Here Comes Trouble Page 0,113

offering Dan a job in his own damn industry, the one place where Dan was supposed to have the leverage and expertise in their friendship.

He hung his head and let the tension roll from his shoulders. Then he knocked back the rest of the beer before getting up and retrieving the other bottle, throwing them both in the trash.

He let himself quietly out of the suite, trying to decide what the best next step would be. But though the ride down in the elevator didn’t bring any answers regarding his friend, he did know what the next step was going to be with Kirby.

Smiling despite still feeling deeply unsettled about the situation with Dan, he climbed on his bike and headed home.

Chapter 18

Kirby carted the last load of quilts and bedspreads through the screen porch and out to the backyard where she’d resurrected the old rotating laundry line. It was still warm and the air fresh and dry enough that she thought it would be nice to give them all a good airing before her guests started arriving that weekend.

So, she might have shaken them loose with a bit more force than was absolutely necessary, but it was a harmless enough way to burn off excess energy. Energy she’d been hoping to burn off another way entirely. Except it didn’t appear as if Brett had come back last night. Or if he had, he was already up and out early this morning. He never made his bed and she hadn’t done his room yesterday assuming she’d get to it this morning. After they got up. Together.

She snapped out another blanket. Of course it was her fault. She’d told him to go be with his friend, hadn’t she? And she’d meant it. But that was when she’d thought he was coming back, when she could serve him the dish she’d kept warm in the oven for him, share a late-night glass of wine, and then maybe carry the bottle upstairs with them.

She swore under her breath as she flipped the heavy quilt up and over the line, then some more as she tugged it so it laid smoothly over the laundry cord. Would it have killed him to have at least called? She’d been all dreamy and thinking about their future after he left and then…nothing. She turned around, ready to shake out another blanket, only to discover she’d done them all. She picked up the basket and propped it on her hip, giving the linens a final look over.

Great. “Now what in the hell am I supposed to do?” she muttered.

“Well, they look kind of dry to me already, so you’ve got me.”

She swung around and wished she was slightly less thrilled to see him, that her heart hadn’t done a little twist and leap inside of her chest, and that her body hadn’t gone on full-tilt alert the moment she laid eyes on his smile. Because it would have been a hell of a lot easier to be at least a little put out with him, or at the very least, more believable.

“I’m airing them out,” she said, striving for complete indifference. But well aware that the thin, long-sleeve T-shirt she had on, and the complete lack of bra, was probably making it clear she was anything but. Maybe she could blame it on the breeze. If there was one.

“Do they need monitoring, or could I pull you away?”

Every particle of her being shouted “Pull! Pull!” She didn’t even try pulling off the bluff. Brett was definitely not the guy to try that with. “Pull me away where?” Her thoughts had already strayed up to his bedroom, and it was only a miracle of will that her gaze didn’t follow.

Then she realized he was holding something behind his back. Which turned out to be a motorcycle helmet. Her particles sank a little.

“I was hoping I could convince you to come on a ride with me. Up in the hills.”

If that last part was supposed to reassure her, he had missed the mark. “Why the sudden urge for a road trip?”

“I want to show you something. Two somethings, in fact.”

Then it clicked into place. She’d been so busy pouting and being put out by his not coming home to her last night that she’d forgotten all about the thing he’d started to tell her about. “Does this have something to do with the house you started to tell me about?”

He nodded. “Everything to do with it. Come on, I’ve been