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He sits up so fast I don’t have time to move out of the way, and his forehead connects with my temple. Pain explodes as I flop onto my side, sprawled on the bed over his legs.
“Shit, Jen, shit!” He drags me by the armpits and holds me to his chest, broad palms spread over my face. “You okay? What the hell happened?”
“Spider,” I groan, clutching my head.
Fallon freezes, his head tilting. “You’re…scared of spiders?”
My eyes cut sideways to glare at him. “It’s a natural evolutionary mechanism, thank you very much. People have grown afraid of spiders out of fear of venomous bites.”
“Uh-huh.” His hand is still splayed over my cheek as he uses his other hand to move my hair out of the way. He inspects my temple, then, to my surprise, brushes his lips over my skin. Heat blooms low in my stomach as my heart thumps. Fallon must not notice, because he just says, “All better.”
“I’m not a child who needs to be kissed better, Fallon,” I say, wriggling off his lap. “I’m a grown woman.” Fallon goes very, very still as I do, but I don’t have time to decipher his reaction because I’m already gripping the edge of the bed and peering over on all fours. I click my tongue. “Damn it. Spider disappeared. Now we have to burn down the whole cabin.”
“What were you saying about being a grown woman?”
I glance over my shoulder to see him grinning, then sit back down and cross my arms. “Well, if you’re such a macho man, why don’t you get out of bed and kill it!”
“I’m not going to kill a spider,” Fallon says, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “But I’ll catch and release it if it makes you feel better.”
Still sitting on the bed, I pull my knees up to my chest. “It would, actually.”
“Your wish is my command.” He jerks his head to my eye mask. “Didn’t take you for a Beverly Hills housewife.”
I pull off my silk mask and frown. “Sleeping in total darkness is important. This place doesn’t have blackout blinds. The only logical solution is a mask.”
Fallon’s lips curl. “Of course it is.” He gets on his hands and knees to check under the bed, then makes a noise at the back of his throat. Then, he’s grabbing a broom and dustpan from the cupboard and heading back to the corner of the bed. With gentle movements, I watch Fallon coax the spider onto the dustpan as he covers it with the broom.
Jerking his head to the door, he asks me to open it up for him. When I do, Fallon gently releases the spider onto the grass before standing up and brushing his hands off. “There,” he says. “Better?”
I rub my temple, already knowing it’ll bruise. “Yeah.”
When we get inside, Fallon checks his phone for the time and arches his brow. “We have to get to set. Call time is in half an hour.”
Obviously. “That’s why I was trying to wake you up, but I didn’t know I’d be putting myself at risk of death by head-butting.”
Brown eyes glitter. “And I didn’t know I’d be seeing the first illogical facet of your personality.”
“Fear of spiders is not illogical.” I cross my arms with a huff.
When Fallon laughs, I tilt my head. He seems to do that a lot—laugh when I’m around.
People have been laughing at me since I was a kid. I was the punchline of a lot of jokes. But with Fallon, it feels different. He’s not laughing at me. He actually thinks I’m funny.
Ducking away to hide the redness of my cheeks, I do my thing in the bathroom, then get dressed while Fallon is in the bathroom. It gives me time to inspect the guesthouse for more eight-legged intruders, then take a few deep breaths to calm myself down.
A few minutes later, we meet Gus in front of the barn. The other contestants will be filming interviews and miscellaneous promotional shots while a cameraman accompanies Fallon and me into Heart’s Cove.
I’m glad I didn’t give this too much thought last night, because I might have lost my nerve. When we enter the café, Fiona is behind the till while Clancy, her stepdaughter, busses tables. Through the opening to the kitchen, I can see our new chef, Kyle, who was hired to fill Fallon’s very large shoes.
Fiona brightens, and when she sees the camera she immediately reaches for her phone. I bite back a groan. No doubt everyone in town will know there’s a camera crew with me here.
“We want shots of you two baking in the kitchen,” Gus says, consulting his tablet. “We also need to stop by your house and do a quick interview there.”
I freeze. “In my house?”
Gus looks up and frowns. “Is that a problem?”
“No,” I answer, then let my eyes dart to Fallon. He’ll be in my house. In my space. Where I’ve fantasized about him for the past year. In the same building as my vibrator, which I’ve also used while thinking of him. Often.
