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“Boo!” Alex flops down in the chair.
The sound of tires crunching on the gravel outside sends Alex out of her chair. Boots stomp on the stairs, and Jesse enters the bar, handsome in his uniform.
Alex shrieks and darts toward him, and he catches her in a hug. “There she is, the little devil.”
“Uncle Jesse!”
He ruffles her hair and gives her a hug. “What are you doing here? Come to bug your old man?” Jesse meets my gaze. “Jayjay.”
“Hey, Jesse.”
“Glad I joined the party. Is that a picnic basket?” Jesse takes it from me.
Cash is at my side in a heartbeat. He wrests the basket out of his brother’s grasp, the muscles across his chest rippling. “I’ll take that.”
“Uncle Jesse, did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“I’m going to be in the summer talent show,” Alex says.
Jesse claps her on the shoulder, and Alex breaks down what she wants to perform and how she’s hoping Daisy will join her. It’s a sweet moment.
Yet I’m aware of how close Cash is, how half-naked he is. There’s a smattering of hair across his chest that makes him all man, and I have to take a step away. Swooning in front of Cash’s brother and Alex would be incredibly embarrassing.
I focus on the picnic basket in his tan, strong hands instead of his blue-blue eyes or his body. “We brought enough for everyone. I wasn’t sure how many people would be here. I figured your dad might be—”
“He’s at Ganny’s,” Cash says.
“Oh.”
Cash nods.
“How is he, Cash? After everything that happened? After your mom?”
Cash lets out a rough breath. “Not good. Not good at all.” He sets the picnic basket down on a table. Jesse and Alex have started playing a game of tag in the interim, and we watch them idly as we talk.
“If there’s anything I can do to help—”
“You do enough already,” Cash says. “You’re a full-time nanny, and the stuff you’ve been doing with Alex. I want you to know I appreciate it.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
“You’re going above and beyond, June,” he replies.“As for Dad, we’ll get there.”
I chew on my bottom lip. “If anyone can fix this place up, it’s you,” I say. “I’ll never forget when you made that rocking chair for Ganny.”
“Don’t remind me.” He laughs, and the sound is so natural. It’s good to hear him happy. “She nearly fell out of it.”
“It was a great first attempt,” I say. “Gosh, you were, like, how old when you made that?”
“About Alex’s age.”
I laugh, and he brushes his fingers over the back of his neck, giving me a sexy, shy look from underneath his brows.
“Hey,” he says, “I improved. I made you that bookshelf, remember?”
“I remember. My mom didn’t want it in the house at first, but we smuggled it in when she wasn’t looking.”
