kitchen. I suppose tea does sound a lot like treat.

“Coffee, please.” A confusing warmth tightens around my lower spine. “So you do make coffee at home.”

“Only for grumps with concussions who come bearing gifts.” She sits down opposite me at her worn kitchen table. “It will be ready in a moment.”

I like her kitchen. It feels so homey and cozy and…right. The house I shared with Esme was never like this. It was imported marble and chrome, and Esme had some sort of diffuser that made the whole house smell like a nightclub. Laura’s house smells like a favorite local restaurant.

Maybe I should see a doctor. Nothing about this is right.

Einstein burrows himself into a ball between me and Laura. My feet scrape through his fur, and when I touch Laura’s leg with mine, I realize she’s doing the same thing.

She looks so pretty first thing in the morning, her face still brushed with sleep. I can’t smell her breath, but I have a feeling even that won’t be awful. Esme used to have the worst morning breath.

“I really am sorry,” I repeat. “I shouldn’t have just stopped by. It’s only that you said the light was important, and I wanted to catch you before you left for work.” Somewhat awkwardly, I hand her the bag. “I shouldn’t have been so grouchy with you the other day. My grandma raised me better than that.”

A flush spreads across her pretty cheeks, but she turns as the kettle whistles with steam. She stands from the table. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this, but I appreciate it.”

“Sure.” A warmth spreads through me that has everything to do with her acceptance of my apology and nothing to do with the way the purple robe hugs her round ass. It’s far too early in the morning to be getting hard thinking about my next-door neighbor. On the table, her phone buzzes, but she ignores it. “Is that important?” I ask, gesturing.

“Doubtful.” She busies herself with the process of making hot beverages. “I’ve been getting so many spam calls and texts lately. I just delete them without even looking.”

No one calls me, apart from Harbor, but that’s his job. That’s one of the weird, sad things about Witness Protection. I hadn’t thought I had a lot of friends before, but now since I’ve evaporated off the planet with the help of the US government, I don’t have anyone.

I thought I’d like the silence more.

“I like your house,” I say quietly. “You have a lot of animals.”

“That’s what I do,” she replies, back still to me. “Rescue lost causes.”

“Like pigs and donkeys and grumpy assholes who invade your space too early in the morning?”

Her back rolls like she’s holding in a laugh. “Exactly. Everyone’s welcome here.”

I glance out the kitchen window. Maybe it’s the concussion or the smell of hot coffee, but my shoulders relax down from their permanent fixture around my ears. “It’s funny. I thought you had three pigs.”

Oops. My mouth slams shut. Now she’ll know I’ve been looking over here. Or she just adopted out one of them and she’s grieving. Fuck, way to blow it, Jesse.

She turns, kettle in one hand. “I do have three pigs.”

“Oh. I only saw two in the yard.”

Her eyes widen and she runs to the door, kettle still in her hand, whispering, “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.” In an instant, I’m beside her, plucking the hot kettle from her hands a moment before boiling water splashes up and out of the spout. “Fricking Edward,” she grumbles, stomping outside in her slippers. “Why is it always fricking Edward? Edward!”

Einstein barks, his tail wagging madly, like he’s the one who planned this entire escapade.

I grab a basket of blueberry muffins that’s sitting beside the refrigerator and follow her outside. “Edward!”

We move into the paddock, where the remaining two pigs ignore us, undoubtedly not wanting to get involved in any sort of detective interrogation. Einstein runs beside us, his paws flying over the wet ground, while my feet sink into the mud. “Edward!” I call.

“You don’t need to help chase down my pig.” She crosses the paddock, inspecting the spot where the pig clearly slid through the mud and out into the world beyond. “I should have checked the fence.”

“Pigs like to dig. They’re better escape artists than Houdini.” I break off a piece of muffin and hand it to her.

Her eyebrow narrows over her left eye as she takes the muffin. “I’m not hungry.”

“It’s not for you. It’s to entice the pig. He’ll come home when he’s hungry. We can lay a trail for him.” I point at the muddy hoof prints crossing the field. “Or we can follow his path.”

“You don’t need to help.” She sniffs and climbs over the fence, her robe catching on the post. I loosen it for her, the fabric warm and soft beneath my palm. She has on pajama pants with bright purple bunnies printed on them.

“I don’t mind. I’ve caught many a wayward pig in my day.”

“Really? Do tell.”

Why do I want to entertain this woman? I open my mouth to regale her with the time I nearly broke my leg jumping on a wet, muddy, runaway pig when I remember that I’m not supposed to say anything at all about my past. Even something like this might bring up a lot of questions I’m not able to answer.

My shoulders hunch. Einstein jumps for a muffin, but I hold it out of his reach. “It’s not that interesting of a story.” I keep my gaze firmly on the ground and the muddy hoof prints.

“Too bad. Good to know we’re not a pair of pig-wrestling noobs.”

That sets off a flurry of fantasies of Laura, half-naked and wet, rolling on the ground. Preferably beneath me. But no. That’s definitely not going to happen.

The muddy hoof prints fade in the grass as we near the tree line by my cabin. “Edward!” we call. I drop pieces of muffin in our wake.

Einstein sniffs them, but after tasting one, runs off to chase a patch of sun by the paddock.

“This seems like a waste of good muffins,” I tell her.

“Hardly.” She whistles loudly into the trees. “They’re a day old and probably stale. I like to experiment at home, but some never really turn out.”

I sniff one experimentally. It smells like heaven met almonds and they had a floral, citrusy baby. It tastes better.

“Holy shit, these are delicious.”

She turns to me, her eyes wide and her mouth in a huge grin. “I can’t believe you ate our bait!”

“I had to try it. If it’s terrible, Edward will never come home.”

Laughing, she hits my shoulder playfully, and the contact sends a jarring zing through my whole body. Her body shakes slightly and she catches my gaze. Her eyes are a kaleidoscope of green hues, each playing against the other. Laura Marshall is definitely lovely.

The moment stretches between us, and I unconsciously take a step toward her.

Then a rustling sound in the undergrowth of the trees separates us. Laura reacts first, grabbing another muffin from the basket I’m holding. “Edward,” she croons, scattering crumbs in an arc around herself. “Is that you? Come on out, sweetheart.”

A black-and-white piebald pig waddles out of the tree line, snuffling for the muffin bits.

“See?” I whisper, not wanting to startle the pig and send him running again. “Your muffins are magic. They’re total pig bait.”

She snorts and shoves a hand over her mouth to hold in the laugh, but I can’t help myself. I like Laura’s laugh. It’s the only thing that has made me smile in a very, very, very long time.

“I mean,” I say, leaning in close enough to catch her intoxicating smell of almonds and roses. “You could put that on your sign in the bakery: Get Your Pig Bait Here.”

That is far too much for her. She collapses into giggles beside me, her shoulders shaking, and, glory of glories, she hits me again. Pleasure blooms through me. Chasing pigs isn’t usually an enjoyable business, but I’m definitely enjoying this.

Then my heart stops. Being a man with a medical background, I hadn’t thought it possible, but there it is.

Laura Marshall is model-gorgeous when she laughs. Her hair slips from her bun, cascading in rich brown waves over her shoulders. Her cheeks are pink and she laughs with her entire body, her shoulders, tits, and stomach undulating with glee.

It’s a beautiful thing to see.

Then a cold pig snout pushes into my hand, breaking my concentration. “Hi, Edward.”

That damned pig sure knows how to make a nuisance of himself.