Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 62643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
“It’s Charlton,” I interrupted gruffly. “He doesn’t go by Junior anymore.”
“Oh.” Alana blinked at me, then blinked some more. “Yeah. Okay.”
Charlie shot me a quick look I couldn’t interpret before turning and patting my sister’s arm. “Of course, Alana. Happy to stick around, if it’s okay with Hunter. I love an orange-spice cranberry sauce.”
I snorted. “You would.” Then I shrugged and added in a grumble, “Fine. But this doesn’t count as part of the date.”
Alana and Charlie each gave me a look this time, and both were easy to interpret. My sister’s suggested I’d lost my mind, while Charlie’s said he was close to laughter. I wasn’t sure which was more irritating.
“What’s got you so grumpy?” Alana demanded later when Charlie was deep in conversation with Caroline and a couple of older ladies about the pros and cons of using star anise—whatever that was—in cranberry sauce. “You got your reveng-apology at last, and Mom’s already taken her shift and gone home to start baking, so she hasn’t heard about how you’re spending your date. You should be on cloud nine.”
“I am,” I insisted… grumpily. “I’m thrilled. Ecstatic. Fucking overjoyed. I’m just eager to leave, that’s all. I have stuff to do.”
“You want to get Charlton alone?” she teased, throwing in an eyebrow wiggle. “I guess Operation Turkey’s working out, huh?”
Fortunately, Caroline called her away at that moment because I didn’t know how to answer.
It had worked. Sort of. Except then, Dunn’s little intervention had left me feeling like I was the villain in the piece, not the admitted turkeynapper in our midst. And if Dunn was right, then why the heck was I still so angry at Charlie? And if I was so angry, then why did the sight of the colorful feathers stretching across his ass make me want to pin him against the wall, rip that stupid costume off him, and kiss him until he screamed—
“I love the Stuffin’!” Charlie shook a jar of homemade cranberry sauce at me like a squelchy maraca. “I can’t remember why I thought I didn’t like this event. Everyone’s been so kind, and Caroline’s emailing me her family recipe, and—”
“Yeah, fine. Are we done?” I asked tersely. “Floor’s not sanding itself.”
“This is your date, as you keep reminding me, so if you say we’re done, we’re done.” Charlie waved a magnanimous hand. “Go get me dirty.”
No matter how hard I tried—and I definitely tried—I couldn’t help but picture the sexy turkey all bare-muscled and covered in sweat and floor dust while low-tempo porn music played softly in the background.
Damn it.
“Hunter Jackson! You look like a man who wants some spicy sausage!” Marnie Partridge exclaimed, stepping into my personal space and snapping me out of my lurid daydream.
My face flooded with heat. “W-what? Me? Heck no. Definitely not.”
“Oh.” Marnie gave me a disappointed frown. “Well, that’s too bad.”
It took me a minute to notice she, Parrish, and Diesel were standing at the Partridge family table, handing out foil-covered sausage casseroles to anyone who walked by, and that Diesel was now glowering at me for snapping at his beloved aunt-in-law.
“Thanks anyway,” Charlie said with an apologetic smile as we hurried away. “Smells great, but Hunter seems strangely sausage-averse at the moment.”
I regretted my reaction after the scent of savory casserole hit my nose, but by then, we were well past the table. I sighed. “I should have gotten it. The Partridges make a killer casserole.”
Charlie stopped, swiveled on his bird feet, and jogged back to the table to grab a foil pan. He flashed Parrish and Diesel’s little daughter, Marigold, a charming smile before jogging back to me and shoving the pan at my chest. “Here.”
I stared at him. “Why’d you do that?”
He shrugged, sending the arm feathers into a chaotic rustle. “Uh… because you wanted it?”
His simple explanation unsettled me. The cavalcade of stallions turned into a chaotic stampede. This wasn’t at all what I’d planned when I’d pledged Brooks’s money to last night’s charity.
I made a throaty noise of generic—albeit confused—disapproval while wrapping my arms around the still-warm pan. “Thanks,” I muttered.
“Not gonna lie, I also figured you might be hangry.” Charlie grinned. “You used to get that way when we were kids. Remember that time we were swimming—”
“Not hangry,” I interrupted, cutting off his stroll down happy-memory lane. “I’m just… focused. Thinking about the best way to sand the edges of the floor. You go with the grain. Keep that in mind.”
Was it possible to sound more ridiculous? I doubted it.
When I got to the truck, I placed the casserole on the floor in the back seat and hopped in while Charlie wrestled himself into the passenger’s side, almost leaning over my lap at one point to keep his tail feathers from getting caught in the door. The moment he got close, I forgot all about the aroma of the casserole because a swirl of some unidentifiable and far more enticing masculine scent filled the cab between us—a scent that was made up of comfortable, ordinary smells, like vanilla cookies and spicy whiskey and a woodstove in winter—making me crave something that definitely wasn’t food. Suddenly, Charlie seemed very close… closer than he had on the way to town, even though the seats in my truck hadn’t moved while the thing had been parked.