Page 100 of The Treasure House

“Sure I have. I told you, I have a sister and a bunch of nieces.”

“Flo and I watched it for our movie night last week. I’d never seen it.”

He gave me an appalled look. “Didn’t you have a childhood?”

I swallowed and forced a smile. I hadn’t really had a childhood, I thought numbly. I’d had an old TV tuned to the broadcast channels and a lot of reruns. I’d seen the old movies that ran all the time—The Sound of Music, Grease, Jaws, and It’s a Wonderful Life at Christmastime—but not much else. Tina had taken me to the movies a couple of times to see Disney films but she’d always fallen asleep. I guessed my childhood would seem alien to Jake.

I kept quiet, not wanting him to look at me like I was from Mars.

He gave me a sideways look.

“If Flo’s the dog, she doesn’t get to do much,” I said, swerving away from my childhood and back to the present. “Lainey will be on stage a lot, though.”

“She sure will,” he said dryly. “Which is precisely why my sister bought tickets for every member of the family.”

I swallowed. I’d been nervous about meeting his sister, but it hadn’t occurred to me I’d have to meet more family than that. “Wait,” I said as something occurred to me. “Every member of the family?”

“Well, not Mom obviously,” he said quickly.

“No, but…” I cleared my throat. “Marly?” My voice wavered. For some reason, Marly was a larger-than-life figure in my imagination, even though I now knew she hadn’t been the one to fill my treasure house with culch.

Jake reached over and squeezed my knee. “Yes, Marly.” He glanced at me. “Sorry, I should have told you. I didn’t think…”

“No, I mean, why should you? Uh. Does she, um… know about me?”

“About you? Or about you and me?”

I wasn’t sure how much there was to know about him and me, since we weren’t actually a couple yet. We were just kissing like horny teenagers and hiding it from my kid.

“Ah, both, I guess,” I said weakly.

“Yes, she knows about you, that you’re living in the house. No, she doesn’t know about you and me. Nor does my sister.” He cleared his throat. “If you want me to tell them, I can…”

But what would he tell them?

“Uh, no. I mean, we said we’d take it slow.”

“Emotionally slow,” he reminded me with a half-smile, although we’d slowed down on pretty much everything since Flo came home.

“I don’t think we should tell anyone until Flo knows…”

“Fair.” He removed his hand from my knee. And he must have caught the hurt look on my face, because he said, “Just ’cause of the ice. There’s enough black ice that I need to keep both hands on the wheel. If it weren’t for the ice, I’d never take my hand off you.”

I flushed. It was impossible, wanting him this much and not being able to have him. The thought of sitting near him in the dark while we watched the play gave me goosebumps. I hoped our seats were on opposite sides of the room.

The school was brightly lit, and a stream of cars was rolling into the parking lot. My heart was skittering like a scared rabbit as Jake slid into a space in a dark corner. I was charged with nerves at the thought of seeing Marly. His grandmother. Pixie stick herself.

Jake checked his watch. “Want to kill five minutes before we have to go in? I can take your mind off things.”

I did, but it was a mistake. By the time he’d kissed me senseless and run his hands all over me, I was electric with lust. And so was he.

“I’ll meet you after to take you home,” he said, kissing me on the tip of my nose. “You go in. I might wait here for a minute. I’m not decent for company yet,” he added wryly, pulling his jacket over his lap.

“I think you’re more than decent,” I teased him.

“Get out of here, woman, or we’re not getting into the play at all, and you’ll hate me when you miss your kid playing the dog.”

I laughed and dropped down from the high pickup.