Hotshot and Hospitality by Nora Everly
Chapter 7
Molly
How did this happen? Yeah, I know, truck breakdown, I can’t hear for shit, yada yada yada. But in terms of fate, kismet, stars aligning in the universe and crap like that—how? I was already having trouble resisting his sexy self and now here he was, too tall, too broad, too hot for my own dang good, slouched over in my tiny Beetle while I drove him home to his secluded and most likely romantic cabin in the woods. It was probably adorable and charming, and if it was even one tiny bit whimsical, I would be in unimaginable amounts of trouble.
Damn it!I was so screwed. I stupidly thought that dinner with our families would get us back to normal and put an end to this swirly-whirly crap happening between us. Turns out: not so much. I wanted to jump every bone in his body.
“Turn off on that road. Do you see it?”
I squinted in the glare of an oncoming car. “You mean that tiny gap in the trees? That one by the mailbox?” I pointed as I slowed down and turned my signal on, just in case.
“Yup, turn there.” He pointed too, causing our fingertips to brush together. Ugh! Damn zing-tingles. No more touching. I pulled my hand back like I had touched something hot. Huh, I kinda did. I smiled to myself as I turned the wheel. My tires crunched over gravel as we passed a sign that read “Private” to travel down a narrow tree-lined road straight into the forest.
I switched my brights on because yikes. It was as spooky as it was beautiful. I mean, I watched the X-Files. Serious shit went down in forests and one could never be too careful. “You live in a serial killer’s paradise, Garrett. No wonder you can’t sleep at night.”
He chuckled next to me, low and rumbly. “It’s peaceful out here,” was all he said.
“Yeah, I’m sure it is . . .” The thought of driving out of here alone after I dropped him off freaked me the eff out. Maybe my car would die halfway out of the woods and an ax-murdering yokel would hack me to death in my VW. And if not, there were always aliens to worry about. I could almost hear the whistling of the X-Files theme song in my head. I so did not want to believe.
“We’re almost there. See the light up ahead?” He pointed again.
“Yeah.” I followed the road toward the light. But there was really no other direction to go in unless I wanted to drive up a dang tree.
“Just pull in front of the cabin when you get there. I never use the garage.”
“Okay.” The tree line widened on either side of the road as the light in the distance grew brighter.
Then I saw it: the most adorable place ever. It was like driving into Hansel and Gretel—atotally adorable house surrounded by spooky-as-heck woods, where you just knew a whacked-out cannibal witch was waiting to shove you in her oven to cook you and eat your foot with a bottle of merlot or whatever.
If I kept my eyes out of the murder forest, Garrett’s cabin was beautiful and serene. It was made up of stacked, rounded logs and topped by a gently sloped green corrugated roof. A wraparound porch held big wooden planter boxes stuffed full of red roses, while forest brush, ferns, and even wildflowers were dotted about in haphazard, patternless beauty to surround the small front lawn. It was simple and charming with one door in the middle and one window on either side. The cabin’s covered porch glowed from a strand of fat-bulbed lights that were strung from one side to the other. This entire property was whimsical AF. All that was missing was smoke coming out of the stone chimney and maybe a few cute Disney-style animals prancing about. Dammit.
“It’s adorable! You even have a porch swing!” I accused. Flinging out a hand, I smacked him lightly on his impressively hard chest. “Ow, that hurt.”
“Well, hitting isn’t nice now, is it?” he teased.
“Whatever. This place is the cutest. Did you build it?”
“Of course I did.” I glanced over at him as I pulled to a stop in front of a lighted post set halfway between the house and the small garage. He had shifted to sit against the door with one hand on the dash and the other arm across the back of his seat to watch my reaction. There was just too much of him to look at; he overwhelmed this small space. He overwhelmed me. I huffed out a sigh and exited my Beetle to get away from him and gather my rapidly escaping thoughts about why I couldn’t just take what I wanted and attack him.
My sandals crunched through the gravel toward his porch as I shivered against the chill in the brisk evening air. “It’s cold.” I jumped at the sound of his door slamming behind me.
“Let’s get you inside, then. I’ll start a fire.” A fire, right. Get even more romantic, why don’t you?
“Ugh! Okay,” I yelled, quite unsure of where my attitude was coming from. “Start a fire. Offer me some freakin’ tea while you’re at it.”
“Would you like some freakin’ tea, Molly?” The laughter in his voice was so sexy. He had some nerve unleashing it on me. Hmph!
“I would love some freakin’ tea. But only if you serve it in an irresistibly cute teacup, please,” I groused as I stood there glaring at his front door.
“I think I can do that.” He chuckled.
“Of course you can! Is there nothing you can’t do?” I shouted.
He unlocked the door and stepped aside to let me in. “After you.” I scowled up at his grinning face.
What was I even doing here?
“I should just go. This is a bad idea.” I took a step to go around him but turned back when I heard the high soft trill of a meow echo in my hearing aid.
“You have a damn cat too?” I whirled back to face him with an accusatory finger pointed and at the ready.
“Sure do. He’s a cute damn cat, too.” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth to call what would most likely be the most scrumptious cat in all the known universe.
