“Sam.”
“If you’re going to kick this habit, you’re going to have to tell the people closest to you about this.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“Isincerelydon’t want to.”
“It’s not negotiable. Who are you closest to?”
“My sister, Natasha.” She scratched behind her ear, then dropped her hand. “I’m embarrassed to tell her. She’s ... proud of me. She thinks I have it all together. Also, if I tell her she’ll be mad because this has been going on for months and I haven’t said a thing.”
He waited.
Her lips pursed.
“It’s not negotiable,” he repeated.
“I’ll tell Natasha,” she finally said. “But I’ll do so after I get through the first week. Maybe then it won’t be so upsetting for her, because I’ll be over the worst of it.”
He didn’t like it. On the other hand, given the hole she’d dug for herself, he understood her need to hold her head up as high as she could.
“Any other conditions?” she asked.
“You’ll have to go see a psychologist.”
Her eyes widened.
“You’re going to need one,” he told her truthfully.
She blew out a breath. “Okay. Is that it? I hope? Any other conditions?”
“No taking a fancy to me. Okay?”
She paused, released a shocked bark of laughter, then gaped at him with disbelief.
Like most of his Australian countrymen, he was allergic to arrogance. Because of that, he’d made the statement in a joking tone even though he’d meant every word. He needed to make his position clear to her from the start.
“I will not fall for you,” she said. “Do we have a deal?”
He regretted the words even as he spoke them. “We have a deal.”
Women possessed mind-blowing magic.
Sam stood inside the guesthouse near nine o’clock that night. Genevieve’s Volvo had been coming and going all day since they’d struck their deal. At one point, he’d driven past and seen people unloading a love seat from a U-Haul truck. Ten minutes ago he’d glanced out his second-story window and noticed Genevieve’s taillights disappearing toward the road yet again.
He’d come to do what he’d told her he’d do: search his property for drugs. He’d found the place completely changed.
The bed had sheets, blankets, at least ten throw pillows, and one of those ruffles hanging off the bottom of it.
T-shirts lay neatly folded inside the top dresser drawer. He opened the armoire. Hanging clothes filled it. She’d pinned a firefighter calendar to the inside door. August’s photo showed a shirtless guy on a ladder, smiling, and supporting a kitten with one arm. As if anyone with a brain would climb into a fire shirtless. Or smiling. Or holding a kitten.
The desk facing one of the front windows supported a flower arrangement, a container filled with pastel-colored pens, a candle, and a small sign with a cross on it that read,With faith all things are possible.
On the fireplace side of the structure, she’d placed a big gray-and-white patterned rug between a love seat stuffed with more throw pillows and an armchair and ottoman. He didn’t have a single rug in his house, and he’d been living there four years.
She’d set out lamps, hung curtains, and displayed a set of gray, white, and pale blue pottery on the fireplace mantel.
