AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes. Let’s go figure this out.”
“I’ll drive.”
Because of course he would.
“Fine.”
Rock pulled a basket of muffins from the oven and handed them to me. “You hold these. Don’t eat them.”
I made a face at him and followed him out to his stupid shiny SUV, trying not to admire how clean and new it was.
And then Rock drove us over to Nattie’s like a guy who’d lived in Singletree his whole life. A really annoyingly sexy guy.
CHAPTER6
Rock
Iwas almost sorry my time with Drea was at an end. I was certain Aunt Nattie would give her another place to stay and she’d be out of my hair.
It had been fun watching her little face pull itself into a variety of adorably exasperated expressions during our short time together. I also didn’t mind the sexy little pout she kept putting on.
Actually, there was a lot about Drea that was pretty sexy, not the least of which was the fact that she smelled a little bit like cinnamon, my personal catnip.
We pulled up to Aunt Nattie’s old Victorian house, and I spotted my cousin, Noah, coming around from the back.
“Noah, what’s good, man?” I jumped down from the car to greet him. We’d grown up together. Noah had a bunch of brothers, and sometimes I thought Aunt Nattie just counted me as another son. My own family hadn’t been terribly attentive, so I’d spent most of my time here.
“Didn’t know you were in town,” Noah said. He grinned at me, but his face shifted as he glanced over my shoulder and spotted Drea coming around the front of the car. “Who’s this?” he asked.
“This is the lady who’s squatting in my apartment.”
Noah managed to almost suppress his look of surprise.
“She has muffins,” he pointed out.
“I made those,” I said, taking the muffins from Drea. “They’re for your mom.”
“Aha,” he said. “I’m Noah,” he told Drea.
“Drea,” she said, her voice sweet and light. Not the voice she used with me.
“Uh, Noah, what’s going on here? The place looks a little rough.” Parts of Aunt Nattie’s house were laying on the ground, and other parts seemed in need of paint. As if they were taking it apart and reassembling it like a Lego house. There was a toilet and a stove in the center of the lawn.
“We’re renovating. Mom has this crazy idea that she can turn this place into a bed and breakfast.”
“I thought she was buying an inn or something?”
“Or something. It’s a little bit nuts, man.”
Aha. Not buying an inn, then. Making her own house into an inn. The place did have like four million rooms, or it had seemed that way growing up.
“Hey, come on in,” Noah said. “I think Mom’s around here somewhere.”
Noah led us up the porch and through the front door, and the familiar scent of Aunt Nattie’s place washed over me, hitting me with a dose of nostalgia big enough to rattle me a bit. I’d been happy here as a kid. Life was always better at Aunt Nattie’s.
“Mom?” Noah called, his voice echoing through the cavernous front entry way and up the staircase to one side.
“This place is amazing,” Drea said, looking around.