There are five things I couldn’t resist in this world: kitty cats, pie of all kinds, big shoulders, wicked grins that hinted at delicious possibilities, and all things that sparkle.
So far, Garrett was three out of five tonight—the audacity! I heaved out yet another disgruntled sigh and stepped inside. The cabin was one large room with two doors on the left and an open kitchen on the right. In the center of the kitchen area was a square butcher block island surrounded by padded stools. Copper pots hung from a black iron rack over the island, herbs grew in tiny terra-cotta pots in the bay window above the sink . . .
It was like he’d hired a fairy-tale princess as an interior decorator.
I needed to leave.
Right the frick now.
But another high meow hit me before I could bolt. “Kitty!” I cried.
At the rear of the cabin, a furry black and brown striped head popped out from behind a couch followed by a huge, chunky, kitty-cat body, then a bent bottlebrush tail that swished side to side as he moved. His eyes glowed dark yellow in the dim light of the cabin as he hobbled in our direction. The dang cat had three and a half legs and a crooked tail. He was ugly as could be, yet he was the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my life. I sank to my knees and held a hand out. “What’s his name?” I whispered as the cat nuzzled my fingers, then crawled onto my lap. Forget Garrett; I had just fallen in love with this little furry purry.
“Stan,” he answered. “He’s probably getting hungry, so watch your fingertips. He likes to nibble, and he can be kind of a grouch if I don’t feed him on time.” I beamed up at Garrett as Stan took a little nip at my finger. It wasn’t a bite, just a little touch of his teeth. “Stan, you’re a little weirdo, aren’t you?” I giggled as Stan purred like a motorboat on my legs.
“He’s an odd duck, for sure. He used to hang out on my porch. Took me weeks to get him to trust me. Now he’s never gonna leave, right, Stan?” My heart melted as Garrett baby-talked the cat and received a very loud, trilled meow in response. Then Stan snuggled into my stomach and I was done for. I was in this evening for the long haul and I would probably try to smuggle Stan home with me in my purse.
I grinned up at him. “So, you built this cabin, rescued this weird-ass cat, and now you’re going to make me some freakin’ tea.”
“Yeah. Don’t forget about the irresistibly cute teacup, cutie.” He laughed as he slipped out of his flannel shirt and tossed it to me. “Put this on until I get the fire going.” I let go of Stan to slip into the shirt. It was toasty warm and smelled wonderful—like hot guy, clean laundry, and dreams come true. Again, I say dammit!
“Thanks. Now all we’re missing is pie to make it perfect,” I grumbled as I watched him kneel in front of the straight-out-of-a-freaking-storybook stone fireplace to build a fire. If he made pie? Holy crap, I didn’t even want to think about it.
He turned to me with a grin. “I can make pie. I made a pate brisée yesterday. It’s in the fridge, and I have a jar of cherry filling that my mother made when she was doing her canning. It’s cooked, so it’s just a matter of waiting for the crust to bake and the cherries to get hot and bubbly. Do you like whipped cream or ice cream?” he asked as my jaw dropped. I envisioned myself falling to the floor legs open and slammed my mental eyes shut with a grimace. I had no tequila to blame it on tonight—just Garrett and his effing four out of five.
“Whipped cream,” I managed to answer around my dropped jaw and blown mind. I should have never stepped foot into this lady-trap cabin.
“I’ll start some coffee for me and get the teakettle going.” He stood up after one more poke at the crackling fire he’d just created.
Gently, I gathered Stan in my arms and stood to follow Garrett to the kitchen. “You can’t drink coffee at ten p.m., Garrett. You’ll never get to sleep. I haven’t forgotten about the whole insomnia thing, you know. The problem with ten p.m. is that it can turn into three in the morning real quick if you don’t watch out. No coffee allowed.” I plopped onto a black and white buffalo-checked cushioned stool at the island. Stan cuddled his head into my neck like a little baby and purred his fluffy brains out.
“Yes, ma’am. What kind of tea should we have?”
“Chamomile. I have emergency tea bags in my purse if you don’t have any.” He grinned and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as he filled a kettle with water at the deep farmhouse sink. Did he just look at me with amused and flirty masculine indulgence? Not allowed! “What about it?” I snarked with narrowed eyes. “Everyone in the world is obsessed with coffee. Tea drinking is underappreciated. One must always be prepared.” This vital fact was one he must be informed of.
He chuckled—again with the flirty indulgence. Ugh! He was making me feel girly and cute and he needed to knock it the heck off before I blushed or something else equally lame.
“I do have chamomile, but its powers are wasted on me,” he said as he gathered stuff from the refrigerator.
“Bummer. I’ll sit here and brainstorm about it. Oh! What did your mother say earlier?” I didn’t even look up at him. I was too busy ogling his perfectly veined forearms as he rolled out the pie dough on a slab of marble that he’d pulled from beneath the island. He had a tattoo of a rose slithering up his arm, and it was a sexy one too, the big, hot jerk.
