Roxie freezes when it happens, and I hear her take a sharp breath. A second later, the door shuts behind her and I head back downstairs. When I get to the kitchen, Boone shoots me a look that says we needed to talk, and Dillon grins like the devil himself.
With the scent of garlic and onions already wafting through the air, I know she won’t be long, so I hold Boone’s gaze and shake my head. “Later.”
He glances up in the direction of the guestroom like he’s hoping to develop X-ray vision but then sighs and focuses his attention back on us. “Just take it easy, boys. She’s a beautiful woman and I’m pretty fascinated myself by where she came from, but this wasn’t fate FedExing us a girlfriend. She’s a very real person and something tells me she’s in very real trouble to boot. We need to be careful.”
Dillon nods. “I’m in very real trouble too, but fine. We’ll play it cool.”
I signal my agreement, then busy myself with setting the table while Dillon starts mixing some kind of batter for dessert and Boone gets back to work on dinner. By the time she comes back downstairs, she looks a little less like a runaway and a little more like someone who belongs at the table with us.
Her hair is damp and loose, tumbling in waves past her shoulders, her cheeks shiny and glowing with all the soot washed away. I almost do a double take when I see her, surprised at the strength of the attraction that rolls through me.
Boone sets down a skillet full of garlic butter chicken and potatoes in the middle of the table, and Dillon is already cracking open beers like he’s been waiting for an excuse to show off his hosting skills.
“This smells amazing,” she says, sounding half-starved and half-suspicious that something so normal could actually be happening to her.
“A man’s gotta eat.” Boone shrugs. “We might as well make it good.”
“Which is why he doesn’t trust me to cook anymore,” Dillon says. “I do have a chocolate cake in the oven, though. Baking is where it’s at anyway.”
Boone rolls his eyes. “I don’t trust you with the stove because you caught a towel on fire.”
“Once.” Dillon points a fork at him. “And it was a controlled burn.”
She laughs, a soft, surprised sound that makes Boone’s mouth twitch, Dillon beam, and hits me right in the chest. We fall into an easy rhythm after that, passing dishes and trading stories.
As she picks up her silverware, she takes a pointed look around the room, her gaze snagging on the expensive light fixtures, the massive TV against the wall in the living room, and the sleek lines of the designer furniture. “What exactly do you guys do for work?”
Boone answers first. “We run a cybersecurity company. It’s mostly private contracts. Fortune 500s, banks, and sometimes government clients.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Here? In the middle of nowhere?”
“High-speed internet reaches even us mountain folk these days,” Dillon says. “We get to work in our boxers and nobody complains.”
She nearly snorts beer through her nose, and I have to look away before my smile gives too much away.
“So you’re computer guys,” she says slowly, like she doesn’t quite know how to fit that into her picture of us.
Dillon gestures between us with his fork. “Genius, genius, grumpy genius. We make a good team.”
Boone grunts. “He’s not wrong.”
She tilts her head, studying us with a cautious curiosity before she tucks her hair behind her ears and picks up a fork. “Have you always lived out here?”
“No,” I answer. “We grew up in Chicago, but we’ve been here a few years and it’s a good life. I don’t see us leaving anytime soon.”
She looks around the room again and then smiles. “With a house like this, I wouldn’t want to leave either.”
After poking at her food for a moment, she casually adds, “You don’t happen to know if anyone in the area is hiring? I might stick around for a while myself and I’ll go nuts if I’m just sitting around the cabin all day long.”
The question lands like a rock smacking into the center of the table. Boone’s hand freezes halfway to his beer and Dillon stops chewing mid-bite. I meet both their eyes, that silent exchange we’ve had a hundred times over the years sparking between us again.
She wants a job. We need someone to handle the mountain of data entry we keep putting off.
I clear my throat, forcing my voice to stay even as my heart starts banging in my ears. “Actually, we might have something. Have you ever worked in data entry before?”
8
DILLON
