“About ten,” he said, his lips barely moving. “And there’s room for two—but only if one of them comes up with a better name thancowboyfor the man she’s expecting to share said hot tub with.”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
As Cash changed into his swim trunks later that evening, he really wished he had Lark’s phone number. He hadn’t asked her for it once since she’d arrived, as they’d spent almost all of their time together, except for a couple of hours in the afternoon while she took a nap, and now a couple of hours after dinner.
After cleaning up, Cash had gone down the hall to the master suite, where he’d flopped himself on his bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering what in the world he was doing.
At the same time, he could tell when a woman was interested in him, and Lark was definitely interested, despite her previous coldness and sarcasm. He wasn’t sure what had changed from this morning to this evening, only that something had.
He grabbed his hot tub towel from the hook beside the bedroom door and stepped out into the hall. He didn’t know if he could just call throughout the house that he was going to get in now, so he simply opened the linen closet and pulled out a fresh towel for her.
He went past her bedroom, refusing to stop and glance inside. He didn’t hear her breathing or moving, and he really missed the way that Sweetie used to alert him of Lark’sforthcoming presence. He emerged into the main part of the large living room, dining room, and kitchen area, with a hallway that led down to the front door and a formal living room, which Cash never used. Lark’s mother kept a grand piano there, and a couch and loveseat set where she surely entertained the neighbors when they popped by.
He glanced down at his phone. “Should have gotten her phone number,” he muttered before threading his way between the island countertop and the back of an armchair he liked to sit in and watch the sunset in the early evenings.
“There you are,” Lark said.
Cash dang near jumped out of his skin. She rose from the end of the long couch pressed into the corner of the living room, and she wore an oversized swimming suit cover-up with bright tropical flowers splashed across the black fabric.
She grinned at him. “Did I surprise you?”
“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “I didn’t see you there.”
“You said you got in around ten,” she said. “I’ve been waiting out here for fifteen minutes.” She swallowed, and Cash tracked the movement in her slim throat.
“Did you find a swimming suit?” he asked, as she had said near the end of their dinner that she wasn’t sure if she had one here at the house or not.
She nodded, and after another swallow, said, “Yeah, it’s not great, but….” She looked over her shoulder and then back at him, those pretty hazel eyes wide and filled with trepidation. “It’s dark outside, right? You don’t turn on any lights or anything?”
“There’s lights on the hot tub,” he said. “They sort of pulse through the various colors. At least, that’s the setting I like.”
His own nerves shook at him for a couple of reasons. One, he hadn’t shared a hot tub with a woman ever, and it felt like a very intimate thing to do. And two, Cash wasn’t sure how he feltabout having another person in the time and space he’d carved out for himself.
He liked to talk to the stars, or God, or himself, and he didn’t know how to do that with Lark only a few feet away from him. He’d told himself at least ten times in the sixty seconds it had taken him to shed his clothes and pull on his swim trunks that he didn’t need to talk to himself tonight; he had her to talk to.
He lifted the extra towel he’d gotten for her. “I got you a towel.”
She twisted and bent and picked one up off the couch. “I got one too.”
“Oh, well, that’s fine,” he said.
“Yours looks nicer, though,” she said, and she tossed hers back to the couch. She took a couple of steps forward but moved between the couch and the loveseat and toward the back sliding door, while Cash had to go on a different trajectory to catch up to her.
“All right then, Cashew,” she said, her voice filled with teasing. “Show me how this hot tubbing is done.” She beat him to the sliding glass door while Cash tried to get his body and mind to catch up to her.
“Oh, wow, it’s cold out here,” she said, stepping over the lip of the door and onto the deck.
Cash followed her, bending to push the button on the towel warmer he’d purchased and set just outside the door. He crammed both their towels in and settled the lid on before straightening.
“Cashew?”
“Hey, it’s not cowboy,” she said.
He darted around her to open the hot tub, which was easy, as the McClellans had the cover installed on a rail. He simply had to push off the hot tub cover, and it folded and tucked away just over the side of the deck. Then he sat on the edge, his usualway of getting in, and plunged his feet into the hot water before easing his whole body in with a long, satisfied sigh.
“Oh yeah, that feels good.” He glanced over to where Lark stood just beyond the lip of the hot tub. “It’s just hot water, sweetheart. It’s not gonna hurt you.”
