EMERSON OPENED THErefrigerator in the small but mostly tidy kitchen and looked for something he could feed them both without having to cook. The woman had already survived an attack. It would be rude to make her succumb to food poisoning because his cooking skills were nonexistent. He found stuff to make sandwiches behind the Styrofoam pack of boneless skinless chicken breasts and moved a blue ceramic cookie jar shaped like a fox out of the way so he could set them on the counter. On an uncharacteristically optimistic whim, he lifted the head off the fox but instead of cookies, he found batteries.Because where else would a person keep their batteries,he thought, smiling to himself as he rooted around for bread or buns—anything he could turn into a sandwich.
Any cookies lucky enough to make it into his apartment didn’t last long enough to need a jar and his batteries lived in the bottom drawer beside the dishwasher he rarely had occasion to use. Everything in Emerson’s place—hell, his life—had its spot. It was organized and if he was being honest with himself, a bit too structured. Nothing like Sophie’s cobbled-together apartment with charm practically oozing from its original millwork and reclaimed furnishings. If someone had described the rooms to him, he would have assumed it felt cluttered, but it didn’t. There was something comfortable and well-lived in about Sophie’s surroundings.
It made him wonder what her bedroom looked like.Did she have mountains of stupid pillows crowding the headboard? Maybe it was wrought iron with bars sturdy enough to hold on to. Not that he had any intention of finding out. Ms. Taylor was too young and too innocent for someone like him. He couldn’t see her as a one-night stand, and he’d given up on white picket fences a long time ago. It wasn’t that he didn’t think true love wasn’t real. He’d seen it firsthand with his cousins and then with his brother and sister. Hell, even his tough-as-nails employee, Liam, found a woman who could make him slow down long enough to become some kind of goat farmer.
He seemed happy enough with Andy—happier than Emerson had ever seen him—but Liam was the perfect example of why love wouldn’t work for Emerson. His badass warrior employee fell in love with a farmer, which was great for now but what happened in six months? Liam had a crap ton of vacation time stockpiled, but eventually he’d have to either leave Andy and come back to work or convince her to leave something she obviously loved to be with him. He was ignoring for now that there might be an option he hadn’t considered, something in between. In his experience, in between usually meant choosing between two bad choices.
None of which mattered. He didn’t have to figure out Liam’s love life. He just had to make sure he kept his own within parameters he could live with. It made sweet Ms. Taylor completely unavailable. He needed to turn his protective instincts toward feeding her and making sure she was okay and away from what her blue-eyed gaze would look like staring up at him from the imaginary pile of pillows on her imaginary bed.
He covered three pieces of her weird multi-grain bread with turkey and paper-thin slices of Swiss cheese and smeared three more pieces with mayonnaise. He found a jar of pickles in the back of the fridge and added them to the sandwiches. Big-eyed owls watched him from the turquoise plates he’d found in the cupboard. It was like a ceramic peaceable kingdom in Sophie’s kitchen. Plopping the sandwiches—two for him and one for her—on the crazy cheerful birds of prey, he carried the plates to the coffee table just as she emerged from her bedroom. She closed the door behind her so quickly he barely caught a glimpse of the interior, but he didn’t see pillows or wrought-iron.
“Here you go,” he said, pushing the plate toward her.
“Thank you, but you don’t have to wait on me.”
“Sit. I’ll be right back.” He paused long enough to make sure she followed his instructions before heading back to the kitchen for drinks. He’d seen some kind of fruit fusion water in the fridge.
“How are you feeling?” He twisted open the cap on a strawberry-kiwi drink and handed it to her and then opened one for himself. It wasn’t bad—kind of like watered-down fruit juice. The rock star he been working for in Bali lived on something similar, except his was made with reiki-infused mineral water from a rare artisanal spring. And it probably cost ten or twenty times as much. Bali—what he’d seen of it—was gorgeous, but his client had been an interesting piece of work.
“I’m okay. A little tired.” She picked up her sandwich, took a bite and made a face filled with so much pleasure, sandwich making might become his new thing. “God, this is good. I had all of this stuff in my kitchen?”
“Yep, just waiting to become lunch.” It was just a sandwich, but he loved that he’d managed to make her something that she actually seemed to enjoy. It almost made him want to give cooking another shot.Almost.“It’s hard to sleep in hospitals—all the lights and weird smells. It makes sense that you’d be tired. Finish your lunch and then you can go to sleep. I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours. Don’t worry.”
