Fuck. She hit a patch of mud. From the sidewalk came a collective, “Aaah!” She lost her footing and started an arm-wheeling battle with gravity. A battle she did not win. He winced as she went over like a runner sliding into home, sending a spray of mud up on either side of her. The peanut gallery on the sidewalk gave a low, cringing, “Oooh!” A cell phone and shopping bag bounced out of her hands and tumbled over the pavement. Her forward motion came to a stop about a foot away from him. Her phone skidded to a halt by his left boot. A couple small boxes landed by his right. The plastic shopping bag fluttered like a white flag of surrender between them.
Two wide, brown eyes looked up at him from a mud-streaked face. “Oh my God.”
He sprang into action. Step one, grab her phone. She’d want that. Step two, grab her.
She raised one mud-covered arm in an attempt to keep him away. “No, don’t. I’m a mess—”
He hauled her up into his arms and cradled her against his chest. “You’re my mess. Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know.” He felt a shiver run through her and held her tighter. She sniffed and tried to wipe her cheek on her sleeve, but only managed to smear more mud all over the white sweater. “Mean geese attacked me.”
“Geese are mean,” he sympathized, carrying her swiftly toward the entrance to the inn. “It’s common knowledge.”
She shivered again. “I di-di-didn’t know that. I th-thought they were s-s-silly. Why do people call them silly g-g-geese? Why n-not m-m-mean geese?”
Peripherally, he saw Mad and Wing move toward him. Mad whistled for Key, who came running.
“Can you take him to the airfield?”
The blond nodded. “Done.”
Ford held the door open for him. He went through, but halfway across the lobby, Wing called, “Hold up. Wait. You forgot your condoms.”
Every eye in the lobby turned to them. Rose, Lilah, Jorg, Peter the night clerk, and—oh, perfect—Father Donahue from Our Lady of Captivity stood in silence. Appalled silence or concerned silence, he couldn’t be sure. Wing ran over and handed Izzy two boxes of Bearly There ultra-thins.
She somehow managed a shellshocked, “Thank you,” and hugged the boxes against her muddy vest.
Ford moved ahead, hitting the button for the elevator. As he carried Izzy past the assembled witnesses, Trace heard Rose say, “I will bring up extra towels.”
Trace said a silent prayer of thanks when the doors finally shushed closed.
“I am unbelievably b-b-bad at Alaska,” Izzy stammered. “The flight in n-n-nearly gave me a n-n-nervous breakdown. Snowshoeing? Fail. And now…wild goose attack. Holy shit. Has anyone else ever been this h-hopeless?”
“Baby, you’re wet, muddy, and freezing.” Possibly broken. Possibly bleeding. She hadn’t taken a header on a smooth, L.A. sidewalk, but the rocky, pitted asphalt along the shoulder of Main Street. The elevator doors opened at their floor, and he stepped out. “Let’s get you warm, clean, and dry, and then…” What? He wanted to make her feel better. “We’ll go goose hunting.”
She laughed. A weak laugh, but still. It counted. “Based on how w-well everything else has gone, I don’t think I should try a firearm while I’m h-h-here.”
“I’ll handle the gun. You just point to the ones you want me to take out.” He stopped in front of her suite. “Do you have your key?”
“Yeah. It’s…um…if you could put me down…?”
“Uh-uh. You’re on the express. Street to the bathtub, no stops in between. Just dig out that key and—”
She slipped it between his lips.
“Thanks,” he said around the thin plastic, and leaned down to hold it next to the sensor. The light turned from red to green, the lock clicked. He rebalanced her a little so he could turn the knob and pushed them through the door. Once inside, he spit the key onto the bed and carried her straight into the bathroom.
It smelled like her. Looked like her, too, with all her toiletries specifically grouped and ordered, the towels neatly hung or folded, and her cloud-soft robe hanging on a hook behind the door. The only reasonable seating option was the counter, so he perched her there, amidst her fancy bottles and jars, and turned the water on full blast at the sink beside her.
She sat before him, mud-coated, with a box of condoms in each hand and her booted feet dangling. At least she wasn’t shivering anymore. “Souvenirs?” he asked as he took them from her and set them on the counter. In their place, he handed her a washcloth doused in warm water.
“Yep.” She immediately used it to wipe mud from her hands.
“Something I should know about?” He tugged her vest zipper down and helped her shrug out of it. Then he tossed it under the counter in what he designated the mud-zone.
“They’re for my friend Danny. He put the surprise box in my luggage, so I thought I’d return the favor.” After pausing to rinse the washcloth, she ran it over her face, which prevented him from using her expression to help him decide what to make of that bit of information.
He knelt and got to work unlacing a boot. “You and Danny make a habit of buying each other condoms? Should I be jealous that the woman I’m trying to convince to marry me has some kind of condom exchange program with another man?” The first muddy boot joined the vest under the counter.
“Ha. You should not be jealous for several reasons, including the fact that our alleged romantic relationship is a fiction.”
“Hmm.” He unlaced the second boot. “Not complete fiction.” Their kisses weren’t fiction. The way their bodies reacted to each other was sure as fuck not fiction. Last night on the sofa? Definitely not fiction. “How can you call it fiction when I’m standing here taking off your clothes?” Before she could argue that point, he peeled her socks off and went on. “Gimme another reason.”
“Well, I love Danny dearly…”
“Great.” He stood and unbuttoned his flannel shirt, which bore some muddy marks from carrying her. “How foolish of me to feel jealous.”
She ignored him. “And I’m sure he feels the same about me.”
After stripping down to his long-sleeved thermal undershirt and tossing the dirty button-down into the clothes pile, he placed his hands on the counter on either side of her hips and leaned in, so their faces were close. “Sounds like I should be seeing green.”
Big, liquid brown eyes stared into his. She gave her head a quick, little shake but didn’t break the connection. “I love Danny. He loves me. But we’re not in love. Danny’s gay.”
“Oh.” Whatever degree of fiction their relationship involved, her disclosure relieved some vague tightness in his gut. “Good to know.”