Elaina?
RJ raised a brow. He truthfully hadn’t thought of his ex in months. The woman had been part of his life for two years. Beautiful, fun, and full of life, she loved to sketch and paint in the studio they’d created from a spare bedroom in their apartment. She was always there to see him off and welcome him home. He’d thought he found a gem amongst the sea of SEAL bunnies that patrolled Coronado.
He was wrong.
At first, when he’d been transferred from Ramstein to a hospital in California, she had shown up all loving and concerned, until he told her he was going to be medically discharged from the Navy. She stopped visiting after that and didn’t answer his calls. Then, one day, she appeared out of the blue and apologized, told him things weren’t going to work out, handed him her key to their apartment, wished him well, then left.
So, when his birth parents and siblings had shown up and insisted he convalesce at their Iowa farm, he agreed and thanked his lucky stars in the process. During his recovery and long, arduous hours of PT, he’d had plenty of time to process his failed relationship and he’d realized it had been doomed from the start.
Elaina had been in love with his active duty status…not him.
“Your ex wanted to use you as her ticket to travel and see the world so she could paint and not work,” Dean said.
Since RJ had come to the same conclusion, he nodded. “I know.”
“Then hopefully you know Lori isn’t like that. Sure, she has the free spirit of an artist, but she is dependable, not dependent. There’s a huge difference.”
Again, RJ nodded. “She’s independent, like her sister.”
“Yeah. She’s also responsible.” Dean glanced at the twins still working in the back before he leaned closer. “Lori stayed in Connecticut to fulfill their remaining orders and oversee the sale of their bakery so Loni could come here, not just to start the bakery, but to get accustomed to the layout here as well as the house. Lori gave up her own place back east, intending to stay with Loni and be around when her sight failed. But now that I’ve moved in, she was able to move out, although it had taken several talks from Loni to get the woman to budge.”
Admiration for the woman warmed RJ’s chest. But he didn’t want to like her more than he already did, so he decided to unacknowledged it and go a different route with his comment. “Leave it to you to live with a set of gorgeous, identical twins.”
Dean chuckled. “It wasn’t like that. I’m only interested in one.”
“One what?” Loni asked, setting a tray loaded with cups of coffee on the table.
RJ rose to his feet along with Dean.
“One kind of bun,” his buddy replied before kissing her cheek.
Loni’s brows rose. “Only one?”
“Pretty sure you know the answer to that.” Dean grinned, holding a chair out for the laughing woman before they retook their seats. “Speaking of buns…are you all out of them already?”
“No.” She set a hand on Dean’s arm and winked. “Don’t worry, Lori will bring them out. They still need another minute in the oven.” She turned to him and smiled. “Good morning, RJ. And you don’t need to worry, either. My sister has special buns for you.”
It was too bad he’d chosen that moment to swallow a mouthful of coffee. A bout of coughing and several chest pounds later, he cleared his throat, ignored his buddy’s snickering, and met Loni’s amused gaze.
“I know.”
Her eyes widened, and this time Dean started to choke on his mis-swallowed coffee.
RJ grinned and nodded toward the pretty decorator approaching with a plate of treats. “I’m guessing the ones with bacon crumbled on top are for me?”
Loni smacked his arm. “I thought you meant…”
He laughed. “I know what you thought. Dean is rubbing off on you. You should get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Wait…my sister’s mind was in the gutter?” Lori asked, setting the plate on the table before pulling up a chair.
That was a first.
The woman had never joined their breakfast coffee break before. She usually stayed in the kitchen decorating, with her back to them. He refused to contemplate the reason her change of routine pleased him.
“Yep,” he replied, reaching for his special bun.
It was more of a roll, with layers of crumbled bacon and maple-flavored glaze drizzled on top.
Delicious.
“Hey, you can’t just leave that hanging in the air. I want the deets,” Lori said, glancing at each of them.
No way was RJ going to explain, and his pulse jumped when Dean opened his mouth, but thankfully, Loni intervened.
“We were just joking about buns,” she replied.
Lori smiled. “Ah…buns are good. Both the human ones and perfectly baked ones.”
She reached past him to grab a goodie from the plate, her arm inadvertently brushing his, and just like that his body woke up.
A shaft of heat rushed through RJ and the memory of the woman’s buns and how perfect they felt in his hands flashed through his mind. It wasn’t something he was likely to ever forget.
He couldn’t help but wonder if she’d thought about it too…and if the brush of her arm had been deliberate.
“Of course.” She snickered, causing his heart to stop, until he realized the beauty’s reply had been to something her sister had asked. “But, since I had to bring them out, I figured I might as well have one too.”
“Might as well.” Dean grinned, and wacked RJ’s shin with his foot. “Right, RJ?”
Idiot.
He was going to wring the guy’s neck.
“Of course,” he replied. “I know I wouldn’t be able to bake them and not eat them.”
Her gaze met his and turned curious. “You bake?”
“Before this year? No,” he said. “But I was going stir crazy at my parents farm and hated not being able to help with any of the chores, so I asked my mom and sister to teach me.”
The fact he’d been moving slowly, in a shit ton of pain, and Dean was getting ready to head to Texas without RJ because his doctor wouldn’t clear him, had been motivation to find an activity he could conquer.
At least he had been able to help prepare meals and not feel totally useless. “Now I make a mean cornbread.”
“Really?” Lori arched a brow.
“With cornmeal?” her sister asked.
He shook his head. “Nope. With corn from a field.”
“Oh my God.” Loni sucked in a breath. “It must taste delicious.”
RJ nodded. “It does.”
“I’d love to taste your cornbread,” Lori said before biting into a bun then licking a smear of glaze from her lip.
Heat shot through RJ’s groin, sparking every inch behind his zipper to life.
Damn. Not good.
He cleared his throat and wondered if the woman was deliberately flirting with him, or just being kind. Since he was a little too worked up to think straight, he decided to keep his response neutral. “Can’t go wrong with my mother’s recipe.”
“Aww, that’s sweet.” She smiled. “Half the stuff we bake comes from our mother’s recipes.”
Loni nodded. “She’s the reason we got into the business.”