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“You just had an intruder. Maybe this is the perfect time to go all in. Hire Daisy. Let her live there. Come stay here with me.”
I stiffen, but only shift the phone to my other ear and lower my voice. “I’m fine here. Also, you do realize you’re suggesting I leave a young woman alone in my house after a break-in.”
“She can look after herself. I care about you.”
I want to argue. I want so badly to argue. I know better, though. I have learned this lesson well.
“We’ll talk,” he says. “Now get some rest, and call me in the morning.”
The break-in happenedafter three a.m. By the time I tell Daisy that I’m not reporting it, it’s almost five, and she decides to stay up reading while I go back to bed. I expect surprise at my decision not to call the cops, maybe even annoyance—after all, she got knocked down and walked through glass. But she only says, “Whatever you think is best,” with no hint of judgment. I’m not sure what to make of that, though I spend far too much time trying to figure it out.
Daisy’s brewing coffee as I return to bed, where I get a couple hours of sleep. I come down to find the rain has stopped. Had it stopped before the break-in? I try to picture Daisy coming back in after giving chase. I remember she was trailing blood in her wake as she walked.
Water and mud, too? She said she’d gone after the intruder, yet if she’d run outside, she’d have gotten her feet dirty.
I’m not sure whether there was mud on the floor. I can’t recall it, but I didn’t pay enough attention. There’s none of that on the floor now, but she cleaned up the blood, so if there’d been mud, she’d have cleaned that up, too.
I’m in the kitchen, chewing toast and considering this when a vehicle rumbles into the drive. My gut sinks as my first thought is Liam.
It’s not Liam’s Rover, though. I realize that even before I look out the kitchen window. The rumble of the engine gives it away.
Tom’s truck.
I smile, my mood lifting as I munch down the last of the toast and run a hand through my hair. Then I remember that this is not the reaction I’m supposed to have to that particular vehicle in my drive.
Damn it.
The pickup door clangs shut, and I slip outside and shut the door firmly behind me.
“Hey,” he says. “Is Daisy around?”
My heart thumps. “What?”
“Daisy? Your houseguest? She is staying here, right?”
“Yes, of course. I’m not sure where she is right now. I slept in, and she seems to have stepped out.”
He nods. “I’m just dropping off the tools she’s borrowing to fix your leak.”
He looks over his shoulder, squinting into the morning sun. Then he walks to the pickup gate, opens it and tugs out a wooden box.
“Thank you for bringing the tools,” I say. “I hope it wasn’t a bother.”
“Happy to help,” he says. “She seems like a sweet kid.”
Kid.I don’t miss his use of that word, and I relax.
“Good of you to give her a break.” He meets my gaze with a smile that sets my stomach flip-flopping. “I’ll make sure folks around here know what you did for her.”
That flip-flop turns to a thrill of victory as I murmur platitudes of “It was nothing, really,” and “It’s the least I can do.” Dear God, am I simpering?
I could claim I’m faking it. That’s bullshit, of course. This is pure flirtation. Tom Lowe ticks every box I have plus a few new ones.
He leans to shut the truck gate, and I notice the fall of his hair, the ripple of his biceps, the set of his jaw, the self-mocking half smile when the gate doesn’t quite close right and he has to slam it harder. I notice the slight squint of his eyes, the lines forming around his mouth, the dark shadow of a missed shaving day, even the smell of him as he leans my way, a mix of shampoo and grease and the faint smell of... oranges?
Is he standing closer than he needs to? Leaning in to speak to me when he doesn’t have to? Are those brown eyes twinkling just a little extra?
Good Lord, how old am I? Twelve?
