Jennifer sighed gustily. “Don’t I know it. Okay, see y’all next week. Thanks for another fun class, Bonnie.”
“I think she suspects something is going on between us,” Paul said when he and Bonnie were alone. “I didn’t say anything…”
Bonnie shrugged as she busily cleared and wiped counters. “It’s not as if we’re sneaking around to see each other on the sly,” she said, unconsciously parroting his thoughts. “And it’s not as if I’m grading the class, so it doesn’t really matter if I have a teacher’s pet,” she added with a wink over her shoulder that warmed his blood.
He couldn’t resist catching her around the waist and lifting her into his arms for a kiss. It had been almost twenty-four hours since he’d kissed her last and he was hungry for another taste of her. She cooperated eagerly.
“Hey, Bon, can you— Oh, uh, sorry.”
Breaking apart, Paul and Bonnie both turned to the back door which Logan had just thrown open. Logan looked both embarrassed and a little displeased to have caught them in a kiss, or at least that was the way Paul interpreted the other man’s stern expression. He didn’t really know Bonnie’s brother, having only seen him around the inn a couple of times, but he suspected it was never easy to tell what Logan was really thinking.
Beside him, Bonnie tucked her hair behind her right ear, and while her cheeks were suspiciously pink, her voice was normal enough when she asked, “What do you need, Logan?”
He seemed reluctant to answer for a moment, and Paul half expected him to make an excuse and leave. Instead, Logan sighed and came farther into the kitchen. “I’ve got a damned rose thorn in my back and I can’t reach it. Mind taking it out for me?”
He turned and raised the hem of his T-shirt to show her his back. Paul winced in sympathy. The thorn had broken off just beneath the angrily inflamed skin almost directly between Logan’s shoulder blades. A few drops of blood had scabbed around the thorn, which must have gone right through his thin cotton shirt and broken off when he’d pulled away from the rosebush. Had to hurt.
Expecting Bonnie to sympathize with her brother, Paul was a bit startled when she seemed to be struggling with a laugh. “Logan! How on earth did you manage to do this?”
He muttered a rather sheepish explanation. “Ninja stole a hammer from my toolbox and hid it under that big rosebush at the side of my house. I had to crawl under to get it, and the damned bush attacked me.”
“Sit down where I can reach you. I’ll get the first aid kit.”
“I don’t need first aid, just take out the damned thorn.”
Bonnie seemed not at all cowed by her older brother’s snarl. “You can growl all you want, but I’m going to put an antibiotic ointment on it so it doesn’t get infected. Now pull off your shirt and sit down.”
Logan tugged the shirt over his head to reveal a tanned torso ridged with muscles Paul tried not to envy. He was in reasonably good shape but dang…
Logan settled on a stool at the prep bar. “You got any sisters, um—?”
“Paul. And no, I was an only.”
“They’re a pain in the butt.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Bonnie said, emerging from a large pantry with a first aid kit in her hands. “You know you love us. Besides, who would pull this thorn from your back if it weren’t for me? Ninja?”
“What kind of dog is Ninja?” Paul asked, leaning against the counter to watch as Bonnie ministered to her brother.
“Mutt,” Logan answered succinctly. “He showed up as a stray and decided to hang around.”
Bonnie giggled. “Kinley says he’s part rottweiler, part Lab, part imp and part demon. He’s really a very sweet dog, but he has a mischievous sense of humor that gets him in trouble.”
Paul quirked an eyebrow at her. “A sense of humor?”
“Oh, definitely. He loves to steal things and hide them, like Logan’s hammer. He gets a special kick out of teasing Kinley, because he knows it makes her crazy.”
“Uh-huh.”
He must have sounded skeptical, because Bonnie shot him a smile. “You’d have to meet him to understand. I swear there are times I think he’s almost human.”
“He’s a dog, Bonnie.”
She leaned close to her brother, using a pair of tweezers she’d swished in alcohol to dig for the broken thorn. “He’s a very smart dog. And you love him.”
“Ouch! Damn it, are you pulling the thorn out or pushing it deeper in?”
“It’s out.” She showed him the grisly evidence then treated the minor wound with ointment and an adhesive bandage to keep it clean. She then gave him a smacking kiss on the top of his head, proving again that she was not at all intimidated by Logan’s impatient posturing.