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And now I’m curious.
“Why are you holing up here?”
“Because I needed to get away.” He drops my hand and crosses his arms. I feel ten degrees colder.
“I know you’re hiding out from bad press. I mean, why are you stayinghere? Is your mansion being fumigated for opossums?”
He rolls his eyes and goes over to the window, which he slams shut. He slides the bolt into the latch. Then he looks around the room, taking in the messy sheets on the bed and the yellow-striped pillows strewn on an overstuffed beige chair.
He picks one of them up and squeezes it, testing its heft and softness before tossing it back onto the chair. Then he walks to a closet and opens the door, revealing twin terrycloth bathrobes tied at the waist like a proper hotel.
I feel a momentary surge of relief that at least one part of the place looks semi-inviting.
“Cozy. I like this.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“No, I didn’t.”
He’s still on the move, walking into the bathroom and fluffing the towels as though he’s actually thinking about spending the night in the squirrel den. I follow him like a sheep into the second bedroom, where the bed is made, but it’s a twin bunk bed. He sits down on the bottom bunk and bounces, his large frame comical in a room he outgrew three decades ago.
“You’re not sleeping in here.” I’m stating the obvious because of course a fancy Silicon Valley business dude isn’t sleeping in this crap hole. I can’t even imagine why Archer planned on having him stay here when he has plenty of room at his own house on the Buttercup Hill property.
“I’m not?” I can’t tell if his blank stare is supposed to be ironic or if he’s legitimately confused. “I don’t have a lot of other options.”
“You can do better than this.”
My mind churns through possible scenarios. I should just call Archer and tell him to come get his friend. He really should have escorted him here in the first place. Thenhe’dhave been the one getting run down by a squirrel family.
“Did Archer just send you here with a map and a key?” I shake my head at the incompetence of my thirty-six-year-old brother, who still has a long way to go if he ever hopes to land a girlfriend or, heaven forbid, a wife.
“He offered to drive me here, but I wanted the walk. It was nice, actually, after dinner.”
Standing in the doorway of the bathroom, he looks too big for the cottage. Like the width of his shoulders barely fits through the door. He did manage to walk into the bathroom without getting stuck, but as I size him up now, I notice he’s well over six feet tall. With his sleeves rolled up, I see the roped muscles of his forearms, and my eyes go to what looks like the ink of a tattoo on the swell of his muscle.
As though this wealthy, attractive man needed any additional ways to make him hotter.
And yet…he also looks like a lost kitten in need of a warm blanket and a few drops of milk. Maybe I can give him the human version of that before I send him back into the wild.
Shaking my head at my brother’s hosting ineptitude, I wave a hand for him to follow me. “Come with me.”
“Where?” He shouldn’t sound this wary when I’m trying to lead him away from a place that just got tossed by animals.
“Just…come.” I don’t know why he frustrates me so much. Maybe it’s because he’s so slow-moving—from the coffee line this morning to his meandering through the cottage where I’d have bolted as soon as I saw a squirrel tail.
I turn and head back to my own house, unsure if he’s following me, until I hear the key rattling in the deadbolt of the cottage once again. “You don’t need to lock it. No one else is going to fight you for squatter’s rights, trust me.”
“And the squirrels have keys, apparently.”
“Yes, about that…it’s not normally the way we welcome guests around here. I have no idea why the place wasn’t cleaned after the last person used it. I’ll call housekeeping and get it fumigated or whatever.”
Reaching a hand to touch my shoulder, he stops me. I turn, aware again of the warmth of his fingers against my skin. I must really be overdue for a casual hookup if the mere presence of a handsome man is sending electricity from my shoulder down to my core.
Must find hookup. Must put that on my to-do list.
“Please don’t worry about it. I don’t see it as a reflection on you. Shit happens.”
“I don’t know what world you live in where squirrel takeovers just ‘happen,’ but okay.” I keep walking, and his hand drops from my shoulder. My skin shivers in the night air in the spotwhere his hand was, but at least I’m no longer in danger of melting into a puddle.
