Of all the underhanded, low-down, dirty things to do, the man just—left.
My mouth gaped as I watched him walk toward what I was beginning to think of as his wing of the house. It wasn’t truly big enough to call them wings, but I tended to imagine things a little grander than they reallywere.
I strangled back a scream and stomped off to my little borrowed room that Griffin didn’t want me to bein.
As soon as I stepped into the room I regretted it. There was still nothing to do. I whirled around and headed back out in search of the garage and snowmobiles. I’d think through how to get out ofthere.
Since I’d already been toward the kitchen, to the right, I turned left and meandered down the carpeted hallway, peeking in the three rooms I’d yet to see. I skipped the door across from the bathroom, which was Chandler’s room. The next room held a plethora of exercise equipment. Nope, not for me. My ribs began to twinge, reminding me to take iteasy.
Last was the jackpot. It opened into a garage—a massivegarage.
“Holy crap,” Iexclaimed.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Chandler’s voice scared the daylights out ofme.
“Oh my God, Chandler. I’m going to put a bell on you.” I twisted around and stopped myself before slapping him on the arm the way I would one of my brothers. We didn’t know each other well enough to survive me physically abusing him—yet.
Of course, my quick movement aggravated my torso. I gritted my teeth against thepain.
“Go on, I’ll give you a tour.” Chandler led me around the garage, explaining things about the four cars like horsepower and German engineering, but I only listened with half an ear. My attention bounced from watching his handsome face, animated while talking about the vehicles, and over to the corner of the garage where three snowmobiles sat quietly. My saviors, thosecontraptions.
He saw me looking and headed toward them. “Have you ever ridden on a snowmobile?” heasked.
“No, I haven’t had the pleasure.”Yet.
“Would you like to go outsometime?”
My eyes lit up. “Could we gonow?”
He laughed. “No, the storm is too savage. Once it quiets, though, we could go for a ride before you go on yourway.”
“Are you asking me on a snowmobile date?” I arched my eyebrow at him and put my hands on myhips.
“And if I was?” He stepped closer to me, close enough that I could see the stubble forming on hischin.
“I might say yes,” I repliedhaughtily.
Electricity popped between us, and my body let me know it was open to any sort of date he wanted to go on. I was about to lean in and press my lips to his when the garage door bangedopen.
“There you guys are.” Ellion bounded into the garage like an excited puppy. He really was so cute. “I’m bored. Do you want to play cards or something?” he asked, striding over tous.
Chandler stepped away from me with a significant look. It said, “We’ll continue this later, be sure ofthat.”
“Sure.” I chirped, relieved that Ellion had saved me from jumping headlong into a complication I had no room for. “What do you like toplay?”
Ellion grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the house. “What don’t we like to play? Sometimes up here in the middle of nowhere it gets really boring. We play a little ofeverything.”
“Okay, well, how about Rummy?” It was the only card game I knew, besides GoFish.
“Rummy it is,” said Chandler, trailing behindus.
Ellion clasped my hand and walked beside me. His hand was warm and strong, with more calluses than I would’ve expected from a computernerd.
I was settled into a kitchen chair and given a glass of tea. Chandler and Ellion sat across from me after placing a bowl of pretzels on the table. Ellion dealt the cards with his gracefulfingers.
“Should we make this interesting?” Chandler waggled his eyebrows atme.
“Interesting? As in money?” Iasked.
