He had a desperate warning look in his eye as I approached. “Hey, Safety Net. You are not allowed to leave me alone with a group full of women anymore. We have a deal.”
Ah, shoot. Of course Jake Evans was more aware of what was going on around him than I gave him credit for.
“Did we shake on anything? I don’t remember writing any addendums to the contract,” I teased, enjoying the annoyed look crossing Jake’s face.
“You want to call it all off?” he asked me, eyebrows raised as he cornered me.
“No,” I said.
“Then you are now officially on duty.”
“To be honest, I still have no idea what being a safety net even means.”
“It means protecting me from things like that.” He motioned toward the girls.
“If it helps, I think she almost got the hang of it by the fourth time you snuggled her from behind.”
He stopped adjusting the string on his pole and studied me. “Jealous, Tuck?”
“I’m jealous it comes so easily to her. Maybe I should askherfor lessons.”
“Great.” Jake flicked his head behind him toward the girl, who wasn’t even trying to hide her appreciation for his broad shoulders and the way he filled out his jeans. “Why don’t you teach her to fish while you’re at it?”
“So if they paid good money to be taught fishing by the best in the business…and you want me to teach them…are you saying I’m the best?” I brought my hand to my chest in delight.
“Absolutely not.”
I cocked my head to the side. “I’ll bet I can catch more fish than you.”
He shook his head. “You’re dreaming, girl.”
I edged closer. “I haven’t fly fished for probably five years, but I’m feeling pretty good today.”
He thought for a second before he looked up at me and smiled. “Fine. We fish for the next thirty minutes. When I win, you have to give me a kiss on the cheek and slap my butt so those girls think I’m taken.”
My eyes flicked toward the women, who had abandoned Jake’s idea of space and now stood only feet apart, chatting and glancing toward him every so often.
“What are you so scared of? They all look legal.”
Jake glowered at me but said nothing as he fumbled more with the pole.
I couldn’t help poking him. He was such a subdued version of the guy I remembered that getting sparks of the old Jake felt like accomplishing a Herculean feat. “Are you scared one of them might be the love of your life, and you’ll have to live happily ever after somewhere?”
“One of them asked me if I knew where the nearest gluten-free bakery was. And I don’t think it’s because they have any sort of allergy.”
I grinned. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her it was about 250 miles that way.” He pointed his hand to the west.
“I think they have some options in Salmon.”
“Didn’t seem like that was her kind of town. Are we doing this? What’s on the table for you? You know mine. A cheek kiss would be another good lesson for you—if you can handle it.”
A challenge between us lit the air at his words, sending a bolt of nerves hammering in my chest for some odd reason. And it wasn’t that I couldn’t touch him. I could. I’d sort of proved thatlast night. But…it was the strange sense of playing with fire that kept coming back to me.
All that talk about being his safety net was one thing…actually doing it seemed like something else entirely.
But I couldn’t show fear. He’d sniff it out in a second and make things much more complicated.