AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When we’re alone, Noah rubs the back of his neck. “I’m…sorry about that.”
“It’s alright. I don’t hold a grudge.”
He watches me and I hold his eyes. Silently letting him know I know he does.
But he doesn’t break like I expected him to. He holds my gaze. “Place looks good.”
“Thanks.” I’m just getting started.
8
The call I faked to give Noah a chance to apologize—since he’d never do it around me—worked like a charm.
I keep the phone to my ear even after he’s gone. Using it as a prop as I scan a home I don’t recognize. How did two women do this in one night? When Noah told me he was on his way over to the cottage to talk to Pepper about the contract, I followed him out of pure apprehension.
Before Pepper, no one’s been here in weeks. If he’d come and seen the place like the train wreck it was, I’d never have heard the end of it.
The house almost looks like it did during happier times. Brimming with life instead of loss. The musty smell of decay now replaced with hints of my little brother’s favorite scent.
I pace slowly as Pepper busies herself wiping crumbs of coffee cake off the polished counter. She’s in blue striped pajama pants—ones I assume I bought her—and a plain white t-shirt with a sports bra underneath that leaves little to the imagination. My eyes are drawn to the darkened, pert nipples pushing through the fabric. The same ones that were pushing against me as I drove her to Denver on my bike—before I got her a jacket that served two purposes: keep her warm and myself from getting hard.
Her hair is tied on the top of her head and she looks—very much like the girl next door. My girl next door. Not Troy Mayfield’s.
Wait. No. Not mine—I didn’t mean it like that.
Pepper Woods will never be my anything.
For one—she’s not my type. That “too good for this small town” attitude that no one needs and two—the minute this thing blows over and Troy moves on—she’s on the next plane back to New York.
I don’t give her the satisfaction of letting her know I’m impressed as I take in the polished tile floors in the kitchen and dinette. Or the shine on the wood in the foyer and living room when we walked in. The place only seems brighter because she took down all the dark dusty drapes.
I slide my phone in my back pocket, my gaze sweeping across the room, catching sight of her as she picks off a bit of my left-over coffee cake between her fingers and places it into her mouth. Her lips move lusciously then freeze when her eyes catch mine.
Swallowing, she says, “Sounded like a one-sided conversation.”
“It was a long message.”
She nods, picking off another piece.
“Place looks good.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I would have thought you’d give it a few days before you turned all Mary Poppins on it.”
“All we did was clean. I can’t keep sleeping in dust. Even Belle from Beauty and the Beast had better accommodations.”
I cock a brow. “Does that make me the Beast?”
She laughs. “No. It makes you Gaston.”
“Nice! What makes me that guy?”
“You parade around this town like you own it—even though no one really knows where you live because you’re always hanging out in a bar. You make fun of my charming personality—”
I snort. “You’re forgetting one little fact that wouldn’t make you Belle.”
She crosses her arms and waits.
