Here Comes Trouble Page 0,13

livened him up.

Seeing him buck naked while she was hanging twenty feet up in a tree had certainly livened her up.

The sound of the phone ringing at the front desk on the main floor down below snapped her out of her reverie. Her heart skipped a beat, as it always did. It might be someone calling to book a room. Even though she knew it was far more likely a sales call, she clung to her optimism. Just as she turned to head down the stairs, the ringing stopped…and the door opened behind her.

She spun back around, wishing for the life of her she had something more official looking in her hands than the empty tray she’d left his room with. A clipboard, laundry cart, portable phone…something. Anything that would make it look like she hadn’t just been standing outside his door all this time…listening. “Um, hi. Can I help you?”

He frowned for a moment, but was clearly distracted and thankfully didn’t seem all that interested in following up on why she’d still be standing there. “I—wait.” He stepped into the small, third-floor landing area and pulled the door behind him. “Just in case,” he added, shuffling forward to completely shut his door, which crowded her back a little against one of the other closed bedroom doors.

The top floor basically emptied into a small landing area that fanned out toward the three doors leading to the uppermost floor’s bedrooms. And though it wasn’t big, it allowed coming-and-going traffic reasonably well. Providing all the guests weren’t coming or going simultaneously. But she’d had to tear out and rework the floor plan so that each room could have a more generous closet and its own private bathroom, so it had seemed well worth the traffic risk. Until that moment, anyway. At the moment it seemed much, much more narrow a space than she’d realized.

“I was wondering, you don’t happen to have anything like cedar chips, sawdust? Newspapers, even?”

Now it was her turn to frown. “I’ve got plenty of newspapers, but what do you need sawdust…” She trailed off as he nodded back toward his bedroom door and she realized he was referring to the kitten.

“I was worried a little on whether she was old enough to eat a bunch of regular food, so I mushed up the bread and tuna with some milk and the damn thing scarfed it up like it hadn’t been fed in days. Then I got to thinking that, you know, what goes in…”

“Right, right,” Kirby said, already on the same page.

“I could hit a drug store, or something, but thought I’d ask first.”

“I’m sure we can figure something out. Temporarily,” she added with a gauging look at his face. “Right?”

“Right. Of course. I figured I’d let her settle down some from her scare, then start making some calls tomorrow.” He propped his hands on his hips. His very lean, narrow hips. At least he’d pulled on another T-shirt. Bright blue this time. Made his green eyes look almost electric.

She kinda preferred the black one. The black flashed her back to the leather and the motorcycle and all those visuals she really didn’t need to recall. Especially when combined with the naked ones. Most especially. She realized he was waiting for her to respond and cleared her throat. “Good plan,” she said, sounding like she’d been out in the desert too long with no water. At some point she was not going to be an idiot around this man. If, perhaps, he stayed long enough.

A few weeks might do it. Or kill her.

“Glad you agree.” He folded his arms over his chest and smiled.

Okay, so kill her it was.

“Could you give me some names, places to start?”

“Sure. Let me go down and see what I can find for a litter box.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“No, no bother.” She motioned to the stairs, making him aware he was going to have to move if he didn’t want her plastered up against him as she made her way past him.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, backing up against his door. “Hey, Ms. Farrell?” he said after she’d made it safely to the top step without making any actual physical contact.

Great, she thought. She was fantasizing about him scooping her up in those strong arms, holding her against that ridiculously gorgeous chest, and carrying her in to the very delicious bed that she knew lay just beyond that door. And he was Miz Farrelling her. Lovely. She supposed it could have been worse. At