That worked to regain his focus.
Meanwhile Shayla didn’t seem to notice—she’d had no problem bringing her full attention back to the computer.
And despite this one little autopilot accident—which wouldnothappen again—the fact that she stayed to help didn’t feel weird or awkward or inappropriate as the night ticked on.
It felt…
Nice. Like he wasn’t going through this alone.
“Dingo-madness,” Shayla repeated now as she continued scrolling through the zillions of photos.
Pete sighed and sat back. “At this point, every twentysomething idiot I see on Facebook looks like Dingo to me, so…”
“Ah,” she said. “It sounds like it’s kind of a cross between face blindness and whatever it was that the starving guy had in that Charlie Chaplin movie, you know, where he looks at Charlie and sees, what was it? A giant chicken drumstick?”
Pete laughed his appreciation. “Yeah, that’s definitely what I’ve got.”
“Aided by sleep deprivation, I bet.” Shayla glanced at him. “Why don’t you let me handle this for a bit,” she suggested, “while you close your eyes. Just for a few minutes. I mean, you might as well, since everyone looks like Dingo to you, right? You actually might be a liability if you start shrieking,There he is!every time I flip to a new photo.”
She had him there.
“I promise I’ll wake you if I find anything—or even if I need a second opinion,” she added.
So Pete put his feet up on the coffee table. With his head back against the couch cushions, he gave in and closed his eyes and the world hummed and buzzed and faded slightly. He could feel Shayla’s presence beside him and hear the sound of her quiet breathing as she used the touchpad to scroll. It was sleep but not-sleep, but then, to his surprise, darkness descended and he went with it—and checked fully out.
He woke himself up—his internal clock telling him it had been fifteen glorious minutes—suddenly aware that he’d shifted slightly toward Shayla in sleep, and that his leg was now pressed against the warmth of her thigh.Shit. He pulled back. Opened his eyes to check his dive watch. Fifteen minutes on the nose. Not bad. He cleared his throat. “Find anything?”
Shayla was hunched over the computer and she didn’t look up. “Nope, and I swear to every god out there that I’ll wake you if I do.”
“I’m good for now.” Fifteen minutes was more than enough to clear his head. Pete pulled himself up off the couch and beelined it to the kitchen’s coffeemaker. “You want coffee?” he asked. “Water? Tea? Scotch?”
She laughed. “Coffee,” she called back. “Please. I’m getting a little bleary from all the pouty-lipped selfies.”
“Yeah, what is up with that face everyone makes?” he called back to her as he filled the coffeemaker and turned it on.
“It’s acome do meface,” she said. “Which is disconcerting when thirteen-year-olds make it.”
“Jesus,” he said.
“Sorry,” she called back. “If it’s any consolation, Maddie hasn’t taken any selfies with that expression. She tends to go for the grim glare.”
“Thank God,” he said as he opened the fridge. He tried to keep it stocked with fresh veggies and fruit—none of which Maddie had touched. “Hey, can you bring that thing and sit in here? I’m suddenly starving. I’m gonna scramble some eggs.”
As he put the egg carton on the counter near the stove, Shayla appeared in the doorway with Maddie’s laptop in her hands. He was struck again by how effortlessly pretty she was—like a rock garden filled with wildflowers—and Jesus,wildflowersin arock garden? He obviously wasn’t suffering from mere Dingo-madness. Maybe he was more fatigued than he’d thought. It was one thing to want to get naked and lose himself in an attractive woman—another entirely to start waxing poetic aboutwildflowers.
Pete grabbed a pan and turned on the heat for the stove’s front burner. Protein would help.
“Want some?” he asked, efficiently cracking eggs and tossing the shells into the sink as his neighbor carried the computer toward the center island.
“No, thanks,” she said. “Coffee’ll do.”
He purposely turned to watch her walk—to prove to himself that he could do that without looking at her ass.
Shit. He’d dropped an egg.
He wiped it up with the sponge as she perched that ass that he was not looking at on one of the stools he’d bought specifically for this counter in this little house. In which he’d hoped to live happily ever after with his daughter. Hah.
It was then that she gasped. “Found him!”
