Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Thanks so much for coming right over,” Skylar said.
Noah had a view of her bright red toenails at his eye level. She sat on the vanity in her bathroom, dangling her legs and yapping. Her apartment was dimly lit with candles, and a bath was steaming next to them. The silk robe she wore was slipping off one shoulder.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come back? It kind of looks like you’re in the middle of something.”
“I’d rather have a fixed toilet than a soak anyway. Plus, I appreciate the company.”
He spun the caps off and felt around the base of the toilet. There was definitely moisture. Another day, another Skylar toilet problem.
“Well, I appreciate you telling me about the leak. This could have gotten a lot worse. You’re saving me a headache.”
“Happy to be of help,” she purred.
“Actually, could you drain that bath? I’m going to need to dump the toilet in there.”
“Oh, sure.” She hopped down, and her robe fell open a bit. Welp. That was a nipple. “Oops,” she giggled. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said, turning back to the toilet. There was a clunk and a glug as the water started to recede.
Skylar was beautiful, but she was a tenant—a good tenant who always paid her rent on time. He had never crossed that boundary with a renter before…well, until Cassie.
His head was still spinning from the kiss. That first contact had been like the shock of his fractal wood burner on a virgin canvas. Overwhelming, unpredictable, and beautiful.
What was he doing? He wished for the days when he felt nothing but annoyance for Cassie.
On the surface, she had seemed like an out-of-touch city girl with too many ideas and a tendency to overstep.
But there was so much more to her. A genuine affection for animals.
Remarkable resilience from back-to-back betrayals.
And a deep bruise that she kept carefully hidden.
Every admission she made only increased his interest. He’d spent three years holding everyone at arm’s length, but something about Cassie made him question all his convictions. Whatever he had originally thought about her, he couldn’t have been more off base.
And that was very troubling.
He had just kissed the girl next door. And it wasn’t just a one-off kind of kiss manufactured by too much whiskey and back-to-back bangers in a smoky bar. It had shaken him—awoken something in him.
Cassie had been here less than a month, and he had already completely lost control. Bobby would never have another first kiss, never get married, never give Izzy a sibling. Why should Noah get to have any of those things? And now he had dragged Cassie into the mess.
The wrench was heavy in his hand as he adjusted the width. It was ancient—his dad’s from forever ago, but it was the best wrench he’d ever had.
The promise he’d made to his dad weighed on him. His mom may have been the owner of Willow Bend, but the burden had been placed in his hands. He really needed to go over the financials again. His mom was right—raising admission wasn’t cutting it. Maybe he’d talk to Cassie about some of her ideas.
He muscled through the rest of the wax ring replacement, politely declined Skylar’s offer for a nightcap, and drove back to his mother’s house.
He threw the door open, and the hardwood floors creaked in greeting. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetheart,” she said from the kitchen. He followed her voice. “Want some dinner? There’s a pot roast in the Crock-Pot.”
So that’s what smelled so good.
His stomach growled in response, and she smiled and started fixing him a plate. He hadn’t had a chance to get dinner between his volunteer shift and the toilet emergency.
“So why did you run out of here? That Skylar break her toilet again?” she asked.
“Believe it or not, yes. This time it was a wax ring.”
“That girl is putting the moves on you,” she said knowingly.
“I think she’s just lonely. It has to be hard getting divorced and living all alone and even working from home. She’s isolated.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “I watched her get thrown off the mechanical bull at Skeeter’s last week. I think she just has good taste.”
“I’m not in the market for a girlfriend,” he said. “Too much going on.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said noncommittally.
Time for a subject change before she started waxing poetic about her lack of grandchildren.
“Can we go over the numbers? I just want to see where we’re at.”
“Sure. Let me get the laptop.”
An hour later, the pot roast on his plate was gone, and his hand was buried in his hair.
“I don’t think adding yoga is going to be enough, Mom.”
They’d had a great start to the season, but traffic was trickling in now, and the price of everything was skyrocketing.
The rate hike wasn’t cutting it. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, something needed to change.
And the person who was most equipped to help them was the woman whose mouth his tongue had just been in.
“I know, sweetheart,” Gloria said. “That’s why I said we need to take a look at some of Cassie’s suggestions, but you were so against it. I wrote some of them down. Oh shoot, where did I put that list?”
She got up and shuffled over to the dining room that she had repurposed into a chaotic catch-all office for all things related to the sanctuary. Papers shuffled, and she cursed under her breath.
“Maybe I’ll invite her over for dinner and have her give them to me again.”
An opportunity to reach out to Cassie had presented itself. He should resist, keep his distance. But he could still taste the hint of spearmint gum on her tongue, and his body yearned for hers in a way that defied the logical part of his brain.
“Why don’t you let me take care of it?” he said casually. “She’s my neighbor. I’m sure I’ll run into her, and that way you don’t have to admit that you lost her list.”
Gloria reappeared. “Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that. You have so much on your plate already.”
“I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t willing,” he said.
“Well, that would be nice. But are you sure you want to do this? You seemed awfully offended by virtually everything she suggested.”
He shrugged. “I just didn’t like an outsider coming in and telling us what to do. But the animals are what’s most important. And I do think she genuinely wants to help.”
“Well, I’m relieved to hear you say it. Plus, Cassie’s not an outsider anymore,” Gloria said with a knowing smile.
She was being awfully smug. Had she somehow seen what had happened by the tiger enclosure?
“No, she’s not,” he said.
He picked up his phone to text her but froze. Was it pathetic to contact her this soon after kissing the crap out of her? He hadn’t courted anyone in a long time, and he didn’t know what the rules were anymore.
Not that he was courting her. He was just getting business recommendations. From the mouth of a ridiculously sexy redhead that he wanted to bend over the edge of his bed. Or his couch. Or anywhere, really.
He smacked himself in the cheek to clear his head.
He needed to focus on saving Willow Bend.
He had allowed himself to lose control, to get swept up in the intoxicating cocktail that was his new neighbor.
But he didn’t deserve love or companionship.
He needed to give back to this world in whatever way he could to atone for what he’d done.
That needed to be his focus, not selfish pleasures.
He would reach out to her tomorrow or the next day, strictly business, to save the sanctuary that his father had entrusted to him. And if he accidentally ran into the hot vet in the meantime, he would find a way to contain himself. Probably.