“Just for a couple of days,” Wyatt answers. He looks back at me. “You know Flynn.”
Flynn, a smokejumper who has a harder time sitting still than I ever have, is the middle Knight sibling. His visits are never planned, and he never stays home long. He doesn’t even have a home base, which is why he crashes with Wyatt when he does make the rare appearance. I don’t know what secrets he’s keeping, but I suspect it must be something big. A runner can always spot another runner.
“Two visits in the same summer? Are you sure it’s really our brother?” Macy asks, passing Wyatt in the living room as he heads toward the bedroom. She hands me a spoon. After I shoveaside the remaining unfolded towels, I join her on the couch to enjoy the ice cream I realize I’ve most definitely been craving.
“I’m surprised he’s not out on the town, charming some poor girl out of her panties,” I add.
“The night’s still young.” Macy rolls her eyes as she dips her spoon into her cup.
For a few blissful minutes, we enjoy our ice cream in silence. I focus on the sweet frosting flavor mixed in, the crunch of the cookies, the way the sprinkles feel against my tongue. Anything but Wyatt Knight in my bedroom.
I gulp a swallow, realizing I still have the shirt he loaned me that night. Shit. Where did I put that?
Macy’s phone pings, and she pulls it from her pocket. Her carefree expression morphs into her serious veterinarian face as she suddenly stands. “Sorry, I gotta go.”
“Everything okay?”
“I’m on call,” she says apologetically as Wyatt reappears in my living room. “Colic emergency.”
“You need assistance?” Wyatt offers.
Damn my fluttering heart. That man would give the shirt off his back—oh wait, he already did that. I quietly push to my feet, intent on finding said shirt so I can hide it from him. It has nothing to do with me wanting to wear it again and everything to do with how embarrassing it would be to admit I kept it for a few weeks. At least, that’s the lie that feels most convincing.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “You stay here and help Everleigh so she doesn’t have an excuse to bail on me tomorrow morning.”
Wyatt salutes her.
I want to be offended, but if Macy only knew how much truth her words held, she’d probably lock the two of us inside my house until it was fully unpacked. Instead, I take her half-eatenice cream from her and carry it to my freezer for safe keeping. Because I can’t promise not to eat it later, I don’t.
Only when Wyatt asks me for a screwdriver does it hit me that the two of us are very alone.
“I think the tools are still out in the garage,” I say.
“I’ll take a look,” he says, moving around me. His woodsy, country scent drifts to me, scrambling my brain for several seconds after he walks by. Has he always smelled this good?Yes. He smells exactly the way his shirt smelled the morning I woke up in it.
Shit.
The shirt.
I hurry to my bedroom, hoping I stashed it somewhere safe. But for the life of me, I don’t know if it ended up in my closet, a dresser drawer, or in the laundry. I’m on my hands and knees searching the closet when I hear Wyatt’s heavy footsteps.
“Hey Ev, I was wondering—what are you doing?” he asks, chuckling.
“I dropped an earring.” I don’twearearrings. But Wyatt doesn’t know that.
“In your closet?”
“It rolled in here.”
Wyatt clears his throat, and I catch a glimpse of his cowboy boots turning away from me, toward the bookshelf that is still in pieces.
I search a minute more until I’m thoroughly convinced the shirt isnotin my closet and then crawl out backwards. But when I go to stand, my butt backs into a hard wall of muscle. I start to wobble as I realize not just who’s behind me, but what. Holy tornadoes, is that a gun in his pants? Because if it’s not…
“Whoa, careful there.” Wyatt’s hands clamp my elbows as I straighten, his heated breath teasing my neck. I lean backagainst him without thinking, my back pressing into his chest. That is most definitelynota gun.
My eyes fall closed as I imagine his lips brushing my neck. My nipples tingle so hard they fucking ache. If he just slid those hands forward, he could capture my breasts in his calloused palms.
“Ev?” Wyatt says, his voice low and deep.
