“And this is my granddaughter, Jayme Caldwell. She just moved here from Seattle. She’s an amazing baker. Just wait until you taste her pastries. They’re to die for.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Rocket said with a nod in her direction.
Jayme gave him a small smile, feeling immensely uncomfortable. She was great with strangers when she was working, not hesitating to offer suggestions as to what treat to try and explaining the ingredients in the delicacies she made, but socially, she’d always been awkward. Never knowing what to say or do around people she’d just met.
Memaw’s phone trilled with the chime she’d downloaded for her text messages. Looking at her phone, she frowned. “Oh, dear,” she said.
“What, what’s wrong?” Jayme asked, concerned.
“Nothing. I just forgot that I said I’d go with Maude to bingo tonight. She’s here now to pick me up. I’m so sorry, love. Rocket, you’ll stay and keep my granddaughter company, won’t you? She made this big meal and it shouldn’t go to waste.”
Jayme’s face flamed. Darn it. She knew her memaw’d had something up her sleeve. Asking her to change into her sundress, to fix a grand meal for them tonight. She’d totally set this up! There was no way she’d forgotten about bingo with her friend. Winnie had a mind like a steel trap. She might be old, but her mind was as sharp as ever.
“Well, I—”
“She worked on dinner all afternoon,” Winnie said, not letting Rocket graciously get out of the meal. “I’ll be back by nine or ten. Don’t wait up!”
Then she put a hand on Jayme’s arm and stood on tiptoe to kiss her on the cheek. “Have fun,” she whispered, winked, then turned and headed for the front door without a backward glance.
Jayme pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. She turned to the man still standing in her memaw’s kitchen, looking out of place and completely dwarfing his surroundings. He smiled at her, and Jayme almost melted right there. The man was way too good-looking for her own good.
“You don’t have to stay,” she assured him. “If you’re hungry, I can package some food up for you, but as someone who’s been on the receiving end of Memaw’s machinations too many times to count, I know how it feels to be blindsided by her.”
“Is your cooking as good as Winnie claims?” Rocket asked.
Jayme wasn’t conceited. Didn’t like to brag. But she knew she was a good cook and baker. She shrugged and simply said, “Yes.”
“Then if you aren’t too uncomfortable to eat with a stranger, I’d love to stay.”
Chapter Two
Rocket stared silently at the woman in front of him and waited with bated breath to see what she’d say in response to his request to stay. He should be upset that Winnie had totally set them up. She hadn’t mentioned that her granddaughter was in town when she’d texted and invited him over to eat last week.
He’d met Winnie a couple months ago at the grocery store, and surprisingly, they’d hit it off. She reminded him a lot of his own late grandmother. They’d exchanged phone numbers, and he’d been by her place a few times to check on her. Rocket missed his grandmother a lot—and he wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was lonely.
He’d tried the dating thing. But none of the women he’d met had seemed to be interested in a long-term relationship. He was mostly content with his own company, but couldn’t deny that Winnie was a breath of fresh air. She made him laugh and he liked that she seemed to enjoy his company as well.
He was single, hadn’t been in a relationship with a woman in a few years, and the chance to have a home-cooked meal was too tempting to resist. Rocket wasn’t very skilled in the kitchen. He didn’t starve, thanks to his grill and frozen meals, but he’d learned over the years that his culinary abilities left a lot to be desired.
The second he’d stepped into Winnie’s house tonight, his mouth had immediately started to water. It smelled absolutely divine. His stomach had growled, and he’d chuckled when Winnie raised an eyebrow at hearing it.
The last thing he wanted to do was go back to his empty house and nuke another microwaveable meal. He hoped Jayme would decide she was comfortable with him staying. Rocket knew he wasn’t the most approachable-looking man. He was big. Tall and thick. He had to shop at specialty stores to get clothes that fit.
Shuffling where he was standing, he put his hands in his pockets to try to look less threatening. Most of the time he didn’t mind the nervous glances people gave him. He wasn’t much for idle chatter, and if people were scared of him, that meant they didn’t try to engage him in conversation.
Winnie had been the rare exception. She’d gladly taken up his tentative offer to help get her groceries to her car and had babbled on, not seeming to care that he hadn’t said much in response. Her granddaughter clearly wasn’t as talkative, though Rocket could see the physical similarities between Winnie and her granddaughter. Both were petite, had the same heart-shaped face, they even both had a slight dimple when they smiled. And he supposed before Winnie’s hair went gray, she probably had the same light brown locks as Jayme.
Rocket did his best to keep his eyes on Jayme’s face…but his mind was stuck on her curves. The red dress she had on lovingly outlined wide hips and an abundant chest. As a large man, Rocket had always been drawn to women who didn’t look like they’d break if he touched them. She was lush…and his hands almost itched to see if her skin was as soft as it looked. Her dress fell to her knees, and for just a second, he imagined kneeling in front of her, running his hand under the hem. Up her thigh, hearing her breath catch in her throat, smelling her arousal as his hand got closer and closer to her soaking wet core…
“Any friend of Memaw’s is a friend of mine,” Jayme said softly.
And that voice. Just the sound of it made Rocket long for things he’d never had. Lazy nights cuddled together in his king-size bed, long intellectual conversations across the dinner table, hearing her whisper in his ear as he took her long, slow, and tenderly.
Shit. Clearly he’d been spending too much time alone. He had to stop thinking about sex, otherwise he was going to scare the shit out of Jayme with his hard-on.
When most people looked at him, they saw his size, his large hands, blackened with years of oil stains. They also assumed he wasn’t all that bright, for some reason. But Rocket actually had a master’s degree in business. He’d earned it from an online university—and hadn’t told a soul. He’d been bored, wanted to challenge himself.
“It smells great in here,” Rocket said, trying to put Jayme at ease.
She smiled, and it lit up her face. “Thanks.”
“What are we having?” Rocket’s mouth watered as she rattled off the menu. “Can I do anything to help?”
“Set the table?” Jayme asked.
Letting out a sigh of relief that she hadn’t asked him to do anything related to cooking, Rocket nodded.
“Plates are in that cabinet, and the silverware is in that drawer over there.”
Rocket stepped farther into the kitchen—and immediately realized how small the space was. He could smell Jayme’s perfume, or lotion, or shampoo. She smelled like the beach, coconut and something tropical. He felt his dick twitch in his jeans and he willed himself to calm the fuck down. The very last thing he wanted to do was make her uncomfortable.