Hopefully that was it.

“I didn’t think so but maybe I was,” I answered honestly.

He nodded then shared, “Seriously, babe, they’re usually very cool. Dad especially.”

I pressed my body to his, slid my arms around him, but I did this straightening my spine with resolve before I declared, “Tomorrow I’ll win him over.”

I declared it. I was going to try it. I just hoped I could do it.

Jacob finally smiled and it was then, relief swept through me.

“I know you will,” he said softly.

Then he came in for another lip touch.

I leaned into it, squeezing him with my arms, and it became a short, sweet kiss after which he lifted his head and suggested, “Let’s go to bed.”

Messy discussion over. Bad day over.

Done.

Good stuff to come.

So it was then, I smiled.

* * *

Five and a half hours later…

I opened my eyes to dark and felt the bed empty (save Buford).

Jacob was up but not reading.

He did this, not often but he did it, and told me when I got up he’d either worked out, gone for a run or did some work. So when it happened and I woke up during it, I usually went back to sleep.

But this time, I didn’t go back to sleep because this time, after a very bad day, I worried he left me for other reasons.

I love you, baby, and I feel you disconnecting from me.

I didn’t think I was doing that but with what he said, he wasn’t wrong. I let the phone go, even when it was ringing right beside me and I saw his name on the display. I did this telling myself I was busy and I’d get back to him when before, I’d snatch it up before it rang twice.

I also used to call for whatever reason—your place or mine, what’s for dinner, this annoying thing just happened and I have to get it off my chest—and he always picked up right away. But now, even when I had something to say, I told myself he was too busy to get a call from me.

Even though it seemed he worked a lot, lately even more, he’d never been too busy to get a call from me. Hell, he’d even told me straight out he was never too busy to take a call from me.

“What’s happening with me?” I whispered to the pillowcase.

No answers swept through my brain. Not liking it, it feeling weird, not having enough experience to know, just knowing I couldn’t let it go on, I got out of bed, leaving a slightly snoring Buford behind and wandering into the dark hall.

I found Jacob in his office, his back to me, facing the computer.

So he was up and working.

“Hey,” I called when I hit the doorway and he swiveled his chair to face me.

His eyes immediately warmed.

That was a good sign.

“Hey,” he replied. “Why you up?”

I moved to him and when I stopped close, I answered, “Bed was empty.”

His eyes got warmer and he curved an arm around my hips, pulling me to the side of the chair and tipping his head way back. I bent at his invitation and touched my mouth to his.

I pulled away, not intending to go very far but not getting there anyway because his other hand lifted and curled around my neck.

I settled in and asked, “Working?”

“Yeah. Case not adding up. Something’s wrong. I can’t get a lock on it.”

That was a good sign too. He left me not because of our messy discussion or unease with what was happening between us driving him away. He left because he had something else on his mind he had to work out.

At this news, I grinned at him and teased, “You, the Mighty Jacob?”

He grinned back and replied, “Yeah. Me.”

I slid a hand up his chest and whispered, “You’ll sort it.”

“Yeah,” he whispered back.

“You’ve got a puzzle you can’t solve, I get you wanting to get on it,” I told him then said, “But I like waking up with you.”

His eyes got even warmer. “I’ll give this a couple hours, come back and read.”

“Thanks, honey.”

“Anytime, baby.”

I slid my hand up further, stopping to curve it around the dark stubble at his jaw and I bent in again for a lip touch.

This time when I pulled back, I stopped, held his gaze and whispered, “Love you, Jacob.”

Heat in his eyes, soft in his face, lips tipping up, so beautiful, all for me, he whispered back, “Love you too, Emme.”

I glided my hand down, drifted my thumb along the corded ridge of his throat, memorized the look on his face and gave him a grin.

I pulled away and Jacob let me go. I turned to the door and stopped dead.

This was because Richard Decker was standing at the door in pajamas, arms crossed, shoulder to the jamb, watching.

“Fuck. Seriously?” Jacob growled.

He’d seen his father too.

I heard his chair roll, felt it moving away, then felt him standing beside me.

I also felt he was angry.

That was when I felt my body grow tight.

Okay, officially it was the next day, so this did not bode well it would be a better one.

“Now that,” his father announced, “that’s what I like to see.”

I relaxed slightly but only because this confused me.

It didn’t confuse Jacob.

I knew this when he bit out, “Dad. Not. Fuckin’. Cool.”

Rich completely ignored him and looked at me. “Today, Emme, I was an ass. I apologize. You were nervous, it was obvious. I kept bein’ an ass. I apologize for that too. I’ll make it up to you by making you my world-famous pancakes tomorrow morning.”

Maybe I was wrong. This sounded like indication that today would be a better one.

“Dad, your pancakes suck,” Jacob replied.

My eyes got big and my head shot back to see him scowling at his father.

He was screwing up a potential good day!

To get him to stop doing that, I elbowed him in the ribs. He acted like he didn’t feel it and kept scowling at his father.

“Forgot. It’s Shane who likes my pancakes,” Rich mumbled.

“They aren’t pancakes. They’re crêpes. And crêpes suck,” Jacob returned

Totally screwing it up!

“Jacob!” I snapped.

He wasn’t done, unfortunately.

“Unless they have that hazelnut chocolate spread in them, something I don’t have.”

“You have a grocery store,” Rich shot back.

“I’m not haulin’ my ass to the grocery store on a Sunday morning for hazelnut spread,” Jacob retorted.

“Then quit bitchin’ about it,” Rich ordered.

“I’m not bitchin’. I’m sayin’, I bought Mom buttermilk for her pancakes, which I actually like. Which is what we’re gonna have. And, incidentally, you hear words as me bitchin’ when instead I’m pissed you’re lurkin’ around spyin’ on Emme and me,” Jacob stated.

I closed my eyes.

“I wasn’t spyin’,” Rich replied.

My eyes shot open because that was a bald-faced lie.

He was leaning in the door watching us!

“You stand in my door without me or Emme knowin’ it and listen in?” Jacob called him on his lie.

“Yeah, but that isn’t spyin’. You hide when you spy. I wasn’t hiding. I was listening.”

Jacob looked to the ceiling.

Truth be told, he had a point. A funny one. So I burst out laughing.

I swallowed it when Jacob stopped looking at the ceiling so he could turn his scowl to me.

“It’s not funny,” he declared. “He’s a nosy bastard. Always was. It wasn’t okay when I was a teenager coppin’ a feel from my girlfriend watchin’ TV in our basement. It’s definitely not okay when I’m a thirty-seven-year-old man havin’ a moment with my girl in my own f**kin’ house.”

All I could think to that statement was that I was glad Jacob eschewed the norm and didn’t cop a feel when his dad was watching.

All I could say was, “You shouldn’t call your dad a bastard.”

“Emme, it was our moment, not his,” Jacob stated.

“This is true but we weren’t exactly hatching plans for our world takeover so now that he knows, we have to kill him,” I pointed out.

It was at that, Rich burst out laughing.

I looked to him and felt something inside me loosen. It might have had to do with the fact that Rich laughing was the only time he looked a lot like his son, in other words, extremely handsome rather than just plain handsome. It mostly had to do with the fact that he was doing it at all and it was me who made him do it.

I didn’t want to be a brown nose but I felt it important to press the advantage, so when he quit laughing, I told him, “I’ll eat your crêpes in the morning, Rich.”

Still grinning, he replied, “They’re pancakes, Emme.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Can you two do me a favor and bond when it’s not three thirty in the morning?” Jacob asked.

There it was again, screwing things up.

I tipped my head back and glared at him.