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They sounded so happy.
Realizing that he was standing in an open doorway with a sub-arctic chill at his back, Gavin stepped all the way into the cottage with a quick head shake. He pulled the front door shut behind him, and the resulting noise reduced both voices in the kitchen to hushed whispers.
“Hey!” Sloane poked her head in from the doorframe, eyeing him mischievously. “You’re home.”
“Is Bree okay? She’s not normally up this late.” He nodded toward the back of the cottage. Although his fear had downgraded after hearing the sounds of happiness coming from the kitchen, it wouldn’t hurt to be one hundred percent sure everything was fine. And to find out why on earth Bree was awake if nothing was really wrong.
Sloane’s eyes widened, fringed by her sooty lashes. “Oh! I know it’s late, but…well, it’s Friday night. And Bree wanted to stay up until you got home.”
Gavin’s pulse stuttered with shock. “She…what? Are you sure everything’s okay?”
Sloane released an overdrawn sigh, clucking her tongue. “You are such a pessimist. Of course everything is okay. She just has a surprise for you.”
“What is it?” He swallowed tightly, tamping his feelings into a smooth veneer.
“Please. Didn’t anyone ever tell you how a surprise works? You have to close your eyes.”
The worry he’d felt when he’d walked through the door gave way to a startled laugh. “You’re serious.”
“No,you’reserious. But I’ll try not to hold it against you.” She walked into the living room, and the sway of her hips beneath her dark, low-slung jeans made Gavin’s libido yawn and stretch like a bear coming out of hibernation.
“Gee, thanks.” Damn, Sloane looked pretty with her face all lit up in excitement. And clearly, the surprise was something good. How bad could it be to just play along?
Sloane sidled up to him, wearing that infuriatingly sexy grin he simultaneously loved and wished she’d keep to herself, and said, “Come on, close ’em. I promise I won’t lead you astray.”
Every single one of the just-business defenses he’d built over the course of the week disintegrated into dust. He jammed his eyes shut, more of an act of self-preservation than obedience. “Okay. They’re closed.”
Sloane’s obvious buzz of happiness was contagious, and despite the reluctance he’d felt just minutes ago, Gavin found himself giving in to the bolt of eager curiosity running through his veins. If the conversation he and Bree had shared earlier in the week was a glimmer of hope, her staying up late to surprise him with something was an out-and-out bonfire of possibility.
“Okay, Bree. Are you ready?” Sloane’s voice lilted past his ear, and his anticipation amped even higher when Bree chimed in.
“I guess. Okay, yeah.” Traces of something soft folded over Bree’s voice, and Gavin scrambled through his mental files to try to place it.
But before he could put a finger on the hushed emotion cradled in her words, Sloane said, “Okay. Open your eyes.”
Gavin raised his lids, but the image in front of him made no sense. Blinking didn’t offer any help in the clarity department, and finally, after ten seconds of full-on staring, recognition flattened him like a steamroller moving downhill.
No way.
“Bree?” The word thudded past his lips, laden with shock.
“Ta-da.” She gave an awkward twirl, not meeting his eyes when she returned to stillness. The Bree standing in the doorframe was an altered version of a beloved familiar image, and he went back to blinking in an attempt to reconcile the two in his brain. But the more he did it, the less it worked.
He barely recognized her.
“What did you do to your hair?” Gone was the light brown ponytail he’d watched her pull into place just this morning, replaced by a sleek new haircut that barely grazed her shoulders. And wait, how did it look so much lighter than it had just hours ago? She looked just like the older girls she’d been hanging out with in Philadelphia, and the realization made his unease return with a nasty vengeance.
Bree’s cheeks flushed. “I…I got it cut.”
“It’s a differentcolor.” Anger welled up, demanding release, but it was circumvented by a fresh wave of shock as Gavin registered the trendy new jeans and V-neck sweater she was wearing. And was that lipstick shaping her mouth into a sheer pink frown? “How did you do all of this?”
Bree’s eyes darted over his shoulder, her frown flattening into a thin line. “We just went to the mall.”
His anger ratcheted higher, and he swung around to face Sloane. “You did this?” Goddamnit, Sloane being impulsive with herself was one thing—she was an adult, even if she didn’t always act like one. But letting Bree go from zero to grown-up in an afternoon was totally over the line.
Sloane took a step back, eyes as wide as dinner plates. “She needed a couple of new outfits for school, so we went to the outlet mall in Riverside.”
“Funny, last time I checked, hair color wasn’t on the school supply list.” His tone could’ve inspired an ice age, but he was well past giving a shit.
