Piper giggled. “More cheese,” she demanded. “Cheese is my favorite food.”
Audrey resisted the urge to remind Piper that she supposedly hated cheese.
Cameron chuckled. “I thought jelly beans were your favorite food?”
Piper swung her legs back and forth harder and thunked against the lower cabinets. “Nope, it’s cheese.”
And tomorrow it would be hot dogs.
Cameron took the conversation in stride, as though six-year-old speak were an everyday occurrence for him. It had taken Audrey forever to acclimate herself to the way Piper’s mind worked. She bounced from one subject to the next, asking nonstop questions and making strange observations. One minute she’d say how she wanted to be a unicorn when she grew up, and the next she’d be yammering on about a puppy she saw on TV.
Cameron didn’t break his stride from cooking to scratch his head at Piper’s conversation. He’d grunt and nod at the appropriate times. He even laughed and ruffled her hair when she cracked a lame joke that didn’t even make sense.
Audrey’s ovaries clenched.
She cleared her throat, and they both turned to look at her. One fixed inquisitive green eyes on Audrey and the other raked his blue gaze in slow perusal that had her breasts tingling.
Her body really needed to stop clenching and tingling around him.
“Sorry for leaving you with dinner duty,” Audrey said. She held up her phone. “That was my friend Roxy.” Whom she now needed to call back.
“Not a problem,” Cameron grunted.
“We’re makin’ eggs,” Piper announced. She stuck the spatula back in the egg pan and gave them another stir. Next to the stove was a plate full of pancakes and another filled with bacon slices.
Audrey set her phone on the counter and walked across the kitchen. “Yes, I see all the cheese you dumped in. I’ll be sure to have 911 on speed dial in case my arteries clog.”
Piper blinked, and Audrey knew she didn’t get the joke. Obviously Cameron didn’t either, because he just looked at her.
“You joke now, but wait until you taste them,” he told her.
“By the way, there was a woman named Lois in your backyard taking pictures of you.”
Cameron didn’t stop cooking. “Yeah, she does that.”
“You’re aware that she sneaks around your house and takes illegal pictures of you?” Audrey questioned. Why wasn’t he more outraged?
But he just snorted. “Illegal?”
“Well, yeah.” Why was she the only one who had a problem with this? “She puts them on some social media page for people to look at.”
Cameron shut the burner off and moved the egg pan to a cooler part of the stove. “Tumblr,” he informed her. He shot her a look as he took three plates down from the cabinet. “The Beehive Mafia is harmless.”
“She’s invading your privacy,” she told him.
Piper hopped down from the counter and ran to the stool she’d been sitting on earlier.
Cameron picked up a giant spoon and scooped eggs onto a plate. “Are you going to fight my battles for me, Audrey?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and watched while he stacked a pancake next to the eggs. “Sounds like someone should.”
“Be my guest,” he told her. “I’ve been trying to get them to leave me alone for years. They’re tenacious as hell.” He dropped one slice of bacon on the plate, then delivered the plate to Piper.
The kid swiveled back and forth on her stool, then smiled her thanks.
“You could call the police on her,” Audrey suggested.
Cameron snorted again as he grabbed another plate and heaved a heaping spoonful of eggs. “And what? Have her arrested? She’s a hundred years old.”
He had a point, but still. “Maybe they could get her to leave you alone.”
He slanted her a look, and they both knew she was kidding herself.
“All right, fine,” she replied with a nonchalant shrug. If he didn’t care about having himself posted all over some senior eye-candy page, then it was no skin off her back.
“This is killing you, isn’t it?” he questioned.
Audrey watched while he added three slices of bacon to the pancakes and eggs. “What’s that?” she asked as she took the plate from him and wondered how she was going to eat all the food he’d given her, even though it smelled delicious, like one of her childhood Sunday mornings.
“Not taking your advice,” he finally answered.
“Not even a little,” she lied.
He watched without responding while he ate from his own plate, standing at the kitchen counter instead of sitting. Why did he always have to look at her like that? Like he was waiting for her to reveal some ulterior motive? What kind of women had he been with in the past? She got the feeling that he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Immediately, her thoughts went to the comment Lois had made about the married woman. Of course, it was none of her business, but Audrey couldn’t help but wonder if Cameron had gotten himself into some nasty situation that had left him jaded about future relationships. Audrey could certainly understand the feeling of once bitten, twice shy.
Even though she was dying to ask, she kept the curiosity to herself.
“What?” he asked.
Audrey crunched into a piece of bacon. “Nothing.”
“So you met Lois, huh?” he commented.
“Actually I met her at the pancake breakfast. But Annabelle came to my rescue.”
One side of Cameron’s mouth quirked. She’d learned really fast that he was good at smiling without really smiling. Although she wasn’t sure how he did that, it was sexy as hell. It softened his features and created little shivers in her belly.
“Lois cornered you, did she?”
“She thought I was your baby mama,” Audrey commented as she cut into her pancakes.
Cameron shook his head. “Beehive Mafia. It’s probably all over town by now.”
“I thought you said they’re harmless,” she pointed out.
“Normally, they are. But usually it’s pictures, not speculation over my personal life.”
Audrey set her empty plate on the counter. “You don’t like that, do you?”
“What?”
“People getting in your business,” she guessed.
Cameron pinned her with an unreadable look. “I like my privacy.”
“So
