Why, oh why, had she eaten those stupid eggs?

She sat on the chair she’d started to think of as hers and watched him dump a few cups of oats into the boiling water. Good Lord. Couldn’t he at least resort to the little microwavable packets? She knew she shouldn’t feel so damn irritated that he could cook, but it didn’t stop her from doing exactly that. “Are you trying to make me feel inadequate, or does it just come naturally to you?”

To her surprise, he gave her a small smile. “I don’t get a chance to cook all that often, and I’m kind of enjoying it. My team will eat damn near anything, so it’s nice to feed someone who might actually appreciate it.”

She blinked. When was the last time someone made something for her with the hope she’d appreciate it? Avery cooked from time to time, but she couldn’t care less if Bri and Drew ate or not. “You’re doing a whole lot better than I am at this point—except for the corn bread.”

“That would have been really great.” He grinned. “But I’m okay with how things turned out, jokes about burning this place to the ground aside.”

Her face flamed at the memory. “Can we please not talk about that?”

“You were more than willing to talk about it last night.”

Things had changed since then and he knew it. He was testing her. She straightened, but refused to take the bait. “Where did you learn to cook?”

For a long moment, she thought he might not let the previous subject go, but he shrugged. “I kind of learned as I went. Dad wasn’t much of a cook, even when he was around, and I got really tired of Drew’s burned grilled cheese sandwiches after the fifth straight day of eating them.”

She could sympathize. A few of her foster parents had stuck to meals that could be made in bulk and rotated on a weekly basis, while others hadn’t always worried about whether things were edible. But she’d never once considered taking things into her own hands the way Ryan apparently had. Which brought up the question… “What happened to your mom?”

“She died when I was two. From what people say, my dad wasn’t a bad guy before then, but he let missing her take over his life.” A shadow passed over his face, lingering in his eyes as he looked at her.

To get them off the shaky ground, she asked, “Why did you join the Air Force?”

He stirred the oatmeal. “I never really fit in here, even as a kid. Everywhere I turned, I had to deal with being Drunk Billy’s kid. Most people didn’t judge me for it, but there was no escaping the fact that everyone knew my dad spent more nights passed out in strange places than he did at home.”

He made a face as he set the pan on the oven and adjusted the heat. “But beyond that, I love history, and I’ve probably spent more time in that library of yours than you have, reading up on different places. All I wanted for as long as I can remember was to travel and see where history went down. I wanted to get away from a town where no one seems to get past something I did in high school.”

Bri folded her hands in front of her, feeling the ridiculous need to apologize for misjudging him, at least on one level. “It’s a funny story. People enjoy telling it.”

“It was a long time ago. When most people talk about the Flannerys, they’re thinking of how great Drew turned out, being sheriff and all. I’m just the kid who burned down the damn school, even though I’ve accomplished a whole hell of a lot since then.” He opened the fridge and poked around in the fruit crisper drawer. “Jesus.”

She peered over and couldn’t stop a laugh from escaping. “What in God’s name would possess them to put condoms in there?”

“I can’t decide if they thought we were actually going to have enough sex to justify what is obviously a Costco-sized box of condoms, or if they’re just fucking with us.” He pulled the condom packet out of the fridge and tossed it onto the counter farthest from her.

“It may very well be a combination of both.”

“Good point.” He pulled out a carton of berries and milk. “As to why I went with the Air Force, specifically, I picked the PJs because my uncle was one.”

She tilted her head to the side. “PJs? Is that the abbreviation for pararescuer?”

“Yeah. I used to beg him to tell me stories about the people he’d rescued.” He paused to look at her. “Something he said always stuck with me—it’s a whole lot harder to save a man’s life than it is to pull a trigger and end it. Though apparently my dad didn’t get that memo.”

Hearing his reasons sent a pang through her, a pang that only got worse when she realized what the last comment must mean. She couldn’t bring herself to ask if his dad had taken a gun to himself. Ryan hadn’t had a perfect upbringing any more than she had. A sense of kinship welled up inside her, snuffing out the last smidgen of irritation from the egg incident. “Your dad...”

“He killed himself a few years after I graduated.” He turned away. “I’ve never regretted leaving, even considering that, because joining the PJs was the best thing to ever happened to me.”

