The Bad Boy of Bluebonnet(25)

“Thank you, J,” Emily said softly. She had wisps of her blonde hair floating around her face and blew at one corner of her eye to move it. “I appreciate it.”

“Don’t think I’ll stick around for lunch,” he said, giving Braden a meaningful look. He noticed the man seemed to be hovering closer to Emily than before. Fucking little cocksucker asshole.

“I…oh. Okay.” Was that disappointment on her face? If it was, Emily hid it well. “Do you want me to pack you something?”

“Nah,” he said, and he should have just turned and let things go. But he just couldn’t. He strode forward and pushed past Braden, who was standing too close, and moved to Emily’s side. He brushed that piece of hair off of her brow and tucked it behind her ear, then leaned in to whisper at her. “Can I pick you up at eight tonight, though? For some you and me time?”

“Sure,” Emily breathed, looking up at him with that soft look that never ceased to make his dick hard.

“Great,” he said, smiling at her. “I’ll be back later, then.”

“I’ll listen for your bike.”

He grinned at her, turned and gave Braden a back-the-fuck-off look, and then strolled out to the front of the house. Then, he decided that being the bigger man was fucking stupid. So he turned around, walked back into the house, and gave Emily a hard, possessive kiss. Right in front of her ex. Suck on that, Braden. With a wink at Emily, he turned and left again.

Even with his boots resonating on the wooden floors, he still heard Braden’s disapproving snort. “Just friends, huh?”

Yeah, one way or another, Jericho was going to figure out where this was going with Emily tonight. Because he didn’t believe that ‘just friends’ bullshit either.

It was time to figure out what they were. Or if they were anything at all.





CHAPTER FIVE



By the time eight rolled around that night, Emily was ready to run out of her house, screaming.

It wasn’t anything big, of course. There were just a myriad of small things that were driving her up a wall.

Like Braden. He was being nice and polite and kind to her. He was also hovering and being a little possessive, and she didn’t know how to take that.

He insisted that her house was likely still haunted, and her ghosts were ‘dormant’. They just didn’t like visitors, he told her. And when she pointed out that the lights no longer flickered because the wiring had been fixed, he gave her a pitying look. He pooh-poohed her suggestion of the opossums and how she hadn’t heard any noises since.

His EMF meter, he said, was reading something, and therefore she still had ghosts. What Emily thought didn’t matter. That was typical, she thought with annoyance. With Braden, it had never mattered what Emily thought.

And then there was his crew. When they’d started to set up cameras, she’d put her foot down and protested. No filming in her house. She didn’t want to be on television. Braden had spent most of the afternoon trying to coax her into changing her mind, and when that hadn’t worked, reminded her that his name was also on the mortgage documents and theoretically, it was his house, too. And when Emily got angry at that, he backed off and suggested that they film another house in the area instead, and they’d just rent rooms from Emily.

Which was fine, and she prepared three rooms for his six crew.

Except…every time she turned around, someone was hiding a tape recorder or setting up a camera tripod. She’d heard the excuse “just testing equipment” so many times that afternoon that she wanted to scream. She knew if she left for five minutes, they’d start filming.

And she didn’t know what to do to stop it. So leaving tonight? Bad idea.

But if she cancelled on Jericho, he’d think she was choosing her ex over him.

And she really, really didn’t want him to think that.

So she stewed and watched people hide cameras behind their backs when she walked into the room, and eventually retreated to her kitchen to bake until eight that night.

She baked oatmeal raisin cookies. She did not bake éclairs.

When the motorcycle roared outside, she was just pulling the last pan of baked goods out of the oven. She set it on a cooling rack, grabbed the bag of cookies she’d made for Jericho, and tore her apron off, heading for the front door.

Braden was there as she left. “Hey, Em, can we talk?”

Of all the timing… “Does it have to be right now?”

He stared down at the bag of cookies in her hand. “Is that for your ‘friend’?”

“If it is, I don’t see what business it is of yours.” But she felt guilty all the same.