“What? Oh, no, I couldn’t—”
“I insist. Stay. Please. Else we’ll have to get you a hotel room.” He went to the fire, loaded it up with logs, and headed to the door, Squeak slow to follow—the traitor.
“Thanks, Ivan,” she whispered, and he was glad.
“Anytime, princess.” He smiled at her annoyed little breath.
Before heading out, he paused. “You want breakfast in the mornin’? Girls are still layin’, so I got fresh eggs.”
“Oh, no. No, I’ve got to get back to Ms. Lloyd’s place.”
“Lock this door, okay?” He waited until she nodded, then turned before adding, “Sweet dreams.”
“Thanks, Ivan. You too.”
He pulled the door closed behind him and waited. A few beats later, the lockthunked, followed by the sound of a chair sliding up behind it. Good on her. Looking out for herself.
Ive walked to his big house, went inside, and brushed his teeth, peed, then turned to look at the stairs heading up to the second floor. He kept the place just above freezing, so the pipes wouldn’t burst, but it was barely warmer than outside. Why bother heating an empty house?
No beds, no blankets. Only the one threadbare towel and about five slivers of soap smashed together on the side of the bathtub.
He considered taking his towel into the kitchen, firing up the stove, and trying to make the place his own. But it was no use. He’d tried before. He’d even brought his entire bed in here once, in a bid to make it a real home.
At this point, he should probably just sell the house. This place wasn’t him. It was too good for him. Too nice.
But he needed to finish fixing it up. The banister and then the porch. That windowsill upstairs looked like it might be rotting out a bit and—yeah. There was a ton to do still. He’d move in once he finished. Or sell it.
On that thought, he pulled the front door shut behind him and went to his truck, where he and Squeak would spend the night snuggled under a sleeping bag. He didn’t usually mind being out in the great outdoors, even in weather like this. Only tonight, for the first time in forever, there was a woman in his bed, and the thought of her wrapped up in his sheets would be enough to keep him from getting any sleep at all.
9
Uma knocked on Ms. Lloyd’s door the next morning, feeling more rested than she had in months. Ivan’s bed had been the warmest, coziest nest she could imagine. She’d spent long minutes this morning, half-asleep, with her face pressed into his pillow, shamelessly breathing him in. It was one of those tricks of chemistry or genetics or whatever that made his particular smellexactlywhat her body craved.
When she rounded the drive, and his house had come into view, she’d been oddly relieved to see his truck parked there, rather than in front of some random booty call’s place. Silly, so, so silly, to care about that.
As expected, Ms. Lloyd kept her waiting on the porch. Uma was freezing again by the time her boss limped to the door, opened it, and grudgingly allowed her back inside.
“You stink,” the woman said over her shoulder as she walked away.
“I didn’t get a shower last night, did I?”
“You smell like smoke. Been over there again with that married man?”
“He told me the truth about that.”
Uma followed her boss into the kitchen, watching the woman’s shoulders shake with laughter.
“Yeah, you sure got me there, boss.”
“You still managed to worm your way into his bed, didn’t you?”
“For your information, I sleptalonein his bed.” Uma kept her voice as hoity-toity as possible. “Not that it’s any of your—oh my God.”
They hung on the threshold of the kitchen, looking in. Uma swallowed hard.
Good. Lord.
It looked like a crime scene, a robbery gone bad. A frat house hit by a hurricane. The room had been destroyed. There was junk everywhere—dirty dishes in the sink, broken china strewn about, a dish towel dripping some viscous yellow fluid, something too red to be blood sprayed up the side of a cabinet, and about a centimeter of water covering the floor.
