Gunnar scrubbed his hand down his face. Dumbass of the year award went to him, because whatever progress he and Jorja had made this morning, he’d just fucking ruined it in ten seconds flat.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Men are confusing as hell.What on earth is his problem?
She barely understood most women and she was one of those, so she probably had zero chance of understanding how the normal male brain worked.
Normal and Jerk-God do not belong in the same paragraph, never mind the same sentence.
True.
But I’ll never understand men, normal or not.
She lifted the case onto the bed and unzipped it. At least she had her own stuff now, because she wasn’t wearing someone else’s underwear. Ick! She’d have had to wear the basketball shorts with the string she’d found in the box earlier with no panties while the ones she’d been wearing yesterday dried after she’d handwashed them in the shower a few minutes ago. She should have washed them last night, but had been so tired it hadn’t crossed her mind.
She re-tucked the towel into itself between her boobs and ran her fingers between the two sides of the zippers. Call her paranoid, but when she traveled, she had a piece of tape which would break if the lid was flipped open. Her fingersbrushed off the tape and she blew out a sigh of relief. The tape still in place meant her things most likely hadn’t been tampered with. Phew, the last thing she wanted was for one of the McKinley boys or their men having gone through her underwear. How freaking embarrassing would that be?
She opened the case fully and studied it for a second, trying to remember where she’d placed everything, and decided everything looked like she’d left it. Having to wash every piece of underwear before wearing them again would suck. She rifled through her clothes and pulled out her favorite pair of cutoff shorts. Almost all the tops she had seemed way too dressy or skimpy to wear to sit in front of the computer all day. She glanced from the tank in her hand and the Bon Jovi, Keep The Faith tour t-shirt, she’d found in the box Gunnar had given her and decided she’d wear that over the tank. Now that the decision was made, it only took her a couple of minutes to get dressed. She knotted the t-shirt at her waist as even if he said most of these clothes had shrunk in the wash, it was still way too big for her. She was tempted to take scissors to it, but decided she better not. She’d be pissy if someone ruined her clothes if she lent them to someone. But then you would have to have friends to be able to lend clothes. Friends were not something she had many of. Acquaintances, yes. People she knew through work, absolutely. And yes, she totally knew it was a sad state of affairs that she didn’t have close friends at all.
She took a couple of minutes to brush her hair and put on moisturizer, but didn’t bother with makeup. If yesterday was any indication of normal temperatures here, it would melt off by noon. She didn’t see the point in wasting the good makeup she’d brought with her. SPF infused moisturizer was needed or her skin would itch and make her crazy. She slid on a pair of flats, ones which she could easily kick off when she was working, then looked in the full-length mirror tomake sure she wasn’t too scraggly before leaving the room. “Gunnar?”
“Kitchen.”
She turned the corner into the kitchen area and nodded to one of the mugs on the counter. “Please tell me one of those is for me?”
“Yeah, I made it the same as you had it earlier.” He handed her the blue mug.
“Thanks.”
His nostrils flared when he came close to her, but she was more distracted by the smile which made him look less like a Jerk-God and more like a God-God. Damn, in school every cheerleader had wanted to date Gunnar McKinley. If they could see her geeky self now having coffee in his kitchen, every single one of those mean girls who’d made her life hell would lose their collective crap.
From what she remembered from high school, Gunnar had pretty much stayed to himself, looking after his brothers rather than dating or screwing around. She also remembered her momma saying that his parents were rich as sin, but aside from the castle-like property they lived in at the time, you’d never have known it. The boys hadn’t worn brand name clothes, and she didn’t remember them being assholes. At least, they never had been to her. But then the McKinleys probably hadn’t known she’d existed. A thought popped into her head as she sipped her coffee to fill the awkwardness between them. Hadn’t her momma said all the brothers were married at some point? “Where is your wife?”
Omg, if he’s still married, I’m a bitch for lusting after someone else’s husband.
“Long gone.” Gunnar confirmed what her mom had said. “I’m divorced. We all are.”
“All of you?” Holy crap, what were the chances of that happening?
He shrugged as if it didn’t bother him, but she could tell it did. “Yeah. Every single one of us.” There was a pause before he continued, “Don’t bring it up to Remi though. His divorce is recent, and he’s way sensitive about it.”
Why on earth she would be discussing Remi’s divorce with him didn’t make sense to her, but she figured it cost her nothing to agree. “I won’t, I promise. It’s none of my business.”
Gunnar drained his mug and turned to the sink to rinse it, putting his back to her. “Remi’s ex passed off her kids as his.”
Bitch.
“They weren’t,” Gunnar said. “We had no clue. Dylan looks enough like us, blond, blue eyes, to be one of us. None of us thought to question it,” he explained. “It was only when the second baby was born and the dates didn’t add up because Remi was deployed that any of us thought to question if Dylan was family too. My brother was devastated when it turned out neither of the kids were his. We all were, but it broke something in him. So, if he’s short or grumpy, ignore him. Women aren’t exactly Remi’s most favorite people on the planet right now.”
She wasn’t sure if he was warning her away from his brother or what, but it kind of felt like he was. “I won’t say anything,” she assured him. “I’m not here to get in your brother’s pants. I’m here because you kidnapped me, remember?”
“It’s not kidnapping…”
“Oh, goodie, I’ll just get my stuff and go home then.”
“No.” Gunnar massaged his temples as if his head hurt. “You can’t until we figure out what’s going on,” he said finally. “If I’m on a list and anyone knows you’ve accessed it, then you could be in danger too. I will not allow you to become a casualty in a beef someone has with me.”
Oh, that’s how he’s going to play it, is it?
