Disclaimer: Look, If I owned Inuyasha I wouldn’t be sitting around writing this; I’d be spending my millions on anime plushies!! Duh!

Summary: Kagome Higurashi has just been hired as Head Cook in the Takahashi household. She knew it would be hard, but she didn’t expect to be battling throughout the wife and husband’s fights and the child’s scheming cuteness. Least of all did she expect to fall in love with the currently divorced husband: Inuyasha Takahashi.

You guys make a girl feel loved!!

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

“What are you doing,” Inuyasha asked very suddenly making Kagome jump.

As she got over her shock, she replied. “I’m cooking some strawberry foods for Kai; I think he’ll like them.”

Inuyasha looked over the mound of food sitting on the kitchen table. There were at least ten strawberry foods already there and he didn’t even want to see the inside of the refrigerator.

“Did you want something Inuyasha,” Kagome questioned when he turned back around. She had just finished up making a strawberry cheese cake and was wiping her hands on the apron that was over her uniform (the very same uniform that Inuyasha’s voice loved back in chapter five).

“No, I just came down for a quick bite. I’m fine though,” Inuyasha replied, trying to make a quick get-a-way from the kitchens before his thoughts woke up. Kagome grabbed his arm and pulled him back in. Inuyasha felt heat rise up in his face and hoped that the lighting was dim enough for Kagome to not see it. Why he was getting upset about Kagome seeing him blush was beyond him though. Even the thought of why he was blushing in the first place was out of the range of his thought process at 4:16 AM.

“I was just going to make fresh bread. If you don’t mind eating the bread I bought the other day, I could make you French toast.” Kagome looked at him hopefully. She was in a cooking mode and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Seeing this, Inuyasha replied with the safest choice possible:

“Sure.”

Apparently, it was the right one. Kagome immediately started bustling around the kitchen getting everything out, asking questions such as “Do you want powdered sugar” without waiting for the reply. Inuyasha sat and watched her. She had a grace around her as she walked. Every moment she made gave off her scent. The strawberries were the strongest and it wasn’t because of all the foods sitting on the table behind him. He supposed that it was because she used strawberries a lot in her cooking; the only other thing you would use in cooking was the vanilla but Kagome had a single bottle of vanilla while she had bowls of strawberries surrounding her.

Inuyasha found that he could not take his eyes off her even though he was telling himself that he shouldn’t look at a woman like that, especially a woman that worked for him. He watched as her face was fully concentrating on her work. His eyes moved down her face; her nose, he noticed, was perfect, curving in and not having so much as a single freckle; her lips, so red so early in the morning. Inuyasha had an uncontrollable urge to grab her and kiss her right then and there, hell be damned if she looked exactly like Kikyo.

‘No,’ he thought, coming out of his daydream when he realized his claws had made marks in the table. ‘I can’t think like that. Yes, she looks beautiful, but she looks like Kikyo. Rin told me that she and Kikyo even knew each other growing up. Kikyo and she are probably planning something behind my back. That bitch, if she ever comes near Kai again, I’ll kill her-’

“Here you go,” Kagome’s voice said as it pulled him out of his battling thoughts. Inuyasha was thankful that she didn’t see the scratch marks left in the table. He swore so violently in his head when he looked up from the plate in front of him. Kagome had leaned down to place the plate upon the table so Inuyasha now had a perfect view of her chest.

‘Damn it Rin,’ he shouted in his head. ‘Why’d you have to pick one that was so… tight?’

Ahh, but it IS a lovely sight, isn’t it? Inu’s inner thought answered back, awakened by the sight in front of Inuyasha’s eyes.

‘You’re the one that had me convinced that I loved Kikyo! And why the hell and I even talking to you, you’re nothing.’

Keep on tellin’ yourself that buddy.

Inuyasha gave a low growl in the back of his throat as a response.

