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Safer. There was the shelter, too, with
domestic violence counselors and kids Beth Ann could relate to, people who
understood what they’d been through. She would stick to the plan. As soon as
Rusty fixed her car, they had to go.
    * * *
    “W HAT THE hell is challah? ” Jonah
asked, adding a loaf of perfectly fine white bread to the stack that CJ had
rejected for her blasted French toast.
    She’d hassled him from the minute she stepped into the café and
it was too damn early to be hassled. Rosie must have told her to kick his ass
because she didn’t back down one bit, no matter what he said.
    He hoped to hell Rusty Duvall would choke down a raw egg and
some Tabasco and get going on her car.
    “Jewish egg bread,” CJ answered, her voice muffled because she
was between shelves, pawing through all the breads and rolls he had in stock,
her spectacular backside close enough to grab.
    Luckily, his hands were full of rejected bread.
    She backed out with two loaves of thick-sliced French bread.
“These will have to do.”
    “Look, this crowd just wants a hunk of bread to soak up their
yolks. Don’t expect many takers.” But his words fell on deaf ears. Pretty,
shell-like ears that peeked from beneath her flyaway hair, but deaf to good
sense all the same.
    She’d made real whipped cream because the canned stuff was gross, doing this really distracting wiggling
and bouncing the whole time. He’d been so distracted he hadn’t noticed he had
scorched the back of his apron until he smelled burned cotton.
    Now the bell jangled. “Customers.” He bent to look out the
pass-through at the construction crew heading for a booth.
    “I need five minutes to get the bread soaking,” she said. “Can
you see what they want? Hold the breads until I tell them about the French
toast.” She scurried off. He couldn’t help but watch that hitch and jiggle she
had when she walked. It wasn’t her fault exactly. What did they call it in the
law? An attractive nuisance. Yeah. And he had the
charred apron to prove it.
    Soon enough she’d wiggled out with coffee for the workers and
returned with a triumphant grin. “They all want French toast.”
    “What they want is you, ” he muttered, turning back to the stove.
    “What?”
    “Nothing,” he grumbled.
    She slapped batter-coated bread onto his griddle, drips and
splats flying everywhere. “Flip these when they’re light brown, please. Also,
you might use more butter on those fried eggs. The edges are crusting. Where’s
the powdered sugar?”
    “Top shelf to the left. With the brown sugar.”
    She set off and he checked his eggs. They weren’t crusty. Or
not that crusty. Dammit. He added butter. Everybody was a critic.
    “I don’t see it,” CJ yelled.
    Hell’s bells. He stomped into the
pantry. She was reaching up from the ladder, her backside at eye-level, the edge
of yellow lace panties peeking above her pants. Did her bra match?
    Focus, man. He hauled his gaze to
the shelf, where she had her fingers on the right sack. “You got it.”
    She jerked, surprised by his voice, he guessed, and a cloud of
powdered sugar drifted onto him and the floor around them.
    “You scared me.” She scampered down the ladder.
    “You called me in here.” Powdered sugar puffed from his lips
with each word.
    “I’m sorry.” She was clearly fighting a grin as she brushed the
sugar from his hair, then his shoulders, her breasts swaying gently before his
eyes. The woman had a million ways to drive him wild.
    “There. All better.” She met his gaze, mere inches away.
Powdered sugar sparkled in her hair, on the pale down of her forearms, and on
her lips. Could they be as soft as they looked? Would they taste like the cotton
candy she smelled of?
    “Something’s burning,” she breathed.
    No kidding. If the powdered sugar
were gunpowder, it might have blown them sky-high. Then he smelled what she
meant. Scorched bread. Her damn French toast. “Hell.”
    They rushed out together, banging