Rosalind Abel with an Exclusive Excerpt from The Garden (Lavender Shores #2) (tour and giveaway)

“So no plans today, huh?”

My heart leaped. “Nope.”

Gilbert walked back to the kitchen. Maybe he was considering asking me to stay, maybe he wasn’t. “Breakfast will be ready soon. Help yourself to the shower and stuff if you need. Got about ten minutes.”

“You didn’t have to make breakfast.”

He laughed. “Well, you may regret that I did. Andrew and his dad are the great cooks. I’m pretty sure I’m in the process of turning the bacon into bricks.”

He could feed me pond scum and I’d be touched he made me breakfast. And rather confused by it. Gilbert didn’t seem the type to cook for a hookup. “In that case, how about I take a three-minute shower instead of ten. That will decrease the odds of burning breakfast.”

“It won’t, actually. No matter what I cook, it goes from raw to burnt. There’s no in-between.” He grinned, though his expression was walled off. “Go shower. Your breakfast is doomed either way.”

“All right, my coffee and I will be back shortly.” I retrieved my bag from beside the bed and then locked myself in the bathroom.

Brushing my teeth made me feel a little more human, and the few sips of coffee mixed with the hot shower eased the baby headache. As the night before, I was getting mixed messages from Gilbert. He was making me breakfast, but there hadn’t been any flirting or touches or hints of sex later. Did he still see me as a hookup? Had I crossed into the friend zone? Was I overthinking coffee and burnt breakfast? Yeah, probably.

After drying off, I put my boxers and T-shirt back on, grabbed my empty mug and left the bathroom.

Gilbert had set the small table by the window overlooking the lake. “I was right, breakfast is burnt, but I’ve got some raspberry preserves, if you cover the bacon and eggs in that, you won’t notice.”

I couldn’t suppress a shudder. “That sounds awful.”

He shrugged. “Actually, it works pretty well. When you cook like me, you learn tricks to cover up what you’ve done.”

“You really didn’t have to make me breakfast. I feel bad that you went to the trouble.”

“I wanted to. It’s nice having—” A blush rose to his cheeks, the first I’d ever seen on him, and he gave a quick shake of his head. “Like I said, you won’t thank me after you’ve tasted it, but my mother is Southern. She drilled into me that you cook for guests. So, I cooked.”

I was a guest. Okay, then. That could be a billion different things. I helped myself to another cup of coffee, more to give my hands something to do than anything else, and then sat at the table while Gilbert brought over the platter of eggs, bacon, and toast. Sure enough, all three were burnt. I grinned up at him, hoping he could hear the humor in my voice. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”

“Nope.” He set down the platter and then twisted to grab a large glass jar off the counter. “Here’s the preserves. Robert made them… er…. Robert is Andrew’s dad.” Gilbert sat and reached out his hand, letting it hover in the air between us.

I took it tentatively.

“You wanna say grace, or me?”

I nearly dropped his hand. “You want to pray?”

He nodded seriously, then a smile broke through. “Damn, I really thought I could pull that off. I so wanted to see your reaction and hear what you’d pray about.” He chuckled. “Though, it’s probably good we didn’t try. I’m pretty certain if I prayed, lightning would be the only answer we got.”

I snorted. “Yeah, you and me both.”

Suddenly we were aware we were holding hands. Granted, awkwardly holding hands, but holding hands nonetheless. I started to pull away, but Gilbert gave a quick squeeze before letting go. “Thanks for staying last night.”

For some reason my throat constricted, leaving me no other choice but to nod. I couldn’t deny I was feeling so much more for him than I should, than made any sense.

Looking uncomfortable, Gilbert focused on his food. He didn’t taste it before lathering the bacon with preserves.

I took a bite of mine, then followed suit.

“Told ya.” Gilbert took a big mouthful of the bacon and gave a satisfied nod. “Robert knows what he’s doing.”

Surprisingly the combo of burnt bacon and sweet raspberry was pretty good. Much better than anticipated. “Huh, you were right. Though I’m not sure I trust you on the eggs and preserves.”

“It’s not as good as the bacon, but it still helps.”

Awkward silence fell, but it wasn’t tense. Nothing felt like we needed to rush through to get it over with. I simply didn’t know what to say. Gilbert didn’t seem to either.

The eggs were terrible, with or without the preserves, so I stuffed them between two burnt pieces of toast.

“Huh.” Gilbert copied and then nodded in approval. “Where were you years ago? You literally just changed my life.”

And no, I wasn’t going to read into that. All he meant was that I’d upgraded disgusting eggs to tolerable. Not that he wanted me in his life. Even the fantasy of that flitting through my mind should’ve been enough to cause me to stab myself in the eye with a fork. “Sandwiches cure anything.”

“Apparently.”

We were talking about food. We had crazy sexual energy, and we were still there talking about food! This had to end. But I couldn’t figure out how to do it, other than standing up and stripping off my clothes. I considered that option, far more seriously than I should’ve. But doing so would’ve required another shot or two of scotch.

“So, I was thinking.” Gilbert’s gaze focused on his sandwich, not darting toward me at all. “I got up early this morning to work on a design that’s due next week. I’m actually pretty close to getting it done. Do you mind if I wrap it up after breakfast? It should only take a half hour or so.”

Seemed like a strange request, but it meant more time with him. Awkward or not, I didn’t care. “No, that sounds good. Like I said, there’s no plans for me to get back to. Take all the time you need.”

“Yeah?” He glanced at me then. “I was also thinking, after I’m done with that, if you wanted to hang out for a while, we could….” He shrugged. “You know….”

My God, he was nervous. I suppose that should’ve been obvious, but the idea of Gilbert being nervous about me was stupid. And kinda wonderful. “I’d like that, and my friends aren’t coming until around noon tomorrow. I’ve got all day.” Maybe I was pushing my luck, but I wanted to make it overtly clear I wanted as much of his time as he was willing to give.

Again, his smile was unreadable. Whether the idea sounded good to him or not, I couldn’t tell. “Okay, great. I’ll wrap the project up.” A familiar glint came into his eyes. “And then I’ll focus on your ass. I had plans for it last night, but I got… carried away.”

“Oh.” The switch was so abrupt that it threw me. My cock was quicker than my brain, however, and it sprang to life, thankfully hidden under the table. At least I supposed thankfully was the right word.

“That okay?” He sounded a bit nervous again.

“Oh, yeah. That’s totally, totally okay! More than okay.”

“Great.” He nodded, and Gilbert was back again. “I’ll wrap this up and then make up for feeding you a burnt breakfast.”

To be continued. . .