Yum.
Just the thought of crawling over his body on a mission to do just that had me half-hard and hungry again. Which was exactly why I should never have stayed the night. And now it was longer. Why had I accepted? Because the man was sexy as shit, and because I was an idiot. But mostly because I didn’t want to break this cosy bubble of avoidance that I was currently wallowing in.
Being in the cottage felt good. It felt safe. And it felt oddly right. No one knew where I was. There were no demands to make immediate decisions. No confrontations with Phillip, or Judd, or my mother. Only Ryder, a man who knew very little about me other than what I’d chosen to share. He’d clearly not bothered to google me, which was refreshing, but there was no telling how long that would last. When he did, I might have some questions to answer, but I might also be gone. We’d never see each other again, and that would be fine. I’d get over Judd and Phillip’s betrayal and move on with my life. In the meantime, I could be anyone or, more importantly, no one. Certainly not the Thaddeus Grey so many others wanted a piece of.
The crazy thing was that rather than pretending to be something I wasn’t with Ryder, or maybe in spite of that, I felt more real and seen by him than I had by anyone in a long while, and I wasn’t ready to let it go, not yet. A couple more days and I’d head back to my life, meet my obligations, and do what needed to be done. But right in that moment, all I wanted was to savour the freedom of anonymity and enjoy the experience of being a no one briefly passing through Ryder Nelson’s interesting life.
Ignoring the million or so messages on my phone, I threw the covers aside and pulled on the sweats and T-shirt I’d worn the day before, even though my own clothes were perfectly dry. Shivering in the chilly dawn, I searched for a jersey orsweatshirt, eventually settling on a light jacket hanging in the closet. Feeling much warmer, I headed for the kitchen via a quick stop in the bathroom, only to find it still empty. Ryder clearly wasn’t the early bird I took him for.
With time to kill, I crept outside, donned Ryder’s boat-sized jandals, and set off for an early morning stroll around the garden. But before I’d even made it down the stairs, Ziggy was yapping at the glass, and I had to rush back to let him out. Clearly delighted, he peed against the first bush he came to, then barrelled through the garden foliage like a velociraptor, straight toward the chicken shed.
The chickens. I could feed the chickens.The thought popped into my brain, and suddenly, my morning walk had a purpose. I followed Ziggy at my leisure, the sun warming my cheeks like the press of a welcome hand.
A blackbird froze at my approach; a worm nestled in its beak. He or she warily watched me pass, then quickly hopped back into the garden and out of sight. I scanned the forest canopy and listened for a moment, surprised by the insistent chorus of bird calls. They registered one by one, like the sections of an orchestra. When I set off again, the birdsong thinned, returning to strength only when I stopped. I grinned. Action and reaction. Input and output.
I kept walking, making my way toward the sound of Ziggy’s excited barks. Taunting the chickens, no doubt, or vice versa. Dew soaked my feet, but I didn’t care. The spring buds hung heavy with it, so why not me? There was an onslaught of fragrance carried on the crisp air, but I recognised only the cloying scent of jasmine—my mother’s favourite. Guilt niggled at my belly, but it quickly passed. The closer I got to the chicken shed, another scent stormed my nostrils. The pungent but not unpleasant aroma of warm manure, chicken feed, compost and decaying leaves.
Arriving at the shed, I was struck by all that had happened since I’d taken shelter there just two nights before. I exchanged morning pleasantries with Myrtle, who gave me a beady-eyed glare in return. That changed to almost a beaky smile when I used Ryder’s measuring container to fill the feeders. Too busy eating, the ten chickens, including Myrtle, happily let me collect their eggs, of which there weren’t as many as I’d expected.
That done, I stood at the wire, oddly mesmerised as I watched them do their thing for far too long to be polite. While I stood there, Ziggy paced back and forth in front of the netting, testing a variety of overt incursion tactics mixed with covert mind-control, all of which the chickens ignored. All in all, it was pretty hilarious. But when he began to run circles around my legs, I figured he wanted his breakfast, and it was time to head back. My grumbling stomach agreed.
I’d just closed the shed door when a flash of white in the forest beyond caught my eye. Was that— I jogged to the same spot where I’d left the forest path two nights before and squinted into the bush. Ziggy was tense and silent at my side, staring fixedly into the distance like he could sense something there as well. But the endless layers of green dappled with morning sunlight remained empty. No dogs. No animals at all. Even the birds had fallen silent.
By the time we arrived back at the cottage, Ryder was standing at the breakfast bar, whipping the hell out of something in a bowl tucked under his arm.
I called out, “Good morning,” and stepped through the door.
Ryder returned the greeting, his watchful gaze running the length of my body in a way that made my cheeks heat. He wore nothing but a pair of sleep trousers that hung perilously low on his narrow hips and which showed off his impressive V-cut and all those glorious blond curls that covered his chest. And for the first time, I saw his sleeve tattoo in all its glory. It was a hugetree, its root system running down his forearm to the back of his hand and even into his fingers. The wide trunk rose over his elbow and up his bicep; the branching canopy spread over his shoulder to lick at the base of his neck.
When I finally peeled my tongue from the floor, I managed a croaky, “You do realise you’re breaking the Geneva Convention for cruel and unusual punishment.”
He looked at me blankly for a moment, and I had to wave a hand up and down his body to make my point. He laughed and went back to beating what I could now see were eggs. “Don’t look if it offends you.”
I ignored him, of course, adding the eggs I’d collected to the basket on the countertop. “I took the liberty of feeding them while I was there.”
Ryder’s eyebrows popped. He stopped his frantic whipping and gave me a sceptical look. “You fed them?” He narrowed his eyes. “Will they survive?”
“Pffft.” I waved his sarcasm aside. “I can pay attention too, you know. I gave them exactly the same as you did yesterday. But while I was there, I got to thinking.”
He gave me a narrow look. “Oh, you did, did you?”
I poured a cup of tea, plonked myself on a barstool opposite Ryder, and ignored his obvious scepticism. I also tried notto stare at his naked chest just a couple of feet away, but admittedly, I didn’t try all that hard. “It’s clear that not all the birds are laying?—”
“Hens,” he corrected, shooting me a smile.
“Fine,hens,” I amended. “Anyway, I was thinking I could set up some cameras in the henhouse where they tend to lay and then set you up with some simple software to keep a better track of eachhen’srelative production compared to the others and?—”
“I take it you mean eggs?” Ryder didn’t bother to hide his grin.
“Yeeees.” I bugged eyes at him. “Eggs. You’re not listening. All I’m saying is that it could help you weed out the inefficient layers and maximise the potential in the ones who are doing well?—”
Ryder’s hand shot up and the corners of his eyes crinkled with merriment. “No. Thank you.” He pointed to the end of the breakfast bar. “Pass me the salt and pepper.”
I slid them his way. “But?—”
“Shhh.” He mimed zipping his lips, and for some reason, I did as he said. “Thaddeus, I honestly don’t care which of those damn chickens lays more eggs than the others. I love those stupid birds. They could decide not to lay another egg from tomorrow, and I still wouldn’t get rid of them. I got the first one over eight years ago. The least I can do is let them retire with grace and dignity. For the moment, they give me all the eggs I need, and I’m fine with that. Now, sit down so I can feed you.”
“Feed me, huh?” I shot him a sly grin. “Oh, you mean breakfast. My bad.”
