She pushed the doorbell, and the waiting felt hard and tight in her chest. And then the door swung open. Jason Benedict stood there. He looked from the box in her hands to her eyes. His gaze locked on hers, and everything suddenly felt okay. His smile, slow and sweet, made her feel as if she’d done something remarkable.
“Leesa! Please, come in.” He opened the screen door and held it for her as she entered. As she took those few steps into the house, she passed close enough to Jason that his scent—something that triggered all her lady bits—seeped into her and sank deep.
“Who’s at the…Leesa! Hey, it’s great to see you!” Phillip had come into the front room, where the door was. He came forward and looked into the box. Then he smiled as he met her gaze.
“What have you got, there?”
She froze for only a moment, and then she mentally kicked herself in the ass.
“I heard that y’all had moved in. I know this is just temporary, but it seemed like I should…” That was as far as she got. Her nerves failed her, and her throat closed. She looked from one man to the other, not truly knowing if she would cut and run, or not.
Phillip lifted the small box from her care. Jason reached out and took her hand in his. He brought it to his lips and kissed it. “We were just talking about you. You see we’re both drawn to you.” He huffed out a breath and shook his head. She thought his smile, one that seemed a bit less tense than the one she’d seen at the restaurant, was self-deprecating. “That sounded lame, even to me. Come into the kitchen and sit. I think we need to talk. Unless…you’re not…attracted to us?”
“The kitchen’s a really good place to talk.” Then she closed her eyes, and the comedy of the situation pulled a chuckle from her. “I’ll join you in the lame department. Yes, I am attracted to you both.” She wanted to say more, to rush headlong into whatever was going to happen next.
But since this was new territory for them all, and she didn’t want to be the one in charge at the moment, she nodded.
Jason and Phillip exchanged a look, and then they led her toward the kitchen and, hopefully, whatever the hell would come next.
Chapter Five
Jason held a chair for Leesa. The automatic action stemmed from the polite behavior both his parents had drilled into his head from the time he was a kid, and yet it was a gesture he’d rarely been in the position to offer.
And one she’d rarely received, if the quickly quelled startled look he’d seen in her eyes was any indication.
“What can I get you to drink?” Phillip asked. “Coffee? Sweet tea? Beer?”
Leesa shot her attention to Phillip because his cousin had infused a bit of wistfulness in his voice when he’d said “beer.”
Then she smiled and relaxed slightly. Score one for Phillip.
“It’s already well past four,” Leesa said, “so I’ll have a beer, thanks. And I don’t need a glass.”
“Perfect.”
Phillip set a cold longneck in front of each of them. Jason experienced a moment of panic, wondering where to begin. Then he met Leesa’s unflinching gaze. Something in her expression calmed him, and he knew his only option was to start at the beginning and hold nothing back.
Phillip had always been smoother when it came to social interaction. He didn’t seem to have any of the awkwardness that had plagued Jason all his life. So Jason was relieved when his cousin opened the conversation.
“It really is a kind of karma, I guess, that you showed up here today. J. Coop and I’ve been talking about you. Hoping for a chance to see you, wondering if you were as attracted to us as we are to you. Just…wondering. And not knowing where or how to start talking about that.”
“J. Coop?” Leesa tilted her head as she looked from Phillip to him.
“Phillip has a brother named Jason,” he said. “While the rest of the family took to calling him J.J., for Jason Jonathan, Phillip has always called me J. Coop—Cooper is my middle name.”
“I started that because, when I was five, I thought J. Coop sounded way cooler than J.J.,” Phillip said. Then he shrugged. “And my brother was a pain in the ass. Still is, in fact.”
“J. Coop. I kind of like it.” Leesa smiled, and he liked the look of that on her, a lot.
Jason took a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. But nothing sounded right in his head. He didn’t want Leesa to think they’d stayed here hoping to get “lucky.” “We didn’t decide to stay here in Lusty just to hook up.” Hells bells, J. Coop get you shit together. He flinched, and Leesa laid a hand on his.
“No, I think a part of you saw the offer of a house and an extended stay as the opportunity to find proof of something fishy going on around here.”
Leesa had that soft smile on her face, but Phillip looked confused.
“I didn’t know anyone had figured that out,” Jason said. Then he looked over at Phillip. “While you went to the museum and the cemetery, I spent our first week doing some exploring of my own. I found a public lab in Waco and took some water samples there to be tested.”
It took Phillip a moment to understand. And then he completely unmanned Jason by laughing. Usually, if someone laughed at him, he’d feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. He usually didn’t know how to react.
But this time he didn’t experience any of those usual feelings. Leesa was clearly trying not to laugh. But there was no scorn, no derision—no mocking. This was humor, pure and simple. He felt the sheepish smile slide onto his face as he offered up
