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But she didn’t hear him, because she was busy wrangling her three frantic dogs. In shorts caked with mud. One of her feet was slipping dangerously toward the gopher hole. If an ankle sprain wasn’t imminent, then something else anarchic would probably take its place. His whole evening would be off now. She’d done this to him for a second time, and he needed to take it as a sign to keep away. Strict schedules stopped the floor from rising up and swallowing him whole.
He wouldn’t survive the shame of that downward spiral again. The night of the fire, he’d held on to his mettle long enough to do what was necessary, but what followed had been enough to drive his family to four different corners of the earth, hadn’t it?
Julian required order. Hallie was disorder in the flesh. She seemed to shun the very method he used to cope with anxiety. Yes, she was beautiful and lively. Clever. Fascinating.
Also? So completely wrong for him that a sitcom writer couldn’t make it up.
Why was he so interested in her thoughts and actions, then?
Or if this Owen character was really just a friend or a boyfriend of some description.
It made little fucking sense.
A vein throbbed behind his eye. He longed for pencil and blank paper, something simple that he could focus on, because being near Hallie was like staring through a kaleidoscope while someone twisted it really fast.
“Julian, is everything okay?”
He opened his eyes. When had he closed them? “Yes.” He noticed the awkward way she stood, as if the mud on her shorts was beginning to harden. “Come on.” He moved past her toward the house. “We’ll get you something clean to wear.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine,” she called to his retreating back. “I more or less go home in this condition every day. I usually strip in the backyard and hose myself down.” Then, to herself, “Don’t overshare or anything, Hallie.”
Don’t think about rivulets of water coasting down her ripe body.
Don’t do it.
Setting his jaw, Julian held the door for Hallie, who ambled past awkwardly, attempting to hold the denim away from her thighs. When the dogs tried to follow her into the guesthouse with paws that looked chocolate-dipped in mud, Julian pointed a stern finger at the General. “Sit.”
The schnauzer’s butt hit the ground, tail wagging in a blur. The boxer and the lab followed their buddy’s lead, plopping down at the base of the stairs and waiting.
“How did you do that?” Hallie whispered behind him.
“Dogs crave leadership, just like humans. It’s in their DNA to obey.”
“No.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “They want to eat snails and howl at fire trucks.”
“They can be trained not to do those things, Hallie.”
“But you’re forcing them to deny their natural urges.”
“No, I’m preventing mud from being tracked into the house.”
They looked down simultaneously to find she’d left four footprints just inside the door. With a tinge of pink in her cheeks, she toed off her rubber shoes and nudged them as close as possible to the door, leaving her barefoot on his clean hardwood floor. She had sky-blue nail polish on her toes, daisies painted onto the biggest nails. “If you tell me to sit, Julian Vos, I will kick you in the shin.”
A strange lightness rose upward in his sternum, stopping just beneath his throat. A twitch of his lips caught him off guard. Did he . . . want to laugh? She seemed to think so, didn’t she? The way she watched his mouth, a sparkle appearing in her eyes at his rare show of humor. Suddenly he was a lot more aware of their location—inches apart in a house glowing with late-afternoon sun—and again he encountered a tug of recognition but couldn’t find the source.
God help him, he was too distracted, unable to look at her without his attention straying to her mouth, wondering if she kissed as wildly and without rhythm as she did everything else.
Probably.
No. Definitely. And he would hate the unpredictability of it. Of her.
Right.
“I’ll get you that shirt,” he said, turning on a heel. Though he didn’t see her move farther into the house, he sensed that she would meet him in the kitchen, the heart and focal point of a home, not that he used it for much besides preparing turkey on whole wheat, soup, and coffee. Inside the bedroom, he hesitated for a moment at the dresser, observing himself in the mirror. Hair in disarray from his fingers, tightness surrounding his eyes and mouth. He took a long breath and looked down at his watch.
6:18 p.m.
The back of his neck clenched, so he filled his lungs one more time and mapped out a new schedule. At six thirty, he would eat and read his sundial article. At seven, Jeopardy! Seven thirty, shower. Then he would make some notes about tomorrow’s writing plan, have them ready to go on his desk in the morning. If he kept to this schedule, he’d let himself have a glass of whiskey.
