"Kassidy?"
"Yeah?"
"For the record—your books aren't predictable. And neither are you."
The flush deepens. She opens her mouth, closes it, and settles for a smile that's small and real and wholly hers.
I should be grateful for Calder's timing. Ten more seconds in that conference room and I would have said something I can't take back.
The problem is, I'm not grateful. Not even close.
Chapter 7
Kassidy
Day three of hurricane captivity, and I'm developing a theory that the universe is running a psychological experiment on me.
Hypothesis: trap a romance novelist in a small room with an attractive, emotionally intelligent former Navy SEAL and observe how long it takes for her to abandon all pretense of professionalism.
Current data: not long.
The storm has passed—technically. The rain has stopped, the wind has downgraded from apocalyptic to merely obnoxious, and the sky is the washed-out gray of a watercolor left in the rain. But the roads are still flooded, trees are down across the main highway, and the Tidehaven Inn remains our reluctant home for at least another night.
I've written two thousand words this morning. Good words—alive, messy, honest words that don't sound like anyone but me. My heroine finally stepped off that porch and into the rain, and she's drenched and terrified and more real than she's been in six months of drafting. Whatever Diana's workshop shook loose, whatever the storm rattled open, the dam is cracking.
But I can't focus, because Tucker Brennan is doing push-ups.
Not in the room—he has that much decency. He's in the narrow hallway outside our door, using the space between our room and the stairwell as a makeshift gym. Through the crack in the door—which I left open for ventilation, not for viewing purposes—I can see him. Shirt off. Arms locked, lowering, pressing up. The muscles in his back shift like tectonic plates, smooth and controlled, and there's a sheen of sweat along his shoulders that catches the hallway's fluorescent light.
One hundred push-ups. I know because I counted. Which means I was watching for approximately eight minutes, which means I've written zero words in those eight minutes, which means I'm a fraud and a cliché and possibly a character in one of my own books.
He finishes, stands, stretches—arms overhead, torso lengthening, and the line from his shoulder to his hip is a study in geometry that I will now be unable to stop thinking about—and catches me looking through the crack in the door.
One eyebrow lifts.
I slam the laptop screen down, which is pointless because he already saw me, and also suspicious because who slams their laptop when they're "just writing"?
A knock. His knock—two quick raps, the exact same pattern every time. "Room service."
I open the door. He's pulled his shirt back on, which is both a relief and a tragedy. "I wasn't watching you."
"I didn't say you were."
"Good. Because I was writing."
"Must be a good scene. You looked very focused."
The smile he's suppressing makes my face hot. I step back to let him in, and he enters carrying two bottles of water and a granola bar, which he sets on the desk like an offering.
"How's the book?" he asks, settling into the chair he's claimed as his territory.
"Better. The words are cooperating for the first time in months."
"Good. You seemed different this morning. Lighter."
"I'm trapped in a hotel during a natural disaster. Lighter is relative."
"Relative to yesterday, you're lighter."
