“I like when you call me the boss,” I say.
“Don’t get used to it.” She yawns again. “This is a partnership.”
“It is, huh? Like a girlfriend-boyfriend partnership.”
Her eyes open again. “No like a brother-sister partnership.”
“I don’t know what you and Jude—”
“Oh gross!” she bellows dramatically and reaches out and swats me. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Sorry, but you started it.” I kiss her cheek, still too scared to kiss her on the mouth and give her this death flu. “I feel like I should go over there and take a look. What time does Jude get here tomorrow?”
“I think around noon.” Her voice is growing fainter and her words are slurred with fatigue. Poor beautiful girl. “I can’t remember. Right now I can’t remember my own name.”
“Winona Skye,” I tell her softly and kiss her cheek again, but I swear she’s asleep before my lips leave her skin.
I watch her for a little while and have plans of getting up and checking on the cottage and then making her dinner, but I’m still so sick all I manage to do is drift off beside her.
23
Winnie
I wake up achy with a grumbling stomach because I slept right through dinner last night. And now something in this house smells absolutely delicious. I sniff and my eyes flutter open. Holden is sitting on the edge of the bed beside me, waving half a breakfast burrito in front of my face. It’s filled with gooey melted sharp cheddar and crispy bacon and fluffy eggs. I reach for it.
Holden laughs. “You’re like a zombie on Walking Dead trying to catch a live one.”
“Hrpmf.” I think I’m trying to agree but who knows. “Need food.”
He lets me poach it from his grip and I take a big, glorious bite. He watches me in amusement. I swallow. “Did you make this?”
“I did,” he says proudly. “And now I could sleep for a week.”
“Still not better?”
“I’m about seventy-five percent,” he explains. “No fever, still tired and a little achy but only bit of a cough left.”
“Well, I’m not letting you overdo it today,” I tell him.
“I won’t have to, thanks to you busting your sweet little ass yesterday,” he says with a smile.
I eat the burrito—both halves—in bed as he brings me a coffee. “I could get used to this.”
“I hope you do,” he replies and smiles. “Then maybe you’ll stick around.”
I pause mid-bite. “What?”
“We just haven’t really talked about how long you’re staying,” Holden says and his voice sounds a little tense. I think he’s worried I won’t stay.
“There’s nowhere else I have to be,” I reply between bites of burrito.
He looks at me, expressionless, for a long moment and then he smiles, but it seems guarded. My phone beeps from the bedside table, and I lean over and read the message that flashes across the screen. “Jude’s plane landed! I have to shower.”
I scramble off the bed.
“I’ll head inside and make sure everything looks great,” Holden says and I can see he’s nervous. He doesn’t want to disappoint Jude, but I know he won’t. Even without Kidd and me jumping in yesterday, the place was together enough that Jude wouldn’t regret his decision to hire Holden.
I rush through my shower and head into the cottage in my towel, because most of my clothes are still in there. I pause and admire the place as Holden walks around trying to put back all the knickknacks and paintings that we had to take down. “It looks amazing in here.”