“You’re a hero.” More so than any man in her romance novels because he was real.

“I serve my country, same as any other soldier.”

Ryan took a package of brown sugar out of the cupboard and set it next to the stuff in front of her. “What about you? How did you end up in sleepy Wellingford? You’re from California, right?”

Though she didn’t particularly want to talk about herself, this seemed a safe enough subject. “I researched small towns with openings—or soon-to-be openings—within their library on the East Coast, and Wellingford was the top of that list. I didn’t expect Mrs. Cleaver to retire quite so quickly, but things just sort of worked out.”

“It has to be hard to live so far away from your family.”

She stared at her nails. “I don’t have any.”

He must have picked up on her reluctance to go deeper into the subject, because he didn’t push the issue. “So you did the equivalent of throwing a dart at one end of the map, then up and moved? That’s pretty spontaneous.”

If he had any idea what she would have done to get out of Los Angeles, he wouldn’t have thought so. Even though she knew it wasn’t the city’s fault her parents died in that car crash, she couldn’t help hating it. Wellingford was something fresh and new and untainted by her past. “I suppose, though it didn’t feel like that at the time.” She took the offered bowl of oatmeal and dosed it with milk and brown sugar. The first bite nearly made her eyes roll back in her head. “Every time I’ve tried to make oatmeal from scratch, I always end up with mush. This is so much better than mush.”

He laughed. “Practice and self-preservation.”

“Thank you.” Thank you for cooking for me. Thank you for sharing a little bit of your past. Thank you for listening to a sliver of mine and not pressing for more.

The peace between them lasted the rest of the fifteen minutes it took for them to eat the entire pot of oatmeal. For all the anxiety still swirling inside of her, the silence was…comfortable. Maybe they’d reached some sort of common ground?

Ryan stood and reached for her bowl.

Bri held on when he tried to pull away. “What are you doing?”

Ryan gave it another yank, a familiar frown settling over his face. “The dishes.”

“Absolutely not. You cooked. I can do the dishes.”

“It’s fine. I’ll take care of them.” He tugged on the bowl.

Apparently now that sharing time was over, he was back to making her feel completely inadequate. She tugged back harder, not even sure why she was bothering. She hated the dishes. They were one of those necessary evils that marrying a billionaire reformed playboy would solve. Not that she’d know what to do with one if she met him. “I said I’d do the dishes, and I will.”

“You’re just arguing to argue. Again. Knock it off.”

“You knock it off.”

“Just let it go, Bri. With your luck, you’ll probably find a knife to cut yourself on.”

She was so surprised, she let go of the bowl. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Considering how well things went this morning, I believe it’s pretty self-explanatory.”

When she’d fantasized about meeting her very own alpha male, she hadn’t stopped to consider that they were giant pains in the backside. Not that Ryan was hers, but the same principle applied. The women in her books never seemed to have problems like the ones she kept coming across. “I’m not some damsel in distress who needs to be saved.”

He gave her a look like she was stupid. “I didn’t say that. You’re a grown-up. I’m sure you manage to get dressed each morning, pay your bills, and show up to your job on time. What you can’t do is be left unsupervised in a kitchen.”

“Says the man who can’t be trusted near an open flame.”

Jaw clenched, he dumped the rest of the dishes in the sink and turned on the faucet. “If you want to keep me away from anything flammable, go grab some more firewood from the lean-to so we don’t have to cling to each other to keep warm.”

“I’d rather freeze to death than touch you again.”

“You’ve said that before.” He didn’t even look at her. “Good thing I chopped a shitload of firewood, huh?”

Bri stomped back to the bedroom to look for her boots, because the alternative was to grab one of the cast-iron pans and try to pound some sense into his thick head. She slammed out of the back door, not sure what she was so angry about, only that it was Ryan’s fault.

Everything was his fault.

If he’d just been some nice guy—like Drew and Avery claimed—then she could have smiled politely through their interactions up to this point and gone on her way. Even being stuck in this cabin with a nice guy wouldn’t be so terrible. But no, from the moment he’d shown up at her door looking like temptation personified, he’d proceeded to push her buttons, then turn around and shake her world to its foundations by making her feel things she never could have anticipated.