Chapter 8 #2
Ty threw out a hand, which smacked right into Wade’s chest. They exchanged some kind of look I couldn’t decipher at the same time I fell for his trap. Rookie. “I mean it,” I promised.
Whoa. I didn’t know what passed between Ty and Wade, but I took an instinctive step back at the level of intensity suddenly on Wade’s face.
As quickly as it came, it disappeared in time with my backward step, which really wasn’t much of one with the car at my back and Ty still holding my hand.
I’d forgotten all about it, finding the way his hand wrapped around mine comforting, but now I felt entirely too trapped.
Wiggling my fingers, I was relieved when Ty let go, though I had to clench my fist against the sudden cold.
Wade didn’t miss a single thing. Fortunately, his grin returned. “Does your forgiveness come with more muffins?”
“Su—sure?” What the hell was all that? I spent my life studying people for my work, so I was pretty good at noticing changes, even if I couldn’t always decipher the why.
“Today?” Wade persisted, but I noticed he kept himself back.
“Just get back to work,” Ty griped, running his hand down his face. His thumb left a track of clean skin through the gray-brown dust. At least I hoped it was dust. “Now, Wade.”
Wade gave up, and after giving me a sweet thank you for the muffins I brought with one more plea for more, he headed back into the house, smacking a hard hat onto his head.
“I thought he was a cop?” I mean, wasn’t he? He had a badge, and my lawyer had tracked him down at the police station for court with Jeremy.
“He is. He works for us from time to time when he has time off.”
“Oh.” That was…sweet. “It must be nice to have family that likes to help out.” I’d learned Wade and Ty were cousins. Wade’s dad and Cady-Jo were siblings. If only my brothers weren’t so self-involved, I thought wistfully.
“He’s my best friend. He’s like a brother, really, even if he does embarrass the hell out of me sometimes.” Ty gave me a rueful smile.
“I know what that’s like.” Alex was my Wade. If only she could keep the embarrassing me part to sometimes and not pretty much all the time.
“Ah, yes, speaking of your BFF, I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
Wait. What?
“Alex was here?” Oh, God. No wonder she seemed so chipper when she’d bounced out of Louise’s this morning before the “time only evildoers woke up before.” “What did she do?”
I’d managed to keep Alex on a leash the few days since we’d moved into Louise’s and she decided to invite herself to stay as well. Thank God, Louise was a kind soul. Granted, Alex was on, well, her version of her best behavior, so that was something.
The one person she couldn’t stop tormenting was Ty whenever he popped by to discuss the house or bring the books he promised Lachlan. Then she got that crazed look on her face, and I started searching for an exorcist online.
“Nothing much. Just came by to see how the progress was.”
Yeah, I so did not believe him.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized automatically with a deep sigh. Another “Alex move.” “I’ll tell her not to bother you.” ’Cause that has ever worked before?
Ty leaned against my car, crossing one long leg over the other in a way I found entirely too distracting. The jeans he wore, despite having stains and scuffs, molded to his powerful legs. It was a hot guy move, and despite the crisp blow of the early fall wind, I found it entirely too warm out.
“Ah, don’t worry about it.” Ty crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles bunching and rippling the tattoos on his arm.
My mouth went dry. “She’s really not that bad, but don’t tell her I told you.
I have a feeling that woman could step up her game, and where power tools are concerned, I’d rather be safe than missing body parts. ”
“Uh…no problem.” I wonder if he works out at the gym? There was no way those muscles could be made just from construction, could they?
My fingers itched to trace the swirling Celtic pattern that seemed to be coming out of a dragon’s mouth, wrapping around his bicep, revealed by the black t-shirt he wore.
I was completely unaware my fingers had started to rub together, this time softly, not the usual tension rolling I did, until Ty asked me if I was all right.
“All right?” I searched my mind for why he’d be asking me that. “I’m fine.” Wasn’t I? My breasts felt heavy as I remembered the feel of his calluses against my hand and wondered what it would feel like to have that roughness against them.
His large hand closed over mine where I was rubbing my fingers together. “This hand says otherwise.”
The shock of the contact rocked through me, which was funny because he’d been holding my hand earlier.
In the last week since Ty had first come to the murder manor, I’d found the attraction I’d had to him that first night, when he’d helped kick Jeremy off my property, had returned full force.
It didn’t help that he was kind to Lachlan and so infinitely careful and understanding with me.
“I’m fine.” I forced my fingers to stop. In my traitorous little writer brain that loved to give me visuals, I was tracing those tattoos, feeling his muscles beneath the inked bronze skin.
It was like the night in Louise’s kitchen. I could hear the noises around us and feel the breeze, and yet…none of it existed. I never knew holding someone’s hand—okay, he was holding mine—could feel like…this.
His look of disbelief was clear, as was the indecision over whether or not to push it. “I noticed you do that a lot.” I guess he decided to go for it. “You rub your fingers together when you’re anxious.”
Shock ran through me. “I didn’t think it was obvious.”
I did it for years, and it took Jeremy, what? Six years to notice? Even then, he told me to stop being a headcase.
“I’m a contractor. I’m used to noticing details,” he explained it away.
Ah. “That makes sense.” And it was time to take my hand back, which I did, returning it to my side, careful to make sure my fingers behaved.