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It was the longest shower Rowan had taken since she’d moved there in December. At first, it hurt her icy skin, but by the time the water ran clear, she wanted to live forever in the steamy spray. The volume of mud in her hair necessitated shampooing three times, and thank god she’d taken Harry up on the offer. The hot water at the cottage wouldn’t have lasted beyond the first wash. She imagined Harrison waiting out there in his kitchen—sitting on the floor to minimize tracking mud, shivering and soaked. Her heart pinged, and she didn’t linger, as much as she wanted to.
After Harrison’s own shower, he’d put their clothes together into a little washing machine in the nook off the kitchen. Their clothing tumbled around together, and the domestic ordinariness of it felt lovely and awkward all at once. The last person to wash her clothes for her had been Edie. She’d been twelve.
Now she was in Harrison’s bedroom, wearing one of his plain white T-shirts and a pair of his boxers—loose in the waist, snug over her butt. For the first time in months, every centimeter of her body felt blissfully warm. On the other side of the closed bedroom door, Harrison prepared for sleep on the couch, which he’d surely need to bend his knees to fit onto. Before her shower, he told her he’d wait for the washer to finish so hecould make sure the clothes were dry by morning. He’d also upended her boots over a heating vent on the floor, in the hopes they’d be dry enough to knock the caked mud loose when she needed to wear them at dawn.
It smelled like him there. A pure distillation of his breath and his skin, rich and earthy and male. She looped the neckline of his shirt up over her nose, inhaling until her head spun. A mystery had been solved tonight—the origin of his juniper-sweet scent revealed. It was his shampoo. Her own hair and skin smelled like it now.
Rowan sat on the edge of his bed, curling and uncurling her toes. On top of his dresser, she saw a small stack of letters addressed to him in loopy, florid handwriting. No return address. Keys to his rented truck sat in a dish with some spare change and a half-empty pack of cinnamon gum. His UCLA ball cap was next to an unopened granola bar and a half-full mug of cold coffee. A dog-eared National Audubon Society wildflower field guide was bookmarked with a receipt from the used bookstore in Linden.
Rowan’s heart clanged in her chest. Wildflowers.
Why couldn’t it have been stuff like athlete’s foot cream, or used toothpicks, or a box of tissues next to a conspicuously large bottle of cheap lotion? Was it too much to ask for a smelly pile of laundry on the floor? Something,anythingthat would make Harrison Brady less undeniably appealing?
Physiologically, she was exhausted. But her brain was lit up like a power grid, all energy and light. Sheets and blankets were a tangled hump in the center of the mattress, a manifestation of Harrison’s troubled sleep. She settled her hand on them. Would he sleep better with her beside him? And was he as unsettled as she was right now?
Screw it.
Rowan levered herself off the bed and pulled the bedroom door open.
Harrison stood in the middle of the high-ceilinged living room, shirtless, holding a lightweight blanket. Billowy teal surgical scrubs were slung low on his waist. The slats of his ribs were visible, but his flat belly showed outlines of the musculature that would be defined when he weighed more. He was sharp-shouldered, his arms sparely corded with lean muscle. A flat gold-dusted vee disappeared into his thin cotton pants, bracketed by pronounced hip bones. He was far thinner than a man of his height should be, like a Renaissance sculptor had run out of materials while casting his frame.
He scratched his jaw distractedly, surprise boosting his features. His hair was clean and fluffy around his face. Rowan wanted to delve into those thick waves with her fingers, gather it in fists to steer the path of his mouth against her body.
Sleep beside me,she wanted to say.Share my space.
“Birds,” she blurted instead.
Nice.
His eyebrows pinched. “Birds?”
Cautiously, he draped the blanket over the back of the couch, like he was afraid sudden movement would send her fleeing behind the closed door again. Rowan’s hair dripped in a few places, leaving opaque dots on the thin material of the T-shirt. Harrison’s eyes deviated downward, straight to her breasts. He didn’t try to hide it.
“There’s this, uh, phenomenon observed in migratory birds.” Rowan rolled the bottom hem of the shirt into her fists. “They display this, kind of—frantic nocturnal restlessness when the daylight begins to last longer in spring.”
Harrison looked from her face to her wringing hands. A single dimple in his cheek punctuated his smile like an exclamation point.
Rowan went on, talking fast. “There’s a German word for it.Zugunruhe.”
“Gesundheit.”
“What? Oh.” Rowan looked at her feet and laughed. “I get it.”
“Rowan, are you experiencing frantic nocturnal restlessness?”
Slowly, she nodded.
Suddenly, he was in front of her, close enough she could smell the mint of his toothpaste. The damp heat of his shower-warmed skin diffused through the thin material of her clothes. Desire bloomed deep in her core—she felt the throb of her heartbeat everywhere. In her ears, in her neck. Between her breasts, between her legs.
He slipped his hands into the pockets of the scrubs. When Rowan reached up to tuck a lock of damp hair back from his forehead, he didn’t budge.
Share my space.
She moved in close and tentatively settled her hands on his chest, trailing the tip of her nose up the side of his throat. His Adam’s apple convulsed as he swallowed.
“Rowan. What are you doing?”
With a gentleness that contrasted to the coiled tension in his posture, Harrison slid trembling hands from his pockets and cupped her jaw. He didn’t kiss her. A long, deep inhale lifted his chest under her hands. For a moment, he held the breath captive, then let it out, shuddery and hot.
