Chapter Six #2
He starts to dig his wallet out of his pants pocket, but I’m faster. I pass my credit card to the woman. “I got it.”
“Thank you,” the woman says. “I’m Nancy Ellis. My husband and I own the Willow Brook.”
“Hunter Cade,” I tell her, but she already knew that, given she was holding my credit card.
“I’m Dylan. This place is fantastic,” he lies. “So much character. Don’t you think, babe?” He grins at me, grasping my hand again, daring me to say something to the contrary. My jaw tightens.
“It’s great,” I manage to grit out.
By the time we reached Coldwater, his easy grin was back, and my irritation kicked up a notch. He was having entirely too much fun.
“If you’ll give me just a moment, I’ll have my husband help you with your bags,” Mrs. Ellis says.
“That’s not necessary,” I tell her, quickly. “We can manage.” And it’ll serve Dylan right, having to haul his suitcase up that staircase.
“If you’re sure.” Mrs. Ellis eyes Dylan’s case skeptically as she comes out from behind the desk. “This way.”
We follow Mrs. Ellis up the stairs, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning every time I hear Dylan grunt and the bottom of his case thump against each tread as he muscles it up the steps.
“I’ve put you in the front room,” Mrs. Ellis says, leading us down a dimly lit hallway to a door tucked in the corner. She slips an old iron key that looks like it’s original to the house, turns it in the lock, then pushes the door wide open.
A large queen-sized bed with a white iron frame takes up most of the space.
A yellow and green handmade quilt covers the bed, along with a stack of matching pillows, and a small white dresser and side tables on either side of the bed take up the rest of the space.
Through a partially open door, I can see an ensuite bathroom with an old-fashioned claw-foot tub.
The room is tidy, a little frilly for my taste, but clean and welcoming.
The air, though, smells stale and stuffy, as if the room hasn’t been used in a while.
“This is nice,” Dylan says, moving closer to me so his shoulder brushes mine as his fingers tangle with mine again. I grit my teeth. I swear he’s doing it just to get under my skin. “Cozy. I think we’ll be very comfortable.”
We? I turn to Mrs. Ellis and wait for her to present another key, instruct one of us to follow her to another room, then a slow dawning trickles over me like a spring rain; there’s no other room, just this one. Dylan only booked one room.
I swing around to face him, and he must have read my expression, because he shoots me a pleading look before stepping into my space.
“Don’t you think, honey? It’s so charming.” He gestures wide with his free hand while his hold on mine with his other hand tightens as if he’s afraid I’ll walk out if he lets go. The idea isn’t without its appeal.
Maybe sensing a strange vibe, a faint frown clouds Mrs. Ellis’s expression. “I’ll leave you to it. If there’s anything you need, please let me know. You’ll find either my husband, Jim, or me at the front desk.”
“Thank you,” Dylan says, herding the woman toward the open door. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Once she’s on the other side of the threshold, he plucks the key from her hand and closes the door before leaning back on it and turning his slightly panicked expression on me.
“One room?” I make no effort to hide my incredulity.
Dylan hushes me, widening his eyes meaningfully, before whisper-yelling, “Lower your voice. We’ll be doing all this for nothing if you announce who we are within the first five minutes of our arrival.
And to answer your question, yes, one room.
We’re supposed to be boyfriends enjoying a romantic getaway.
It would look pretty weird if we were staying in separate rooms.”
Shit. He has a point, as much as I hate to admit it.
While I’d agreed to this plan in part to keep Dylan from doing something dangerous, I’d also believed he might have been right about people being more forthcoming when it came to answering questions from a couple asking about a missing friend versus an investigator ex-cop digging for answers.
That doesn’t mean I like the idea, or that I’m even comfortable with subterfuge.
How in the hell am I going to handle staying in such close quarters with Dylan over the next five days? My gaze drifts to the bed—I can’t help it—and everything inside me pulls tight again.
Maybe we won’t need to stay the full five days. The faster we work out what happened to Matthew, the faster we can get out of here. I could go back to my normal life, put Dylan back in the past where he belonged, and focus on my future.
What future? I ignore the ugly little voice inside me. The one that reminds me that somewhere since leaving the Burlington PD, all I do is work, eat, sleep, work out and work again.
I think of Dylan and his café, his cabin in the woods, and his eclectic assortment of friends.
He has a full life, and I shouldn’t resent him for it.
We’d been kids when we dated. It isn’t fair to still be angry about how he handled a teenage breakup before disappearing from my life.
I need to grow up and act like a professional.
“Okay, fine,” I concede. I have no idea how I’m going to survive five days sharing a room with Dylan Moore, the past between us like a minefield ready to explode with one wrong step, but he is right.
If we’re playing the parts of two men in love, we have to behave like two men in love. Goddamn, it’s going to be a long week.