“What, you don’t like it?” Kagome’s voice sounded worried. She was a bit frightened when she heard the growl; there was no reason why there should have been one. Unless, of course, he was growling at her, but he couldn’t be, right? He asked her to leave off the honorific yesterday; he couldn’t simply have gone from actually being normal for once back to being a hardass, could her? Oh Kami, was Kagome confused!

Inuyasha looked up from her chest and looked in to her eyes. They were such a dark brown that they reminded him of chocolate; something utterly forbidden for a dog yet it was pulling him in every time he saw them. His eyes dropped lower until they saw her lips again. Tearing his eyes away from the tempting sight, he looked back into her eyes.

“Nothing’s wrong. I thought that I had just heard something for a second.”

Kagome sighed a breath of relief. Nothing was wrong with her or her cooking!

‘Good. Kami, I was seriously freaking out!’

‘Doesn’t Inuyasha seem a bit… off right now?’ Kagome heard her nice voice asking, worry lining her words.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Yeah, are you talking about the way he’s acting or the fact that he was staring at Kagome’s chest?’

‘Hmmm, both I think…’

‘What!? He was SO not staring at my chest!’

‘Sorry Kaggie, but he was.’

‘I don’t see why you’re so upset about it. You’re hot; if he DIDN’T look at you he’s be gay.’

‘Not true, remember what that one gay guy-’

‘Oh yeah, forgot about that. Remember ‘Gome? …‘Gome?’

‘Kaggie…?’

‘Awww, DAMN IT!’

‘What?’

‘She’s got gonna be able to speak to him or she’s gonna slap the living hell out of ‘im.’

‘I think she’s doing the former.’

‘Ooh! Let’s watch! I’m getting’ popcorn’

Kagome was, in fact, blushing and looking away from Inuyasha. He was already eating his French toast and didn’t notice a thing. No, scratch that; he DID notice, but there was nothing he could do without giving himself away. The two remained in an awkward state for the rest of the morning. Rin came down with Kai and both started on Kagome’s strawberry pancakes. Rin looked back and forth between Kagome and Inuyasha (who had decided to start writing up new business deals on multiple napkins that were sitting on the table). She wondered why there was so much tension in the air.

Rin took Kai out back to swim in their pool since he didn’t have school today and summer was almost here.

Soon, Inuyasha left for work, taking the napkins along with him. Yayoi and Daiki came in to work since it was Tuesday and were a bit shocked about how much Kagome had already done. The two siblings went and help kagome make another loaf of bread and the rest of the day went on smoothly.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

On the opposite side of Tokyo, a man was mad. No, he was more than mad.

He was pissed.

The man called out the name Toshio and a younger man came running in. He had a fearful look on his face and wondered what he did wrong now.

“Toshio, send three of your best men out.”

Toshio’s face grew even more worried. This could not end well. “Who are we looking for this time Lord-sama?”

“Kagome Higurashi. I want her gone.” On the last word, the man turned around in his chair and looked out the window. Knowing that he was dismissed; Toshio bowed and left the room.

“Yes, Naraku-dono.”

DUN DUN DUN!! I know; it’s short. REALLY short, but I decided that I liked this better than what I had written up. Thank you so much for all the love (even though stupid Jordan and Bree never read it. My friends are so mean --cries--). Thanks goes out to:

Shannon

Diamond369 (twice!)

BlackWidow12

tif

lilypool

Xia-chan

never Inuyasha (twice!)

Jade Aurora Black

Kagome Lady of Darkness

Dogdemongurl45

CraziAznGirl

evelynvm29

apolla101

whitehitsugaya

phoebe4448

And just a recap for the voices since there were three of ‘em:

This is Inuyasha’s little Horny voice

This is Kagome’s Nice angel voice

This is Kagome’s Evil demon voice

‘Inuyasha’s thoughts’

‘Kagome’s thoughts’

Thank so much! Ooh! And I have a poll on my profile deciding which situation to use in this story! Please vote in it. And if you have a good idea PM it to me. If it’s really good, I might add it and dedicate the chapter that it’s in to you. ;)

-Jillian