Page 9 of Warming His Bed

4

DREW

Pulling into my driveway, my blood pressure spiked at the sight of the black Range Rover back in front of my house again. Now that I knew for sure Brody duped that woman into thinking she’d rented a room from me, I felt a bit guilty for kicking her out. But ultimately, it wasn’t my fault she’d used such a suspect rental site to plan her trip. If she thought she could talk her way into my house on a second try, she was sadly mistaken.

I walked up to the driver’s side window to find the car empty. The porch was empty too. I checked the front door. Still locked.

It wouldn’t have shocked me if someone crazy enough to answer that ad would also pick my lock and make herself at home.

Easing through the front door, I looked around. Everything seemed to be in its right place. I crept toward the kitchen, half expecting her to jump out of the hall closet in a hockey mask, brandishing a knife, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary here either. Empty pizza box on the counter. Sink bare except for a single water glass.

I climbed up the stairs to the second floor. She wasn’t deranged enough to break in, lock the door behind her, and set herself up in one of the bedrooms, was she? My cock gave an inappropriate twitch at the mental picture of her nestled into my bed, but I locked that shit down immediately.

All four bedrooms were empty. I couldn’t tell if the feeling swirling in my gut was relief or disappointment. Where the hell could she be? Surely not the basement. I couldn’t see her making herself at home in the half-finished cellar.

Heading downstairs, I made my way toward the laundry room, where the cellar door was, but stopped in my tracks when I caught a flash of light coming through the kitchen window. I backtracked into the kitchen and peered out into the yard.

“You have got to be kidding me.” I cursed to myself. The beam of a flashlight bobbled around wildly. I could make out a vague box-like structure swaying in the wind. Flipping the switch by the door, I flooded the yard in light then trudged out onto the back porch and down the stairs.

“It’s got to be in here somewhere,” she huffed, her breath freezing in the air in front of her face. The door to the tent was half open, and she zipped and unzipped the side pockets of the carrying bag the tent came in, acting oblivious to the fact that I was looming a few feet away from her.

I had six sets of floodlights in my backyard. Installed them after I got sick of the raccoons raiding my trash cans every night. It was lit up brighter than a high school football field back here. There was no way she didn’t notice me, but she carried on muttering to herself.

This woman had no sense of self-preservation. Or a screw loose.

Maybe both.

“If you’re looking for the floor, you won’t find one. That’s an ice fishing tent.”

“Of course it is,” she said, then cursed under her breath. “You know what, this is fine. Everything’s fine.” She still hadn’t looked at me.

“Mind telling me what the hell you’re doing in my backyard?”

“Look.” She finally turned her fiery gaze my way and something constricted in my chest.

Couldn’t be my heart. That organ had shriveled up and turned black a long time ago.

“My employer paid for four weeks’ worth of lodging, and I’ve got nowhere to stay tonight. The least you can do is let me use your backyard until our office manager can get this straightened out in the morning.”

“Your employer, huh?” Okay, so she didn’t answer that crazy ad.

Her shoulders slumped. “Yes. It’s a long story, but the woman who makes our travel arrangements is an idiot and the motel you sent me to is closed and apparently everything else in a fifty-mile radius is booked solid and I drove sixteen hours today and it’s almost two a.m. and I want to go. To. Sleep.” She sucked in a big breath at the end of her rant, then her shoulders slumped like she’d run out of steam.

I crossed my arms and stared down at the muddy grass inside the tent. It’d rained on and off for the last three days. “We’re supposed to get freezing rain overnight.”

“It’s already overnight.” She threw her arms out to the sides as she shouted. “So I guess I’ll have to take my chances.”

The thought of her out here in a flimsy sleeping bag on the wet ground in the middle of a possible ice storm broke my resolve. “You can’t stay here.”

“Fuck. Fine.” Tears welled in her eyes as she yanked at one of the ice anchors she’d jammed into the dirt.

Before my brain could stop it, my hand reached out and stilled her arm with a gentle pressure. Her gaze cut to mine and I lifted my hand, ignoring the sense of loss that coursed through me after letting go. “You can’t stay out here tonight. You wouldn’t actually freeze to death, but you’d be damn miserable.”

“You think this was my first choice? I’m out of options here.” The crazed look in her eyes told me she was on the verge of a breakdown.

“I’ve got a couple of extra rooms.” Like an asshole, I let the words hang in the air without coming right out and making the offer. The idea of letting anyone into my inner sanctum made my skin crawl, but I couldn’t leave her out here in the elements either.

“Extra rooms you haven’t rented out?”

I ignored her snark. I had it coming and a tiny part of me liked it. “You can crash in one of them tonight and get things straightened out with your boss tomorrow.”

She jutted her chin forward like she was about to refuse, but then let out a beleaguered sigh. “Thank you,” she said.

“Let’s go get your stuff.” I walked around the side of the house toward her car, wondering how much I was going to end up regretting this decision.

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