“You should close that door.The bookstore isn’t climate-controlled, we don’t want to let the air out.”
“Huh?Of course it is,” she says, her tone matter-of-fact and annoyed all at once.
Slowly, so as not to startle her, I reach around and grab hold of the doorknob.
“Shit,” I curse, startling at both the ice-cold metal and the blur of black fur that races inside the apartment.
“See?It’s freezing in there.Kitty must have been shivering.”
“Your cat is named Kitty?”I ask her.She’s still just staring at me, holding a book in her hands like her life depends on it.“I didn’t pick up any pet food...”I trail off.Surely she has cat food for her own cat.“I have today off, though.I can show you around and help you pick some things up.”
I didn’t mean to offer that.
I mean, yeah, I do have the day off, but I planned on spending it at the inn’s stocked lake fishing and eating crap food before rolling into bed.
“Oh,” she says again.
She’s freaked out.
I let out a long breath, running a hand over my face.
“I’m sorry.Can we start over?Here, I’ll just—” I paste on my most dazzling smile, the one that usually earns me plenty of admiring looks, and motion to the stairs that lead to the back-alley entrance.“I’ll walk down there and ring the bell, and you can let me in, and we can start all over.”
I frown as I remember the grocery bags.“Although, I didn’t plan on hauling all those back down and back up.”
She lets out a laugh then, louder than I would have thought from someone who looks so… meek, I decide.That’s the word for it.Scared.
Like she needs someone to take her under their wing.
I puff my chest out, then make my way to the paper bags.
“Don’t, you don’t have to do that,” she finally says, moving towards me, a grin on her face.“I’m so sorry, I’m… not myself today.This has all been a lot?”
She says it like she’s asking permission to be out of sorts, and I smile at her because she’s fucking adorable, like a newborn deer, all spindly legs and big doe eyes.
Nothing about this woman is my usual type—I like a woman who is as loud and wild as I am.I might be attracted to Sylvie, but there wouldn’t be anything there.
“The drive was a lot,” she continues, blue eyes watching me intensely.“And then, going into the bookstore.You know.”Her sheepish expression says she’s not comfortable with small talk, another reason nothing romantic would ever work with us.
Not that I’m in the market for a relationship.Nope.
It’s the single life for me.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her, and mean it.Not thinking of her as a potential sexual conquest immediately helps me relax.Who gives a fuck about any of this?
My job here is to help her get settled into New Hopewell, and that’s it.
The fact she’s nice to look at is just a perk.
“Well, I’m at your disposal, one of the joys of small-town living.I’m your assigned chaperone for the day.”That’s not quite the truth, and chaperone sounds a lot weirder than I planned it to, but oh well.
I give myself a mental pat on the back for my display of neighborly virtue.
“I don’t need a chaperone,” she says.The cat jumps up on the counter and yowls.
I blink.
“I didn’t mean to imply you needed one?—”
