Chapter 18
JORDAN
The next morning, before I even open my eyes, I know I’m not at home. The bed is way too comfortable, and there’s a lack of noise from the street and clunking noises from the upstairs neighbor. Cool air breezes past me like there’s a window open nearby.
The bar last night, Tate, and the cat in his arms. The way his hands looked on the steering wheel. My stuff in the rain. The eviction notice. Back in Tate’s car.
I fell asleep, and from the bright sunlight streaming into what appears to be a cottage, it’s morning, and I have no clue where I am.
Beside me on the bed, I lock eyes with a little girl, and let out a yelp of surprise.
She gives me an odd look, still holding her book, totally unfazed at my presence, and it clicks.
“Bea?”
She gives me a tiny smile. “Hi.”
She studies me in a familiar way, like her dad. She has dark hair, big eyes like Tate, and is reading a book with an illustration on the cover of a girl in a wheelchair, singing into a microphone on stage. The Chance to Fly by Ali Stroker.
Against her legs, that cat is curled up in a ball, sleeping.
Is this Tate’s house? It’s so small and cozy.
A studio with big windows overlooking a forest, a tidy kitchen and sitting area with a squashy, comfy-looking chair and a wood fireplace.
I spot the espresso machine I’ve lusted over for years.
Artwork that looks local hangs on the wall, with telltale emerald forests, mountains, and glittering blue water.
I didn’t even ask where he lived. I don’t know where we are, and yet I’m not panicking. I fell asleep in the car as he drove.
I’m usually so guarded around people, especially men, and yet I fell asleep in the car. I don’t even want to know how I got to bed. I’m praying I woke up and went inside myself and just don’t remember it.
“Okay.” I’m not sure what to make of this. “Why are you in my bed, Bea?”
“I’m not in your bed. I’m reading on top of it. I normally get under the covers, but I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Now that my heart rate has returned to normal, I have the urge to smile.
“This is where I read. I didn’t know you were here.”
My eyes flick to the cat. “I see you found the cat.”
“Phoebe found me. She was sleeping on my bed.”
“Phoebe?”
She nods. “She has female energy.”
I laugh. “That’s what I said.”
So the cat likes Tate and his daughter. Phoebe opens one eye and gives me an expression full of hate. I roll my eyes.
An urgent knock on the front door has me raising my eyebrows at Bea. She raises hers right back.
“Jordan?” Tate’s voice sounds through the door as I slip out of bed. “Everything okay?”
I open the door, and my thoughts dissolve.
He’s shirtless and sweating. Wearing black athletic shorts that reveal his impressive thighs. A trail of dark hair trickling from his navel into the waistband of his shorts. Defined pecs, rounded, toned shoulders, and a carved six-pack. Damp hair, a glistening sheen along his forehead and chest.
Holy hell. Tate Ward is jacked. He has the body of a guy fifteen years younger.
He has a sneaky tattoo on his left pectoral. Two constellations that look like the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, but with extra stars connected. Something snags inside me at the idea of someone as responsible and controlled as Tate Ward getting a tattoo.
“Jordan.”
I snap my gaze to his. My scalp is prickling. I mean, he’s just so . . . hot. I knew this, and yet being presented with all this skin and toned muscle and chest hair is—
“Were you working out?” I ask, stupidly.
“What?” He looks down at himself. “Oh. Yes.”
What I would pay to see that.
“I heard you shout,” he prompts.
I open the door wider so Bea is visible, still reading on the bed.
He sighs, but he’s smiling. “Hi, Bee.”
She flips the page. “Hi.”
He gives me an apologetic look. “She reads in here, sometimes. I was planning to tell her we had a guest when I got in from my workout. Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine.”
“She taught me how to roll a joint,” Bea calls to her dad.
My jaw drops. “I did not.”
Bea smiles into her book, and oh. Tate’s smiling, too.
“I see where she gets her weird sense of humor from,” I tell him.
His smile curves higher, but my gaze is caught behind him, at the wide-open cove. Emerald mountains, brilliant blue sky, water sparkling in the clear morning light. It takes my breath away. So pretty I could look at it forever.
There’s a large separate house on the property, with clean, modern lines and massive windows. So that’s his house. That makes more sense. A guy with as much money as Tate Ward would not live in a little cottage.
“You live in the middle of the woods?”
He gives me a crooked smile. “We have plumbing, though.”
It’s so quiet, except for the sound of the birds. It reminds me of the summer house my mom would take me to on the Gulf Islands. “It’s beautiful. Very isolated.”
My eyes go to the cove again and an overwhelming pang of longing hits me square in the chest.
“That’s why I like it,” he says.
“No one can hear me scream,” I mutter, and I hear that stifled laugh of his. That recurring ping of his approval goes off in my chest, and I look away. “I should get going.”
