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If I hadn’t seen the photos on the wall, I would’ve thought he was renting the house.
“You any good at laundry? Or cleaning the house?” Colt asked, reaching into the refrigerator and pulling out two beers. He popped the tops with a bottle opener from the silverware drawer and handed me one.
“What are you really asking me, Colt?” I demanded.
“Nothin’. Just trying to figure out if I should give my housekeeper a raise.” He winked. “Since there are two of us living here now.”
“You have a housekeeper?”
“Damn right I do.”
“My, my, aren’t we spoiled?”
“I hate all that shit. Better off paying someone to handle it for me—and now you. I like cooking, but that’s because I grill mostly. But it’s nice coming home to a stocked refrigerator and clean sheets.”
“Yeah, I could see how you’d get used to that,” I agreed with a grin. “But I’d like to address something you just said.”
“Can you do it on the porch?”
I waved at him to lead the way. He opened the back door to the patio and we sat out in the spring afternoon. It wasn’t even close to sunset yet, but I doubted I’d be awake for it. I was exhausted; having run the gauntlet of emotions, not to mention the intimacy we’d shared earlier had my eyes drooping.
“What is it you wanna talk about?” He sat down on one of the patio furniture chairs and patted his leg.
I perched on his thigh, feeling like we were a couple that had known each other a lot longer than ten days.
Ten days? How had it only been ten days?
“You saidnow that we both live here.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Colt, I don’t live with you.”
“You do right now, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, because of what’s going on. But what happens when all that’s over.”
“You still planning on getting out of dodge? Leaving town?” He took a sip from his beer, his brown eyes on me.
My gaze fell to the column of his throat and then lower to his bare chest. He was wearing a pair of jeans and no shirt, so his ink was on full display. I was riveted by his artwork. The massive Blue Angels logo on the underside of his left forearm, the modest Scottish flag underneath the dates of his parents’ deaths.
“No, I’m not leaving town,” I said slowly. “But I do plan on moving back into my house when the Iron Horsemen are no longer on my ass.”
His hand stole underneath the shirt I was wearing to rest on the small of my back. “You scared of tattoos?”
“Why are you changing the subject?”
“Don’t like the idea of you moving out of my place, that’s all. So, tattoos?”
“Never really thought they were for me.” I shook my head. “Does anyone call you James?”
“Never,” he said. “How’d you know my given name anyway?
I grinned. “Joni told me. What about Jamie? Anyone call you that?”
He snorted. “Fuck no.”
“What’s wrong with the nickname Jamie? I think it’s cute.”
