Cherish Hard
Page 35

Going out to stand behind her in the tiny space, the night quiet around them, he fought the urge to nuzzle her as he pointed south. “If you squint really hard and cross your eyes at the same time, you can almost see the dark of water out in the distance.” He wrapped his arms loosely around her, sneaking in that hug while she was distracted.
Ísa laughed. “What about that mountain in the way?”
“Details, details.” Drawing in a long breath of her, he decided to mess with the boss even though he shouldn’t.
He tightened his arms just enough that she noticed, then dropped his head and kissed the curve of her neck. Her shiver delighted him. So he stole another kiss and another. Until his redhead melted back into him. “You have skin I could kiss all day,” he purred against her throat before forcing himself to rise to his full height.
Oh, he had every intention of seducing Ísa.
First, however, he’d look after her, give her that TLC she needed. Which included a good meal. “Let’s get this food cooking—I don’t want you hungry,” he murmured. “I’ll eat up the rest of you later.” Another shiver.
He smiled just a little smugly before releasing her to turn on the grill he kept on the balcony. Once he had that going, he went inside the house and quickly wrapped up a couple of sweet potatoes in tinfoil. Those he chucked onto the hottest part of the grill, where the flames licked through, to roast while he prepared the fish.
Ísa followed him inside, watching as he seasoned the fish.
“My brother’s recipe,” he told her. “The brother you met today. He loves muscle cars and cooking, wants to be a chef with a Mustang if he doesn’t make the top rugby squads.” Having a fallback passion could only be a good thing in the high stakes world of sports. “Our youngest brother, Danny, still thinks cooking is for girls.”
Propping her elbows on the counter, her face cupped in her hands—and her skin a little flushed from their play on the balcony, she said, “The rest of you don’t?”
“Ha! My mother made damn sure we never grew up with that particular belief—even Danny only mumbles about cooking being for girls when she’s out of earshot.” His kid brother would grow out of that soon enough; at fourteen and the baby of the family, he was currently on the border between child and youth.
“We’re not great cooks, Gabe and I, but we can feed ourselves. Though,” he admitted, “Mom feeds me too when she thinks I haven’t been taking care of myself. She’d do it for Gabe as well except the team nutritionists take care of the players’ diets.” Not that it stopped his older brother and closest friend from turning up for Sunday dinner.
Ísa dropped her hands to the counter, her expression soft, vulnerable. “I can’t imagine that, you know.” Again that lingering sadness in her.
Sailor decided to hell with it. Leaning forward, he kissed her nose before he went back to dusting on a bit of some herb Jake had left him with strict instructions not to go overboard with it. “What can’t you imagine?” he asked the redhead who was staring at him as if he were an alien… but an alien she liked. Sailor could work with that. “Me and my brothers cooking?”
“No.” A shake of her head, her hair a burst of sunset. “A mom who cooks for you even though you’ve moved out of her home. Does she make you frozen meals?” She said the last as if they were talking about some magical discovery, all wide-eyed wonder.
Sailor was fascinated by her fascination. “It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but yes. She knows I’m working all hours to get my business off the ground, so every so often, she makes extra of whatever she’s cooking and sets a few portions aside for me that I can reheat.” Seeing Ísa’s continued interest, he figured he might as well admit the whole of it. “And my dad has been known to drop off fresh groceries so I won’t live on canned goods.”
Sailor knew he was lucky with his tightly bonded family, had always known he was lucky, but it was only now, as he looked into Ísa’s wistful face, that he understood exactly how lucky. “I’m guessing Jacqueline wasn’t much of a cook,” he said, with another kiss on the nose. “Your dad?”
This time she smiled, as if warming up to the nose-kissing alien in front of her.
“My dad’s basically the charming male version of Jacqueline.” Dry words. “When I was a toddler, they both spent so many hours at the office that I apparently started to call my nanny Mommy and the cook Daddy. Jacqueline and Stefán had to switch to short-term contractors to keep me from getting confused.”
Ísa rolled her eyes as she said that, as if it was just an amusing little anecdote, but Sailor saw nothing funny in a child so disregarded by her mother and father that she’d tried to find family in her parents’ employees. Who the fuck did that to their baby? And then to take those familiar figures away just so Jacqueline and Stefán could still feel like parents?
Unforgiveable.
Sailor clenched his jaw. Hoping she’d at least had grandparents who’d given her love and spoiled her stupid, he was about to ask about her extended family when her phone rang.
The ringtone was the theme music from Star Trek.
“It’s Harlow,” Ísa said with open affection. “My brother.”
Sailor tried not to listen in on the conversation, but there wasn’t much he could do to make his apartment bigger. So even though Ísa had stepped out onto the balcony, he still heard pretty much every word.
Her first words were cheerful. “Hey, Harlow.”
Silence for a minute or two before Ísa spoke again. “You got the job fair and square.” A firm tone. “I spoke to Ginny—she told me that HR had no idea who you were until it was time to actually offer you the position and you confessed your identity.”
Another period of silence followed by “Of course I’m sure. Have I ever lied to you?” She listened again. “No,” she said in response to Harlow’s reply. “Mother wouldn’t have taken it from you. You know she admires initiative.”
Sailor happened to be looking over at her right then, and so he saw the fingers she’d crossed behind her back.
By the time she finally hung up and came back inside, he was finished with the fish prep. “Problem?”
Pressing her lips together, she put her hands on her hips. “Harlow won an internship at Crafty Corners after applying under a pseudonym so there’d be no cries of favoritism. But an unsuccessful applicant from his school posted something nasty online about it.” Her eyes sparked with temper.
Impressed at the steps her brother had taken to make the process fair, Sailor said, “So why are you crossing your fingers behind your back?”
Ísa’s skin flushed a delicate pink. Folding her arms, she said, “You weren’t supposed to have seen that.”
He wanted to take little bites out of her. “Come on, fess up.”
“It’s family business.”
Sailor put together what he’d heard of the phone call with what he knew of Ísa’s family. “Jacqueline being a hard-ass?”
A scowl from his redhead. “Stop using your telepathic powers on me.”
Feeling young in a way he rarely did, he grinned. “How old’s your brother?”
“Seventeen.” Ísa regarded his grin with suspicion. “Technically we’re stepsiblings. Jacqueline married his father when Harlow was twelve.”