Page 24 of Come A Little Closer

“I’m sure.”

He held my gaze for another beat before he left, once again leaving me alone with my thoughts. I was still struggling to come to terms with the fact that I’d misread what’d happened on Saturday night to the extent that I had.

Honestly, I just couldn’t seem to get my head wrapped around the fact that she hadn’t wanted to kiss me after all. I’d really thought there was something there, an undeniable chemistry that had drawn us together.

Why is it that I just cannot get a read on this woman?

It was frustrating as all get out and it was even worse now that I’d kissed her. I’d kissed a lot of women in my life. I’d fucked a lot of them too, and I’d done all sorts of things in between.

Yet Saturday night had been the first time that I’d lost myself to a woman.

The first time that I’d felt like I could bury myself in her for a week without needing to come up for air. Or food. Or even work.

Nothing else had mattered to me during that kiss, and I swore I’d felt the same thing from her. Knowing that I’d been wrong about something I’d been so convinced was so right was a mindfuck the likes of which I hadn’t ever experienced before.

Usually, when I was that certain about something, I was completely right, but apparently, I hadn’t been this time.

I let out a heavy breath and turned back to my computer, intent on finally getting some work done. My phone rang. When I picked up, I frowned at the number on my screen, but my heart also gave a strange jerk.

Because it was one of the Carmichael Plantation lines. There was a possibility, however remote, that Tallulah was the person calling me.

“This is Niall,” I said into the phone, knowing it probably wasn’t her.

First, because she usually only sent me emails, but second, because she’d never used one of those landlines as far as I knew. A male voice spoke up at the other end of the line, confirming my suspicions about it not being her and dashing the small amount of hope I’d been fostering that it was.

“Mr. Morrison, this is Derrick. I’m on the maintenance team at the old Carmichael Plantation.”

“Of course,” I said politely. “What’s going on?”

“We’re having some electrical issues with the guest house, sir,” he said. “Ms. Pruette chatted to us about it and we need to know what you want us to do. My team and I have tried everything we know, but we might need to call in some help.”

“Let me come check it out myself,” I said immediately. “Once I’ve seen what’s going on, we’ll make the call. I’ll be out there as soon as I can.”

A slow grin spread on my lips. First Jake had suggested that I speak to Tallulah today and now Derrick had called with an excuse to see her. It was starting to feel like the universe itself was pushing me toward her, and I couldn’t say I had any problem with it at all.

11

TALLULAH

Ifelt like a complete idiot as I stared at the breaker box. Trust me to have somehow broken the electricity supply of a house that has been around for two hundred years—give or take.

I had no idea what I’d done, but I’d lost power in the kitchen while I’d been cooking. I wasn’t the best chef in the world, but causing an outage wasn’t something I’d expected to deal with this evening.

I sighed, wondering where Derrick had gone off to. About thirty minutes ago, he’d disappeared to make a phone call and I hadn’t seen him again since. I just had to hope he hadn’t gone home and left me to try to fix this by myself. I knew he wasn’t an expert in electricity either, but with my luck, I’d burn down the whole plantation trying to get my stove working again.

When I heard the front door open and someone walking into the house, relief trickled through me. “Derrick! I’m so glad you came back. I was just starting to wonder if you’d abandoned me.”

I twisted around to grin at the elderly man who claimed to have been working on this plantation for half a century, but it wasn’t Derrick who walked into the kitchen. It was Niall.

Looking as good as ever, he shrugged off his tailored jacket, casually hung it over the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table, and started unbuttoning his cuffs. “Not Derrick, but I’ll see what I can do. What happened?”

I blushed so hard, it felt like my heart was beating in my cheeks. I hadn’t spoken to him since I’d run off after our kiss. Looking at him now, it was hard to believe that had even been real. I’ve kissed that guy? Wow.

“I, uh, I was just trying to run the dishwasher to clean the stuff I used when I was prepping my dinner, but as soon as I turned on the stove as well, it all went out. It looks like the power to the whole kitchen has been shut off. The fridge is dark too.”

“Makes sense,” he said, rolling up his sleeves after flicking open those cuffs. I watched as he expertly rolled the fabric to his elbows, exposing strong forearms that rippled with the movement.

When my mouth started watering, I jerked my eyes away and pretended I’d been studying the floor all along. “What makes sense?”