Logan turned and headed directly toward her to slip a cheeseburger on the plate beside her chair.
“Breakfast,” he said.
“Of champions,” she murmured.
His shadow fell over her. She could smell him—hot grease, sun-warmed skin, eucalyptus. He slid her sunglasses down her nose just as she raised her lashes to meet his eyes. Their gazes locked. The unspoken promises in those intense green eyes drew the air from her lungs.
“Hey,” John said from what seemed like a very distant place. “You guys should get a room.”
“We’ve got one.” Logan took a step back, canted those broad shoulders, and waved a spatula at his friend as he returned to the grill. “You do, too, John, so no reason for envy.”
“Of course I’m envious,” John said. “I’m living like a monk. And when I ran for refuge I ended up here, in a love shack.”
She spurted a mouthful of coffee. John burst into laughter. Logan grinned, and a moment later a bubble of laughter shivered up to her throat, too.
“By God, the fierce and feared Dr. Jennifer Vance is human.” John handed her the cocktail napkin under his cup so she could pat herself dry. “I was beginning to wonder if some Silicon Valley start-up had invented a lifelike, artificial-intelligence, botanical-research scientist.”
“What?”
“I’m amazed how you manage to speak at so many conferences. Every week I see another published article with your name attached.”
“Oh, that.” She patted at the splatters of coffee and then gave up. “I don’t sleep.”
“I don’t sleep either,” John said. “But I’m not getting nearly as much work done.”
“And you won’t get as much work done, now that you’ve got a newborn.” Logan flipped his overdone burger and glanced over his shoulder. “What’s this about Jenny’s publishing?”
“Your roommate, here,” John said, with a wink, “is responsible for the death of more trees than anyone else I know in the field.”
“Trade journals use recycled paper,” she retorted, tossing the napkin aside to wrap both hands around the dripping burger, “when they bother to publish in actual paper at all.”
“That doesn’t make your research accomplishments any less impressive,” John remarked. “Though I’m not sure why you decided to share saliva with this guy.”
She nearly choked on a mouthful of burger. Spewing water was one thing; spewing half-chewed beef was another, so she closed her mouth to avoid becoming a social Hindenburg.
“You might not know his, but old Logan, here,” John continued, as if oblivious to her discomfort, “has been as thorny as Ulex europaeus since he got back from South America.”
South America?
“Hey, watch your language,” Logan said, closing the grill and approaching an empty chair with his own burger.
“It’s gorse,” Jenny blurted, feeling short-circuited. “The common name for Ulex europaeus is gorse.”
Logan lifted a brow as he sat down. “That’s botany humor, right?”
“He can be taught.” John spoke around the food filling his cheek. “At least he’s got that much going for him. Maybe you can tame him, Jenny. He’s in dire need of gentling.”
“So,” Logan said, in a firm and overly loud voice, “how’s that baby of yours, John?”
If a man’s grin could split his face, Johns’s face would be in two halves. His eyes shone over the ruddiness of his cheeks. “That baby of mine is doing just fine, Logan old pal, as I’ve told you a dozen times by now.” He leaned toward Jen. “We called her Lily.”
She cocked her head. “Short for Lilium?”
“Of course,” John said.
Logan rolled his eyes. “Is that Lily as in ‘of-the-valley?’”
“More like Tiger Lily,” John said with a wince. “She flails and scratches and has a temper you wouldn’t believe.” John’s his eyes misted over. “But when she smiles it’s like the whole world glows.”
“What you’re seeing is gas,” Logan scoffed, as he flipped his burger onto a roll. “You can still count her age in days.”
“She knows who her daddy is.” John finished the last of the burger and settled back in his chair, wiping his hands on a napkin. “Daddy is the one who feeds her at three in the morning. Daddy is the one who changes the really gnarly diapers. Daddy is the one whose shoulder she always throws up on. I don’t think I’ve slept an hour since she’s been born.” A beatific smile spread across his face. “But I wouldn’t give this up for anything in the world. You should try it sometime, Logan. Fatherhood, that is.”
Logan concentrated on the burger oozing grease onto his paper plate. “Are you starting trouble?”
John looked right at her. “I think you found some all by yourself.”
She grinned, and she wondered why, only knowing that it felt good to gang up with John against Logan.
“Jen,” John persisted, refocusing his attention, “Have you ever seen a baby born?”
“Ah…no.”
“Logan has.” John spread his fingers toward his friend. “Has he mentioned that? This man has delivered more babies into the world than he can count.”
Logan gave John an unreadable look as he squirted ketchup on his burger. It was hard to imagine Logan wearing a doctor’s white coat, cocking his ear to patients, wrist-deep in surgery, or coaxing a child into the world. She didn’t know that part of him yet.
She knew so little of him, really.
“Hundreds and hundreds of babies,” John continued. “All brought into the world by this doctor, right here. He understands how fragile and amazing childbirth is.”
“John.” Logan’s voice held a hint of warning.
“I never really knew how scary and beautiful it was,” John said, focusing on her, “until I watched the process myself. I would have been happy pacing the hall outside the delivery room, but I’m glad Judy insisted I be with her. How often do you get to see that, really, if you’re not someone like Logan, who does it for a living?”
Logan said, “You need another