She nodded and took another bite of her sandwich while he tried to ignore her slender ankles and the curve of her calves in those stretchy yoga pants women seemed to love. She tucked her legs up underneath her, revealing the gentle swell of a truly fine ass, and he thought yoga pants were the kind of garment he could get behind—no pun intended. And he wasn’t looking at her ass. Not much anyway.
Emerson polished off his second sandwich—turns out he actually could make something edible; the pickles had been a slice of genius—while she was still working on her first.
“You really don’t have to take care of me,” she said, pushing the plate with the last of her uneaten sandwich away. “Hear me out. I know you gave the doctor your word, but you could just as easily wake me with a phone call. It doesn’t have to be in person.”
He gave her the look he used when Andrews tried to weasel out of something, and she slumped back onto the sofa. He’d taken the wide armchair with the seat worn into a surprisingly comfortable U shape.
“University of Western Australia? Is that where you’re from?” he asked, ignoring the instructions he had no intention of following to focus on the logo on her T-shirt. The oversized shirt swallowed her and he couldn’t help wonder if it was a leftover from an old boyfriend.
“Not exactly. I didn’t go to college.”
She looked wistful, and he waited for a moment to see if she’d offer any more information, either about the school or the guy the shirt belonged to.
“But you’re from Australia,” he said, restating the obvious. She didn’t get that accent in North Carolina.
“I grew up outside of Broome. I’ve been in the States for five years.”
“On a work visa or do you have family here?” He didn’t think she had family close. If she did, he doubted he’d be the one waking her up every couple of hours.
“Citizen.” She tipped her head to the side, curling in on herself.
Given her accent, that was unexpected. He wanted answers but he could wait. The woman was exhausted. Playing caretaker didn’t do any good if he kept her from resting and made things worse.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed.” He stood and held out his hand. “So you can sleep,” he added when he saw her hesitate.
She took his offered hand, letting go as soon as she got to her feet. He followed her into her bedroom—normal number of pillows, no wrought-iron or signs of Velcro cuffs—not giving her enough space to close him out. Ignoring her protests, he turned down the covers on her bed and waited for her to crawl inside. She watched him as if she were afraid he might explode or pounce or some combination of the two, but she climbed under the sheet, visibly relaxing when he pulled the comforter up to her chin.
Before he realized what he was doing, he leaned down to kiss her goodnight. Except it wasn’t night; it was late afternoon, and she wasn’t his to kiss. Opting for the less awkward of the possible choices, he detoured at the last minute and brushed his lips over the smooth skin of her forehead the way he’d done for his sisters the few times he’d been feeling sweet instead of tormenting them. Sophie watched him, her blue eyes as wide as the owls on her plates as he slowly pulled away.
“Get some rest. I’ll be in to check on you in a couple hours.”
He backed out of the room, closing the door behind him as if it were the most natural thing in the world, which it definitely was not. The feelings he was starting to have for Sophie were anything but sisterly. He spent a few minutes screwing around on his phone, checking emails and sending messages to his guys. He had a full roster of clients in addition to Seaton and there was always something that needed his attention. Glancing across the room, he noticed the game console and thought for a moment about trying to sign on as a guest, but he had work to do and it seemed unlikely she’d have anything he like to play.The Arrangementwas the only thing he really took time to play and that was only occasionally to blow off steam. The game was a cross between a Victorian steampunk thing and sci-fi fantasy. It was the one time-wasting vice he allowed himself, and it had been days since he’d signed on.
He checked his phone for notifications. It had been almost as long since he heard from the player named Severhan. It was crazy to think his sometimes partner/ sometimes nemesis would be online in the middle of a weekday, but he watched the screen for a few moments to see if he got a response. Shaking his head in disgust, he closed the screen. His recent interaction with women included an online relationship with someone he tried to beat at video games and his current nursing gig. It was the romantic equivalent of living in his parents’ basement. Maybe when this was over, he’d get his brother to go out with him, but he’d started to feel too old for bars. Add in the rate his wingmen were signing up forhappily ever afterand he had a feeling he was on his own.
He waited a few more minutes to make sure Sophie was asleep and wouldn’t need him and then he hurried to his truck to grab his duffel and laptop. At least he had work to do.
He always had work.
