Read Online Surrogate and Wife by Emily McKay - Free Book Online Page A

pan and pointed toward the oven. “The first batch is in the oven. Help yourself.”
    â€œBreakfast tacos?” she repeated dreamily. In her mind, nothing beat the sheer joy from consuming eggs, bacon, melted Colby-jack and spicy salsa all wrapped up in a warm tortilla.
    â€œYep. Those are bacon, egg and cheese. These’ll be sausage, egg, and potato, if you want to wait. And there’s decaf coffee in the pot.”
    She was already fishing a couple of tacos out of the oven when he got to the part about the coffee. “Decaf? Is that what you normally drink?”
    â€œNaw. Normally, I’m a double-shot espresso kinda guy. But Beth mentioned you’d given up caffeine. I figured, if you could do it, so could I.”
    â€œMy gosh, you’re a saint for giving up coffee if you don’t have to.” She dropped the tacos onto a plate and began gingerly peeling away the hot tinfoil he’d wrapped them in. “Where’d you get all this food? I could have sworn I didn’t have five dozen eggs in the fridge.”
    â€œI went out to the store this morning.”
    She glanced at the clock. “It’s only 8:30. How long have you been up?”
    â€œLet’s just say that inflatable mattress you blew up for me last night wasn’t quite made for someone my size.”
    â€œAh. Sorry. Not having a proper guest bed means unwanted guests don’t stay for long. Sorry you had to pay the price though. On the bright side, it does give us an excuse to move your bed and furniture into my guest bedroom.”
    There hadn’t been time before their wedding night to move in his bed. Which had left either the sofa or the inflatable mattress. “By the way, when you said these were for ‘the guys’ which ‘guys’ did you mean exactly?”
    â€œThe guys from the station.” He dumped the scrambled eggs into the bowl of already cooked sausage and potatoes.
    â€œJust so I know what to expect—” she spooned salsa onto her tacos “—will ‘the guys’ be coming over every Saturday morning for breakfast?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOh, that’s good.”
    She’d been teasing, but as she took a bike of taco, it occurred to her: What did she really know about Jake, other than the fact that he was an arson investigator and had been Stew’s best friend since the tenth grade? And he made kick-butt breakfast tacos.
    Everything else was supposition and extrapolation. And yet she’d invited him into her home—into her life—for the next six months. What in the world had she gotten herself into?
    And did it really matter as long as he kept feeding her like this? she mused as she took another bite of taco.
    With her foot she nudged a kitchen chair away from the table so it faced the counter where Jake worked. She lowered herself into the chair, held a napkin under her chin so she didn’t drip on her shirt and took another bite.
    Man, oh, man, she could get used to this.
    Freshly made breakfast tacos. Hot coffee waiting for her. Jake sure knew the way to a woman’s heart.
    â€œThe guys are helping to move my stuff in. I offered to feed them as payment.” As he stirred the ingredients together, he studied her over his shoulder. “I told them—”
    She looked at him over her taco. “What?”
    â€œThat’s what you’re wearing?” His eyebrows were raised, his expression dubious.
    She glanced down, just to verify that her pants and shirt hadn’t somehow morphed into a Big Bird costume. “What’s wrong with what I have on?”
    He looked her up and down with a thoroughness she found more than a little disconcerting. “Nothing. I guess.”
    She looked down at her clothes again, then back up at him. “Seriously, what’s wrong with this?”
    He shrugged, turning his attention back to filling the tortillas. “It’s just a little formal for a