“About that.” He puts a hand on the doorframe, seemingly unaffected by the cold air moving into the guesthouse and freezing my toes. “Your stuff will be delivered later today.”
My stuff. Off to the side, my records sit on the floor. Tate must have brought them in last night. I don’t know why I didn’t think to bring anything else with me.
Maybe because the records and the record player are all that matter. Still, I need clothes for work. I need shoes and shirts and underwear—
“And the rest will be taken care of.”
“Taken care of?” What does that mean?
“I can give you a tour of the house later, if you like.” He gestures to the larger house behind him, not answering my question.
I shake my head. “No need.”
Something about being in his personal space seems dangerous. I’ll want to study every book, photo, and spoon for more hints about him.
Besides, I’ll be out of here the second my things arrive.
“What if you need something from the house?” he asks, amusement in his eyes. “We don’t have cell service out here, and the Wi-Fi cuts out all the time. What if you need to call Dr. Greene?”
“No cell service?”
“We’re pretty far up the inlet.” His eyes start twinkling. Now his mouth is tipping up. He’s teasing me again. “Maybe you’ll get lonely and want some company.”
Something twists behind my heart. “I don’t get lonely.”
His brows rise. “Never?”
“Never. I love being alone.”
Am I lying? I have a sudden flash of last night in his car, telling him about my mom.
Why did I do that? Now I’ve shown him one of my weak spots.
“Alright, well, there’s tea and coffee in the kitchen.
” He nudges his chin into the guesthouse behind me.
“Nothing in that fridge, because I didn’t know you were coming, but there’s food in the main house.
” His smile is five percent wicked, almost enough to be considered a smirk.
“Not that you’re going to come inside the house.
Be careful out here at night,” he says, gesturing to the property.
“I disabled the motion sensor lights because the animals set them off every hour.”
“What animals?”
“Raccoons. Cats. Coyotes. Bears. Cougars.”
“Bears? Cougars?”
“They’re black bears,” he says like he’s talking about a harmless fruit fly, not an animal that could rip my face off.
“Make some noise and they’ll run off. Cougars, though.
” He winces but his eyes do that annoying, amused glinting thing.
“I would not want to run into a cougar. There’s a family of them who hang out back here. ”
“Uh. What?”
Ignoring me, he turns to the house and points at a set of second-floor windows.
“That’s my bedroom. No peeping, okay?” He winks, and my face goes hotter than the sun.
“Close your blinds, then,” I sputter. “Why would you even say something like that? Why are you acting like this?”
And why is he getting a rise out of me like this?
“Like what?”
I search for the right word. “Silly.”
“He’s always like that,” Bea calls from the bed.
No, he isn’t. He’s different here at home. Lighter and more at ease.
In the morning light, his eyes are so sharply green. “I just like bugging you. You get all flustered.”
“I’m not flustered.” I am. My face is probably beet red. So uncool.
He goes on like he didn’t hear me. “Toothpaste, toothbrushes, face wash, towels, soap, et cetera are all in the bathroom. I’ll have your fridge stocked tomorrow.”
“Again, not necessary.”
“No TV unfortunately, either here or in the house, but that cabinet has books.” He tilts his chin at an antique cabinet.
“You don’t have TV? Not a single TV in that house.”
“Nope.” He becomes very interested in the trim above the door.
An NHL coach without a TV to watch games? I’m not buying it.
“So what do you do here in the Little House on the Prairie?” I ask. “Is Bea forced to make her own dolls out of tree bark and old grass?”
“I like to read,” she calls over.
He smiles. “We have a library inside the house. We play board games. Cook dinner, make cookies. Go for hikes, kayak on the water. Go to movies. Ride our bikes. In the summer, work on our garden.”
The image is adorable. “Are you secretly some granola hippie, Tate?”
Surprise flares in his eyes at me using his first name again. “Got the solar panels to prove it.” He looks behind me. “Bea. Time for breakfast.”
“I’m reading.” She doesn’t look up.
He stares at her patiently but with a firm, expectant look, and again, I feel that urge to smile. She sighs and slips off the bed. The cat gets up and follows her.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asks me, and I laugh in surprise.
“Bea,” her dad says.
“I’m kidding.” As she’s walking out the door, she calls over her shoulder, “Watch out for cougars!”
I give Tate an alarmed look. “Is she kidding?”
“Yes. By the time you see a cougar, you’re already dead.”
“This isn’t funny.”
His eyes spark. “It’s a little funny. Are you hungry?”
Starving, but I shake my head. “I’m good.”
“Okay.” He starts walking up to the house, the muscles in his back moving with each step. “See you later, Jordan.”
He doesn’t even seem cold. I bet he runs hot; when he held my wrist the other day to look at the scratch, his skin was warm. I bet he’s like a furnace at night.
I wonder if he sleeps naked.
And with that, I give myself a shake. It doesn’t matter if he sleeps naked, because that is not what this is.