Page 26 of Worth Loving
“And it looks it. This is great. It’s huge. Definitely more than one person can eat.”
“That’s because you’re just a little thing.”
She laughed, some of the sadness he’d seen earlier gone for a brief flash. “I’m hardly little. I’m the tallest of the girls in my family.”
“Oh, there is more than one of you?” he asked. “Bet your father had to fight the guys off.”
“Not usually for me,” she said and looked away.
There was some bitterness there. “I’m sure you’re being modest. How many other girls are there?”
He never asked personal questions like this and wasn’t sure why he was.
Maybe because spending the morning with Jonah and having Sheila bust his ass that he needed a woman in his life stuck more than it had before.
And if he ever attempted to bring someone in, he had to know enough about them. Or them to know some more about him.
Molly already knew he had a son, so that alone was one step ahead of most.
“I’ve got an older sister, Erika. She was the popular one. I wasn’t. So you know, I didn’t get that kind of attention. Gota brother, Matt, who’s older too. And if I’m really confessing things, I found out about seven years ago I’ve got a half-sister I never knew about. Why am I telling you all of this?”
She was shaking her head and looking around as if the answer would magically appear out of nowhere.
He reached over and patted her hand. “I’m used to it and trust me when I say I’ve heard it all. But I still think you’re being modest.”
Her eyes flickered up and met his when he touched her. He just had to. He wanted to see why she was haunting his dreams. Shit, why she was haunting his waking hours too.
Her blue eyes dilated, her breath came out in a tiny whoosh, and he got the answer he was waiting for.
She was feeling the attraction as much as him, yet for some reason he could see the doubt when it wasn’t there last week.
If it had to do with him having a kid, she wouldn’t have come back, so it couldn’t be that.
“I bet. My life isn’t all that exciting,” she told him.
“I wouldn’t know by looking at you. They say blondes have all the fun, but I bet redheads have the most.”
She coughed on her lunch, then picked up her seltzer. “Or we are the devil’s daughter,” she said. “I’ve heard that a few times too.”
“I haven’t,” he said. “You probably don’t have a mean bone in your body.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Or I try not to.”
“Dean.” He turned and looked at one of the waitresses who came in from the kitchen. “Marcus needs to see you.”
He sighed. “I’ll be right back. Temperamental chef. Maybe I’ll threaten him with you breaking down his dishes if he wants to give me shit. Sheila,” he said to another bartender, “cover me while I deal with Marcus.”
He went to the back and felt like strangling the man who was cock blocking him without even knowing. “We’re short ribs,” Marcus said, stalking around.
The little man—in Dean’s eyes—was almost burning a hole in the floor with his pacing. “You’re a short rib?” he asked, knowing that Marcus would snarl back. He did. “Or we don’t have enough ribs for the menu?”
“I wanted to have ribs on for the special tomorrow. They need to marinate overnight. I told you that over the weekend. You said you’d have them here.”
“And they are,” Dean said. “They were delivered yesterday afternoon.”
“There aren’t enough,” Marcus argued, walking over and pointing to the pile on the counter.
He knew there was more than that. “I ordered what you told me.”
