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“He’s a stranger.”
“Yes, but there’s a tornado.”
The storm noise died down as the door eased shut behind him.
His boots squeaked over the polished linoleum of the entryway, and then metal clicked on plastic as something hit the desk beside her.
She looked sideways. His belt buckle. Holy Toledo.
“I know there’s a tornado,” her mother was saying. “That’s why I called. But you can’t go running down into the basement with a man. It’s unsafe.”
“I think this is one of those situations where you have to pick your poison, Mom.”
“Ask him his name, at least, so if something happens I can report him to the authorities.”
“His name is Patrick Mazzara.” Her face got even hotter. Why not just wear a sign that read, I Know Your Name Because I Have a Huge, Inappropriate Crush on You? “I have to go.”
He shifted beside her. The buckle scraped over Formica.
“Mazzara? Is he the one who—”
“Bye, Mom.”
Amber hung up the phone and closed her eyes. Inhale, exhale, inhale, gosh darn it, she hoped he hadn’t heard that.
But she wasn’t any good at lying, even to herself. She worked the phone all the time, and she knew perfectly well that the volume stayed cranked up loud enough that it was possible to hear both sides of any conversation from several feet away. Rosalie was a little hearing impaired.
He wasn’t several feet away. He was breathing. Right next to her.
He cleared his throat.
She turned.
“Basement?”
She beamed as if she were offering him a cocktail. Because she was excellent with men. So very excellent and savvy. Not at all a flushing, bumbling Bible college graduate who’d lost the faith and misplaced her virginity but somehow accidentally managed to hang on to her air of dewy inexperience.
It was her face—her giant eyes and big round cheeks. She looked like Bambi. The kind of men who were attracted to her wanted her to be as sweet and innocent as her face.
“I’m not Patrick.”
Amber blinked. I’m not Patrick was the last thing she’d expected him to say. Though to be fair, she was hard-pressed to come up with a list of things he might reasonably have said.
I adore you, Amber.
I want to marry you.
Or maybe, I want to take you out to my truck and teach you what sex is supposed to feel like.
She wasn’t innocent enough to think it would be romantic if he said any of those things. Not at all. It would be creepy. And probably also terrifying.
“Patrick’s my brother,” he added. “My name’s Tony.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. People get us confused a lot.”
Patrick had to be the tattooed guy, then. The shorter brother, who didn’t do as much of the work or the bossing around.
