Chesapeake 10 - A Seaside Christmas by Sherryl Woods Page B

regarded him with amusement. “I said I’d work with you, not take orders from you.”
    “It wasn’t an order. It was a gentle reminder that I actually do know a few things about your working habits. Once you tense up and start pushing, the lyrics are never as good as when you get away from them for a little while.” He held out a plate with roasted chicken, cheese and bread on it. “Eat!” He grinned at her. “And that was an order.”
    Jenny accepted the plate, but feigned a scowl. “I’ll eat, but not because you say so. It’s only because that chicken looks amazing.”
    “Whatever you need to tell yourself,” he commented.
    They ate in companionable silence for a while. Eventually, Caleb couldn’t take another moment of the quiet. “This morning wasn’t so hard, was it? Working with me, I mean.”
    She glanced sideways at him. “It wasn’t horrible,” she conceded. “You were on very good behavior.”
    “It reminded me of old times.”
    “Don’t go there, Caleb.”
    “We had a lot of good times, Jenny. You can’t deny that.”
    “I can’t deny it,” she agreed. “But I don’t want to think about them.”
    He regarded her knowingly. “Why not? Afraid you’ll let down your guard?”
    “That’s not going to happen,” she said fiercely. “If you’re thinking it will, you’re in for a rude awakening. The past— our past—is behind us, Caleb.”
    “Doesn’t feel that way to me,” he insisted.
    “Well, it is.”
    He figured that he’d pushed hard enough for now. “How late are you planning to work today?”
    “Do you have someplace you need to be?” she inquired tartly. “You can leave anytime.”
    “No, but I was thinking that you’ve been at this for hours.”
    “We don’t have a lot of time. The professional actors Bree hired get to town on Monday. I know she wants to run through the songs with the locals at least a few times before that.”
    “Makes sense.”
    “What about you? Has she told you how she’s going to work you into the script? You can’t very well just pop up and sing a song here and there.”
    Caleb shrugged. “I figured she’d spell it out for me when she has it nailed down. She’s the playwright. We just agreed to do this yesterday.”
    “Which means she’s probably written you in by now. Maybe you should look for her and find out what she has in mind.”
    “Trying to get rid of me, Jenny?”
    “Just being practical. As I said, there’s not a lot of time.”
    He regarded her with amusement. “And you don’t think Bree knows exactly where to find me if she needs me?”
    She frowned at his logic. “More than likely,” she conceded. “But I’m not going to be around much longer, anyway, so you might as well look for her.”
    Now it was Caleb’s turn to frown. “Hot date with that ex-boyfriend who was here yesterday?”
    She ignored his reference to the old flame. “If you must know, I’m going to move my things from Jake and Bree’s tonight.”
    For a moment, Caleb’s heart stuttered. “To the inn?”
    She shook her head. “You wish. No, my mother and Thomas kept our old house for me. I’m going to move in there. Of course, the furnishings are a little sparse, so I’ll need to spend some time shopping for furniture, but I won’t need much, at least not on this trip.”
    Her words stirred a memory. “Remember when we shopped for furniture for your place in Nashville?” Caleb asked. She’d insisted on buying the town house out of her first big paycheck, rather than agreeing to move in with him.
    “I thought we weren’t going to walk down memory lane anymore,” she said, her frustration plain.
    “Your plan,” he said. “I like memory lane, especially when we picked out the bed. I thought the saleswoman was going to have a heart attack when we both climbed into it. I’m stunned there weren’t pictures on the internet within seconds.”
    “She knew better,” Jenny said, a smile tugging at her lips. “She wanted the big fat