Here Comes Trouble Page 0,24
to herself. Dropped, literally, right in her lap. She didn’t even have to figure out the part about how she was actually going to get the hot Swede in the tight racing suit to lust after her forty-year-old ass.
But, as it turned out, the reality of jumping into a hot, sweaty, deeply satisfying, purely sexual, short-term relationship wasn’t quite as casual, carefree, and easily entered into as her imagination had made it seem it would be.
That same imagination took a short detour from her banking crisis, as a series of images played through her mind. Vivid, highly detailed, quite erotic images. Nothing wrong with a little fantasizing. No risk there. Kirby had become quite fabulous at fantasizing about what she’d do if she could actually make herself do it. In fact, she was downright easy in her fantasies. And it sure beat the hell out of staring at a bank balance that wasn’t going to change no matter how long she scowled at it. Deciding which part of her rapidly mounting debt to toss Brett’s hundred-dollar bills at stood even less of a chance at distracting her. She could only spread them around so far, after all.
A far more entertaining use of her time would be imagining what it would be like to spread something else entirely. She lifted her coffee mug to her lips, deciding to extend her daydream for just a few more delicious moments, when there was a loud thwap, followed by a quick yowl and some serious swearing originating from somewhere in the back of the house.
She set the mug down as she shoved her chair back. “Now what?” She didn’t even give the bright sunshine a passing scowl as she scooted through the foyer.
Another string of swear words colored the warm morning air blue as she moved through the sitting room to the dining room. “Hello?” she called out.
“In here.”
“Brett?” She stopped on the threshold to the kitchen. “What are you doing?”
Her guest looked up from where he was crouched on the other side of the now screenless door leading to the porch. He was stretching mesh across the frame, or trying to. “I came down to see if I could grab a bottle of water, then saw the extra mesh rolled up on the porch—”
“I got it out this morning; I was going to work on that after I—” She broke off. He didn’t want to hear about her chore list. “You really didn’t have to do that.”
“I know,” he said, his expression tight. “Just trying to help out. You fed me dinner after all.”
She stepped into the kitchen. “I was listening for you to come down so I could offer you breakfast. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you on the stairs.” She resolutely forced herself not to blush as she was reminded where her head had likely been during that time. “There’s fresh coffee on, and I’ll be happy to make you some eggs, toast, I—” She stepped closer. “Are you okay?”
He shifted in his still-crouched position so she could see his back. And the kitten that was lodged there. “Fine. Until Vlad the Impaler here decided to launch herself from the plant stand to…well…” He very gingerly turned a bit more. “Would you mind—I’m afraid if I try to stand up, she’ll just dig in deeper.”
Kirby sprang into action. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were—I thought you banged your thumb with a hammer or something.”
He lifted the staple gun. “No hammer. But I’m thinking of using this on something other than the screen here.”
“Right, right. I got it. I’ll get her. Just…” She ran her gaze around the back porch to find something to put around the kitten so it wouldn’t transfer claws from Brett to her. Her stomach was stinging in sympathy just looking at how fiercely the kitten was digging in. She knew just how fierce a digger the kitten was.
“No apologies needed. I was the one who turned my back on the little vampire. I should know better. She was sleeping mere seconds earlier, I swear.”
Kirby slipped between the crouched pair and through to the back porch, where she grabbed the now completely gnarled and mangled cashmere sweater from the kitty fort and carefully worked the little mangler free from Brett’s T-shirt. And his skin. “Got her.”
Brett straightened, which kind of trapped her between the screenless door and…well, him. “Thanks.”
“Why don’t you let me get something to clean those scratches up? I know from experience they’re going