Mina laughed, the sound a cousin to a giggle, and his heart melted. Liam had spent the last few years doing hard rides on the rodeo circuit and practicing his lasso skills. He’d honed his finesse work until he was one of the best in the business. It took the kind of focus that most people couldn’t dream of. But all the concentration in the world couldn’t stop him from melting over her.
If she ever found out, he’d never live it down. What he did instead was clear his throat. “You hungry?”
“No, I’m sorry, that was weird to just laugh. I’m not hungry. I just—” She ran a hand self-consciously over her hair. “I had dinner with my Grandma Aileen not long ago. It feels like a long time ago, but it wasn’t. I’m good.” A smile spread over her face and she quickly got it under control. “Plus, I’m having a hard time imagining you cooking.”
“Grandma Aileen,” he said. The few times he’d seen Mina’s grandmother, she’d been kind to him. And she was known around the school for having a meal ready whenever Mina had friends over to study. He’d always been envious of the people who got to take advantage of that—and sit at Mina’s small kitchen table, working with her. “How’s she doing these days? I never got much of a chance to stop by when you lived with her. You still doing that?”
Mina’s smile flickered and died, turning into something melancholy. “Oh, she’s—well, she’s doing as well as can be expected. I actually had to move her into Sunnyside a couple of years ago. Dementia.” Mina’s gaze fell to the floor, and when she looked back up at Liam, her eyes shone with unshed tears. “She’s happy there, as far as I can tell. But there are days when…” She looked away and shook her head. “There are good days and bad,” she said instead.
He had never been so stricken with awkwardness in his life. He’d only meant to ask about her family, and now here she was, on the verge of tears in his kitchen. A certain desperation filled his chest. If he couldn’t make Mina comfortable here, then what? “Oh, Mina, I’m so sorry to hear that.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “I didn’t want to make you focus on something sad. Not when you’re here in my palace of pleasure.”
She snorted, the laugh coming strong and fast afterward. “Your palace of pleasure? This is what you’d call a palace of pleasure?”
“Hey,” he shot back, pretending to be wounded. “This could be a palace if you squinted and turned your head just right. Besides, you have to admit that the decor’s as nice as anyplace else.” He rapped his knuckles against the faux shutters that framed the kitchen window. One of them chose that moment to detach from its upper-right-hand nail. The loud crack sent Mina into another fit of laughter. “I’ve been meaning to fix that,” he said. “Oh, hell, at least it’s clean.”
That, she couldn’t argue with. Liam didn’t have much to do, and he was the kind of man who needed to keep busy. He’d liked a clean house before his accident. Now it had, perhaps pathetically, become one of his hobbies. The sink was always cleared of dishes, and she hadn’t had a single complaint about the bathroom, which he knew had been sparkling. “You’re right,” Mina said, struggling to catch her breath. “It’s very clean. I’m just not sure it’s a palace.”
“I can prove otherwise.” He bent down and pulled a pan from one of the lower cupboards. “You just stay right there. Don’t go anywhere.”
“There’s nowhere else to go.” Mina craned her neck to look behind her. “Or is there? Are you hiding another set of rooms in a secret closet somewhere?”
“No other rooms,” he said. “Just some excellent hot chocolate.”
“Hot chocolate?”
He’d drawn her another step into the kitchen. “Have a seat at the table and learn from the master.” Here, at least, he had his footing. Flirting was second nature to Liam Wells. He just had to forget that it was Mina Heath he was talking to. Or…remember that once, long ago, she’d been a sweet teenager who’d looked at him like he held the entire world in his backpack. “This is technically my mother’s recipe, so she’s the original master. Or mistress.”
This earned him another laugh from Mina. “I’m not sure I have many family recipes.”
“This one’s good because of the extra touch at the end.”
“Extra touch?”
“You’ll see.” Liam felt her watching as he heated up the milk and stirred in a generous helping of cocoa. When it was bubbling, he poured it into two big mugs and added another inch of milk. This brought it to the ideal temperature to drink right away.
“Okay, I have to say…so far this looks like regular hot chocolate,” Mina said from the table.
“That’s because you haven’t waited long enough.” Liam opened a cupboard above the fridge and brought out a bottle of peppermint schnapps. “This is the Wells family secret.”
Something in the air shifted and changed around them. He brought the mugs to the table and put one in front of Mina, then took the seat opposite her. She looked almost comfortable, with her legs crossed underneath her and her hair nearly dry. But she spun the mug around in her hands, watching him.
“How’d you get injured?” she said finally. “Did you fall off your horse?”
“Nah,” Liam said, the memory of it flashing into his mind as vividly as any of the ones from high school. “Well, yeah. We were coming out of the ring and she lost her head a little bit.” It had taken him by complete surprise. “Not a big deal under normal circumstances, but I came
