I dress, and before I go, I spray-foam the spot where I’m certain the mice are getting in. An hour later, after a walk through my century-old home, my phone rings, and when I see it’s my father calling, I toss it onto the passenger seat. I’m in no mood for a lecture tonight.
Are you sure you know what you’re doing?
Have you secured the land?
Do you really think we need to spend this kind of money when we already have a working processing plant?
I swear to God, the man is just waiting for me to fail. But I won’t. I don’t need to be a hard-core asshole, with little regard for the people, to make this work and see this through to completion. I drive past the water, and the sign outside the Old Fish Factory Restaurant had been tampered with. Again. Earlier today, the sign read Whole Clams for sale, Monday to Friday. Now, apparently, they have Clam Whores for sale Monday to Fiday. I chuckle and make a note to ask the guys if they’d like a few clam whores before bed. I guess there could be worse things the kids around here could do. It does make me wonder if it was kids that egged Gram’s place.
I park in Gram’s driveway and find the land yacht in the parking space at the rear of the house. The B&B is quiet when I enter, except for the shooting noises coming from Cody’s TV in his room. I assume he’s playing his favorite first-person shooter game. I cut a slice of cheese and climb the stairs, stopping outside Kira’s door. I take a couple of deep breaths to pull myself together then rap on her door, but it’s not shut tight and inches open from the pressure of my knock. Honest to God, the prospect of seeing her again—preferably in her T-shirt—is messing with me in inexplicable ways. And that’s just fucked-up, considering I vowed to keep my hands to myself.
Chapter Nine
Kira
“Jesus wept, Moses crept, and Adam came on crutches.”
“Ah, what?” Nate asks from the doorway.
I roll at the sound of his voice, but he’s far too slow to react. Once again, I catch him staring at my ass. His head lifts slowly, his heated gaze moving to my face. This afternoon, when his touch went from hot to cold in seconds flat, I saw his uncertainty about this insane pull between us, how he didn’t really want to act on it.
Good. Because I don’t, either.
Liar.
Honestly, though, when Jason came through the door, it snapped us both back to reality. The way Nate jumped away from me, I thought for a minute we were playing the party game hot potato, and I was the potato.
Working to keep things casual, since we do have to live under the same roof, I say, “You must not be from around these parts.” He offers me a strange look, one that suggest I could be losing my mind, as one hand goes into his pocket and he rocks on his feet. “I’m channeling Gram. That’s what she used to say when she was frustrated,” I explain.
“Right. I think I heard Sam say that once. But what I’m really wondering is what are you doing on the floor, messing with the dials.”
I look at the dials and frown. “The pilot went out.”
“Must have been from the power flickering. Need some help?”
“Of course not. I enjoy being down here messing with the buttons and trying to remember how you did it. Maybe any minute now I’ll even blow myself up.”
He puts something on the mantle, drops to the floor, and lies sideways facing me. He crooks his elbow and supports his head in his palm as his eyes move over my face. “You okay?”
I take a breath and let it out slowly. “I might need a Starbucks. Mocha latte, to be specific.”
“Closest one is a good forty-five minutes away.” He checks his watch. “We might still have time if we hurry.”
“No, I’m good. It’s cold and the roads aren’t great.”
He gestures toward the dials. “Do you want to take notes. It can be hard to remember the steps.”
“No, I can remember them.” Heck, if he knew how many numbers and computations I have stored in my brain, it might explode his. He gives me a skeptical look, and I defend myself. “I was just preoccupied last time.” Yeah, with staring at his hot ass and imaging all the dirty things I want to do with his naked body.
“With what?” he asks, and I note the genuine curiosity in his eye.
“Thinking about my near-death experiences,” I fib. I’m not a liar, but no way am I about to tell him the truth.
Oh, Nate, I was thinking about all the ways we could have sex.
Kira, when I was lighting this fire, all I could think of was lighting yours instead.
Then what are we waiting for?
Why don’t you bend over that bed for me, let me see your hot—
He laughs softly, and as my thoughts come crashing back, I wonder why I was using a Southern belle accent in that internal dialogue.
“You do tend to drift off,” he says.
“I know. Sorry.”
I pucker my lips, and his heated eyes drop to them. Oh no, we’re not doing this again. No matter how much I might want to kiss him. I’m a smart girl, a rejection is a rejection, and I’m not about to set myself up for it again.
“It’s nothing to be sorry about. I think it’s endearing,” he says, his voice a low murmur that heats my body from simmer to inferno. Maybe I won’t need to light the fire, after all.
“Endearing?” I give a very unladylike snort.
“It’s a sign of intelligence.” He puts his hand on the floor between us, and his forearm brushes against my breast. The movement might have been innocent, but my swelling nipples didn’t get the memo. Great. Just great.
“You’re making that up.”
“Nope, I’m not. An intelligent brain is always on overload.”
That’s not the only thing that’s always on overload. When I’m around him, anyway.
“I wish you could have told my fifth-grade teacher that,” I say. “She used to drag my desk up next to hers so I couldn’t stare out the window.”
“That was mean.”
“It’s not just kids who are mean to someone who’s a little different.”
His lids fall slowly as he nods in agreement, and from what I know of his brothers, I understand he was a victim of bullying, too. But perhaps that’s why he is the way he is today. A take-charge protector.
His focus drops to my mouth again, and my pulse leaps. For a brief second, I think he’s going to kiss me, but he rolls onto his stomach and says, “There are plenty of shitty adults, too. I’m sorry you had to deal with them.”