His head did that tilty-dip thing guys do, and his eyebrows rose as he answered. “Don’t go nuts. She said, now that I have you, maybe I’d finally get some sleep.” He paused his dough rolling to make air quotes around have you. A nervous laugh escaped as I squirmed in my chair at the thought of him having me and what it would take to wear him out enough to get him to sleep. Obviously, that was not what Becky Lee meant, but holy heck it was all I could see—and I have to say, it was quite an enjoyable naked mental image. I shook my head to clear out the porn before I answered.
“No, no, I’m good. No going nuts. I’ve decided to stay sane. And you do have me—we’re back to best friends, right? And yeah, your eyes are definitely dark and circley. So! Challenge accepted!” I slapped a hand on the counter, startling Stan. “After tea I’ll get you to sleep and then I’ll go home.”
“What do you mean, ‘get me to sleep’?” He chuckled.
“I’ll lie down with you until you go out. I do that with Abbie all the time, when Jordan is working and she can’t fall asleep. Do you want a story? I could sing you a song?” I flirt-smirked—flirked—at him. I couldn’t help myself. But at least I didn’t add a jaunty wink—if I had jinked at him, we’d end up in his bed for sure and not to sleep . . . “If those don’t work, I’ll rub your head. Head rubbing has never failed with Abbie.”
“Very funny.” He shoved the tray with the pies in the oven, then reached up to grab a bowl hanging from the rack above, treating me to a glimpse of his abs and the glorious happy trail that led below them into his jeans.
I slammed my eyes shut. Because clearly, I couldn’t speak words that made sense and look at him at the same time. I knew my limits. “Do you doubt my skills? I’ll bet you right now that I can make you fall asleep tonight.” That’s right, I threw down, just like I used to do with him. Something about him had always felt like a dare—exciting and fun.
“Odds?” His deep voice rumbled with laughter. I opened my eyes.
Flexy pecs.
Bulgy arm porn.
Whipping cream by hand was no joke.
Ohmygod!
I quickly looked down at Stan, sweet, sweet Stan, before I answered. “The odds, my friend? The odds are that I’ll win, and you’ll take me to The Front Porch for steaks. Boom! Those are your odds, buttface.”
Wait, did I just ask him out to the fanciest date-night steak house in Green Valley?
Did I want to win? Or lose? Losing a bet went against everything I believed in as a human. But was winning losing in this case? Or was winning winning? What the hell had I just done? I got up and wandered into his living room shaking my head while he laughed at my ridiculous antics. I had to sit down in a place not quite so near him. He was the tequila tonight, and here I was, already drunk like a dumbass.
Choosing a denim-covered wing chair in the corner next to the fireplace, I took a load off. I was out of Garrett’s view over here, so I felt free to frown in consternation at will. Stan squirmed to get down when he heard the top pop on a can of kitty-cat food, so I released him to brood alone in my chair.
Soon the whistle of the teakettle broke my reverie and I stood up to make sure Garrett knew how to handle the tea. I refused to drink a bad cup; life was too short for that nonsense.
“Is this cute enough for you? My mother brought it over to use from some shop in Nashville. She’s not a coffee person either.”
I smiled at him and took the cup to examine its cuteness. “I know,” I informed him. “I discovered the joy of tea-drinking from her. We go to that shop in Nashville every year for her birthday and mine. Mother’s Day too, after she’s done with you boys. We drink tea and eat tiny sandwiches and talk about life.” His return smile was soft—another manly, indulgent one—but I didn’t want to get into the meaning of it, so I looked away.
“I made mini pies. They won’t take long to bake.”
“This is nice. You don’t look like a man who bakes.”
“What kind of man do I look like?” he laughed.
“The kind who . . . uh, does badass stuff. I dunno, ax throwing? Ride motorcycles on the Tail of the Dragon with the wind in your hair? Race cars at The Canyon like you used to do back in high school when you hero-worshipped Duane Winston? That’s not quite as badass, but his racing skills are legendary, so I don’t blame you. We all have our heroes.” I shrugged.
“You knew about that back then?” He seemed surprised.
“I did. Clara, Leo, and I watched all your races.” For some reason, this felt like a confession and not simply an innocuous statement about our not-so-innocent youthful activities.
“I wish I had known you were there,” he murmured. I had to read his lips to know what he said, he was so quiet.
“Why?” I asked. But did I really want to know the answer?
His soft eyes met mine and I couldn’t look away. “Don’t you know by now?” Did I?
Bing!
The timer on the oven went off and I stood up to get the kettle for our tea while Garrett grabbed potholders to get our pies out of the oven. He plated them and opened the fridge for the whipped cream. “We can sit on my deck out back. Take the kettle and I’ll get a tray for this stuff. Go switch on the lights and I’ll meet you outside.”
“Okay,” I whispered and turned to cross through the living area to do as he asked. I flicked the switch on the wall, then opened the heavy wooden door, laughing as I stepped outside. After placing the kettle on a tile-topped table, I spun in a slow circle to take in what had to be a thousand tiny lights strung across the top and down the posts of the covered deck to sparkle in the dark like tiny stars.
Holy crap. He was five for five tonight.