Page 44 of Dirty Fighter

“Nah, Bruce will be out here checking in once the waves die down. We’ll get the download then.”

We have coffee and some peanut butter toast for breakfast, avoiding opening the fridge.

“Hey, so I’m guessing cabin rainouts aren’t completely out of the norm. What do you do on days like today?”

He blinks, that scowl I know all too well peeking from between his brows. Like something about my casual, upbeat question doesn’t quite ring true.

But this isn’t my first rodeo, so I pretend I don’t notice and walk over to the window to watch the rain. It’s beautiful, really. Relaxing if it weren’t for⁠—

Another low rumble, louder than before.

I almost don’t even tense up.

“Board games,” Jason says, wiping his hands on a dishcloth.

“Which ones?”

He tosses the towel onto the counter behind him and comes into the living area. “One I beat you soundly at the last time we played.”

I grin. “Scrabble? Brace yourself, buddy. That win was a fluke.”

“Guess we’ll see, won’t we?” He points to the built-in cabinets beneath the shelves on the opposite wall. “Grab it, will you?”

“Oh man, you have all the classics in here.” Not just the selection of traditional favorites, but these boxes definitely aren’t from this century.

Carefully, I pull out the slim box. When I turn around, Jason is moving a table and two chairs from the corner to in front of the fire.

“Just me, or am I picking up some strong gaming tournament vibes?”

He snorts. “Just you. I go out of my way to limit my competitions to hockey.”

“Mmm.” That’s not how I remember it, but we’ll see.

One game in, it’s clear: Jason is totally competitive.

What’s also becoming clear… the man can be remarkably easygoing too.

The power is still out, and when Jason checks his phone, there’s still no service. But instead of huffing about it or obsessively refreshing, he just sets it aside facedown.

“Doesn’t bother you at all to be out of touch like this?” I ask, playing my word.

“The phones?” He shrugs, arranging his tiles, giving my last word a hard stare, then rearranging his letters again. “Truth? The lack of service is normally one of the things I enjoy the most about being out here. It’s a break. An escape.”

An escape. It resonates even though I imagine our versions of escape are probably vastly different.

But also, “Even while you’re waiting on your lawyer?”

He plays a word worth twice the points from my last one. “He was gone for the weekend anyway.”

“But the power. The storm. The damage.” And even though I don’t want to say it and potentially bring an end to this tentative peace between us, I add the obvious. “Me being here. This situation with the cabin.”

He marks his points with another pencil that looks like it was sharpened with someone’s pocketknife. Ed’s?

“All that stuff is just part of being here. You never know what you’re going to get.” The corner of his mouth twitches, and I think he’s got a fifty-point word lined up. But then, eyes still on the tiles he’s pushing around, he says, “I mean, sure, it’s not usually a beautiful woman dancing around in her knee socks when I walk in… and tackling me to the ground.”

My mouth drops open into a gape, and he flashes a devastating smile and wink that is so potently sexy… Whoa.

I clear my throat, acting as unaffected as possible. “I didn’t tackle you. I thought I was alone and then— Triple points!”