“I think I liked you better when you were semi-conscious,” he yelled back. I got up and followed him. He had his back to me, washing down the plates.
I leaned on the door frame. “What’s going on?”
He turned, leaning up against the sink and crossing his arms in front of him. “I don’t know.”
I raised my brows.
“Just leave it, Amy,” he said, his voice sounding like a warning snarl. “If there’s any kind of danger, I don’t want you anywhere near it.”
“So, you’re saying there is something dangerous up there other than getting lost and unpredictable weather?”
“No.” He snatched a cloth off the sink, shaking his head as he wiped at some crumbs.
Before setting a firm stare on me. “Just promise me you’ll stay right away from Rutherford’s Estate.”
I wanted to look into it, the Toronto’s and the Millers deserved that. My head pounded as if protesting such an erratic, scantily thought-through action, but I said, “Fine.”
Tomorrow,I thought to myself, and I turned and made my way tentatively back to the couch, settling myself down and closing my eyes.
I woke up sometime later feeling much better. Ethan was nowhere to be seen. I headed to my bedroom and grabbed a pillow, then looked down at the books sitting on my bedside table that Ethan had bought for me when I was in the hospital. I’d already read two of them by Stephen King, my favorite author. The last one left to read wasFifty Shades of Grey. I smiled at the memory of him handing them to me. I’d looked quizzically at him when I noticed this one. He’d said, “I know you like happy endings, and this one has lots of happy endings.”
I pulled on a bikini and a little pair of frayed denim shorts that almost revealed my butt when I took a step—Jodie’s selection no doubt. I grabbed a picnic blanket that I’d seen before in the linen closet, then a water bottle from the fridge, and I headed outside to lie under the huge oak tree. I spread the blanket flat, laid down with my head on the pillow, picked up the book and started reading. I read a few pages, but none of the words had sunk in. I had no idea what I’d just read. I sighed and started the book again.
From down on the road somewhere, I heard the distinct rumble of a motorbike, and it was getting closer. It was coming up the driveway, I realized, and moments later it came into view. It was a black bike, large and shiny. Riding it was Karson.
I closed my eyes and prayed he’d head inside to see Ethan.
He didn’t. “You look terrible.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
I cracked my eyes open. The only word I had to describe him was striking. He was smiling, his hazel eyes gleamed, like sunlight dancing off dew on spring leaves. He wore a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and his thick head of hair was ruffled from the wind. My blood rushed through my veins, and my heart did a one-eighty.
I muttered, “I feel worse than I look.”
He laughed, a soft and gravelly sound that fluttered through my body. I stared up at him mesmerized by the sound, by his beauty.
“May I sit with you?” he asked.
Who asks to sit down?
I love you.Oh, Christ.
“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled, tearing my eyes away and flushing with embarrassment. I sat up, tucking my knees up and rubbing my shins, suddenly intensely aware my breath and body reeked of stale alcohol—and worse, the acidic scent of vomit.
He sat down a few feet away, his legs flat, his ankle hooked over the other.
“Thanks for taking me home.” I kept my eyes downcast, and my face tilted slightly away. “I’m sorry about the . . . accident on the way here.”
“It was my pleasure, Amelia.”
I risked peeking up at him, his lips were curved into a wry smile. “You enjoyed holding the hair of a drunk girl back while she projectile vomits?”
“Well, perhaps pleasure is an exaggeration—amusing might be more befitting.” He paused, scanning the trees. “I was riding past and thought I’d call in and see how you were today.”
Just happened to be riding past, not “I came by specially to check up on you.” It was stupid, but I felt a pang of disappointment in my stomach. My eyes shifted to his bike.
“Do you like riding?” he asked.
I looked back, he had this way when he looked at me; his gaze seemed to go straight through me. As if he could read every thought I’d ever had, knew everything there was to know about me, and I was the most intriguing thing in the world to him.
