My door opened. “C’mon, Blue, the day’s a-wasting.”
“Did you not see this place before you bought it?” I squeaked, trying to shut the door, but he was in the way. “Trees everywhere. It’s a jungle!”
“Yeah, I did, and I know. It’s why I bought it. Privacy—”
“Snakes,” I panted.
“Don’t be a baby. Come on.” When I didn’t move, he eyed me for the length of a breath. “Okay, I’ll save you. Be your knight and all that.”
I shot him a dark glare.
He gave me that panty-melting smile that usually made my ovaries stand to attention.
It didn’t move me an inch right now.
Since I was a little girl, I suffered a creepy-crawly phobia after encountering a black snake in our backyard. The terror of being unable to move, to breathe, as the serpent slithered toward me…until my dad, who was cleaning out the garden rubble, grabbed me and ran. We watched from a safe distance on the back porch as the snake slithered off into the bushes.
No, I still haven’t gotten over that nightmare.And I didn’t care if I sounded like a baby.
Exhaling a weary sigh, as if he’d walked all the way from the city to here, he said, “Very well, climb on my back, Princess. I need my hands, you know, to fight off overgrown tree limbs that think to attack or serpents if need be.”
He turned, offering me his back.
Argh, I hated the Princess nickname more than when he called me Blue. The former, a label one of my mother’s exes called me. The patronizing ass thought he was being charming. At ten, I was painfully shy and loathed being their shadow and having to pretend we were a happy family when, in reality, he just tolerated me because of my mother.
At the humor in War’s tone, my irritation won over my fear, and I pushed him away and scrambled down.
War shut the truck door, grabbed his sports bag from the back, got out the keys from his jeans pocket—
A plaintive meow had me spinning around.
There, on the second shelf opposite us, bright amber eyes blinked from the shadows. A half-grown, black and gray kitten with white paws crouched on the wood, watching us.
“Come here, little guy,” I crooned.
“It’s a stray,” War said.
“And you just left him alone?” I demanded.
He gave a wry shake of his head, hitching his bag to his shoulder.
I reached up and gently gathered the kitten. “Don’t listen to the bad man. I’ll take care of you.” I cuddled the feline and pivoted—a tinny sound erupted as I kicked something. A small metal bowl upturned on the floor, water splashing on the dusty cement. Another one had bits of brown lumps in it. Kibble.
Darn, I did put my foot into it, literally.
“Okay, maybe he isn’t so bad,” I whispered to the kitten, who seemed happy to be in my arms. “What’s his name?” I asked War as he opened the door into a mudroom with coat hooks and shelves for shoes.
“I don’t name strays.”
The kitten didn’t look like a stray. He appeared fed, healthy…yeah, not falling for that line again.
War unlocked the inner door into a small hallway, with an open door on the right revealing the laundry area. He headed into the sprawling, airy open-plan space with polished hardwood floors and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the massive backyard. The smell of timber, varnish, and dust permeated the air. The kitchen stood denuded with bare skeleton frames for the cupboards in progress, but it already possessed brand-spanking-new appliances.
The island counter appeared to be somewhat finished, done in rich cherry wood, and sporting a charcoal gray granite countertop and sink. He must have been working on this for a while.
The kitchen flowed into the dining-slash-living room. Tarp covered the floor abutting the walls. But only the sitting room possessed furniture—a black sectional and a huge flatscreen TV.
“Whose bright idea was it to do the floors first?” I asked, stroking the kitten. “Wouldn’t you paint the walls and finish the kitchen cupboards and stuff?”
