It wasn’t a ghost.It wasn’t any kind of aberration at all, except that it had no business on his porch.
Then it moved and it turned out to be Matilda, wrapped in a blanket and holding a bright cherry-red thermos that steamed when she opened it.
“Not again,” he growled.
And all the infernal woman did was smile at him, ear to ear, those gray eyes of hers looking something closer to blue in the porch light.
“I told you I was going to come clean up after those puppies, Tennessee,” she said, in that chiding way of hers that made him vibrate with what he told himself was temper.Nothing but temper.“Silly.You’d think I was a serial killer, the way you’re acting.”
“If you were a serial killer, I’d know how to handle you,” he shot back.
Matilda stood up, draping her blanket over one arm and looking completely unfazed.She was not wearing scrubs tonight, and he was irritated that he noticed that.It was viciously cold, yet she looked perfectly comfortable, though she must have been sitting out here for a while.But then, this was a woman who spent all of her free time scrabbling around these bitterly cold and often inhospitable mountains looking for animals to save.If anyone knew how to stay warm, he supposed it would have to be her.
Tennessee really wished that he did not know even this much about her.It did him no good.It did not help the situation at all, because it meant he was thinking about her far more than he should.
“I don’t need you to clean anything,” he said, trying to remind himself to go with Finn’s velvet hammer instead of what Cat had once called hismallet of malice, not that she was dramatic.“What I do need you to do is turn around, go back to wherever you came from, and stay there.”
Matilda reached down beside her and lifted up a bucket.She held it before her with a kind of quizzical look on her face, though he found himself caught on her mittens, which were rainbow-colored and, unless he was very much mistaken, knit to look like unicorns.
Unicorns, for God’s sake.
“But I brought my cleaning supplies,” she said when he only scowled at her.“After all, Tennessee, a promise is a promise.”
She looked at him with so much expectation, as if his compliance was predetermined, and that shouldn’t have worked.He shouldn’t have cared.
And yet somehow he was opening his front door and beckoning her in, just the same.
As if that was what he’d wanted all along.
Chapter Five
Seeing this muchof Tennessee in less than twenty-four hours made Matilda feel a little bit giddy.
Maybe a lot giddy, she corrected herself as she put her blanket on the bench inside his front door, actually hung her coat up this time—because she wanted to match the tidiness pressing in on all sides, and stepped out of her boots once more.
She did not look at him as she did these things.She thought that would be a step too far.Particularly when she was pretty sure that hereallydidn’t want her here.That it wasn’t just more of his typical grumpiness, that thing he did while helping everyone and getting involved with everything and generally being indispensable.While scowling, though.To make sure everyone knew he was terribly fierce and solitary andmight biteat any moment.
He was a lot like a rescue dog in that way.
And the look on his face as she made herself at home again was nothing short of… confounded.
Matilda had delivered the pizza to Rosie and Ryder the way she’d taken to doing at least once a week since the babies had been born at Christmas.They sat around in the living room in Rosie and Ryder’s comfortable cabin, mostly on the floor.That was where Matilda got to play with her rowdy little toddler nephews, Eli and Levi, who delighted her more every day.She also got to cuddle her sweet, brand-new, two-month-old baby girl twin nieces while Ryder and Rosie sat back, ate pizza, and usually shook their heads at each other a lot.
Like…what have we done?
Though they always did it smiling, and usually holding hands, too.Meanwhile, Holly and Ivy were perfect in every way.Matilda had gotten to snuggle them, and kiss on them, and then run around outside with her nephews, too, to burn off some of their endless supply of wiggles.
She’d gotten to watch Ryder Carey effortlessly prove what a terrific father he was, and it still made her heart jump around in her chest.Because Matilda remembered what it had been like for Rosie the first time, when she’d had those boys on her own.She’d flatly refused to tell anyone who the father was, and she’d insisted she could handle it all herself.
They hadn’t let her, of course.Rosie had been so tired.Matilda and all the rest of her family had stepped in, keeping up a kind of informal duty rotation to make sure there was always someone on hand to help Rosie out.Without letting Rosie know, of course.Because no Stark liked charity.It was hardwired into their bones—and was probably the reason that they were all so boneheaded and stubborn.
Then again, what family that had been in Montana for generations wasn’t?It was kind of a requirement to live here and keep on living here.
After dinner, she’d driven back toward Cowboy Point, driving right past the turn to her house.Because she’d promised to clean up after the puppies, hadn’t she?She’d parked her truck by the General Store and then had wandered across the road to peer through the windows into Mountain Mama Pizza.Because she just wanted tosee, she’d told herself.
If he’d still been there, which she’d doubted.Because when did Tennesseego out?
But he was there, shockingly.More than that, he’d actually beenlaughingas he sat around a table with some people Matilda didn’t recognize from behind, plus his own brother and sister.
