Something untamed leaps in my stomach at her offer, but I clamp it down. “You’re a guest,” I say, despite the immediate protest my brain makes:She’s not just a guest. She never has been.I ignore the illogical feeling and say, “Relax. You don’t need to help.”
But I also know she doesn’t like being told to do anything, even if it’s to put her feet up, so I’m not really surprised when she smiles and says, “I insist.”
We find Jo and my dad already working in the kitchen, Scout lying in his corner bed, and they all greet Margot with enthusiasm when they spot her. I start telling them she’s only having a look around, but Jo’s already handed her an apron.
“How’s the shoulder, Trap?” Margot asks, looping the neck of the apron over her head. “Any more luck with that pressure point?”
Dad answers in the affirmative, but my focus closes in on Margot’s hand coming to rest affectionately on his shoulder. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but the way to mine is apparently caring for my disabled father.
“So what needs chopping?” Margot asks, breaking the spelland tying her apron strings as I fumble to put my own on. “I know my way around the kitchen.”
I see Jo exchange a conspiratorial look with my dad.
“In that case,” my father says slowly, “what would you say to letting two old coots kick back while you and Forrest take care of dinner? Everything’s nearly prepped, anyway.”
I repress a groan. Not as familiar with Jo and my dad’s Machiavellian matchmaking schemes, Margot seems caught off guard. “Oh,” she says with a nervous half-glance at me. “I mean, of course. You should absolutely rest if you need to.”
“Great!” Jo beams before I can call bullshit. “Thanks, you two! Come on, Scout!”
They vanish from the kitchen faster than a couple of freshly baked biscuits, Scout trotting after them. The kitchen door is still swinging from their hasty exit when Margot and I look at each other, finding ourselves very much alone.
She laughs awkwardly. “So, that was subtle.”
“You mean one of themdidn’tslip you a key to my cabin?” I deadpan.
She pats the front pocket of her jeans. “Nope, just a condom.”
I half-snort, half-cough into my wineglass and feel my ears catch fire as I try to recover. “I wouldn’t put it past them.”
“Wow. Do they try setting you up with every available woman who stays here, or just grumpy romance writers from Los Angeles?”
I take a deep, fortifying drink of wine as the word “available” seems to hover and then bloom between us. After what happened on the camping trip, I obviously assumed she was unattached. But hearing her say it out loud feels like the smallest opening of a door that my baser instincts want to rip off the hinges.
“Playing matchmaker is their favorite sport,” I confirm, rolling up my sleeves. I pick up Jo’s abandoned knife and continue scaling the fish she left in the sink. “Extra points if the woman in question has zero interest in me.”
“And have they ever been successful?”
At her question, the memory of her gasping against my mouth is like a bright red flare streaking across a cold black sky. The fish slips out of my grip and lands with a wet flop at the bottom of the sink.
“With past guests, I mean,” she hurries to say, glancing at me and then back down at the thick wedges of lemons she’s cutting.
Her clarification summons a barrage of less pleasant memories of Charlotte, who, now that I’m thinking about it, my dad and Jo never tried setting me up with. They didn’t need to—she’d made her intentions clear from the moment she arrived. It was only at the end of her stay, when I stopped giving in to her demands, that things blew up in my face.
“Haveyouever been successfully set up by your parents?” I counter, ignoring the prickles of warning skittering up my neck.
Margot goes silent as she begins picking parsley leaves. I begin to wonder if she’s just going to ignore my question when she says, “Parent. Singular.”
Oh.
“Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat. “I didn’t mean to assume.”
She lifts a delicate shoulder, her eyes on the herbs, while I work on gutting the fish. “It’s fine. My dad’s alive, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she says, cutting her eyes to mine briefly. “He’s just a cliché.”
It takes a moment for me to process what she’s said, but when I do, sadness blends with the anger I’ve been nursing ever since learning about her career crisis. I think of her Happily Never After file and wonder if all the fictional dipshits she’s written about are based not on a former lover but on someone much closer to home.
“He left?” I say quietly.
Margot’s full lips press together as she picks up her knife and begins mincing parsley. She nods once. “When Savannah got sick. Mom wanted him to get a job to help cover the medical bills, buthe was apainter,” she says with mock loftiness. “His art always came first.”
