me anything. I read about it in the handbook.”
Jacob froze.
“SUPPLYING ONESELF: THE ART OF REMAINING READY,” she went on.
Jacob froze some more.
She walked toward him in the dark, her shadowy outline drifting closer. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Is this some sort of concussion thing? Do I need to reboot you?” And then she reached out a finger and tapped him on the nose.
He caught her wrist automatically, trapping her hand in front of his face. Her skin was soft—almost unnaturally soft. She must bathe in butter or milk or something because if he didn’t know better, he’d think her whole body was wrapped in satin. He could feel her pulse beneath his fingers and it was fast. Probably because she’d just been grabbed by a strange and silent man in the dark.
He let her go.
“Well,” she said cheerfully, “I wasn’t expecting that to work.” But she moved away with a speed that didn’t quite match her casual tone.
Damn. Every time they did something other than argue, he managed to fuck it up. Surprising, how tense and unhappy that made him. Jacob wasn’t in the habit of giving a shit about people who weren’t on his pre-approved list. It was complicated and it always ended badly.
Badly, as in: with him dumped on someone else’s doorstep like a bag of rubbish.
Now, why was he thinking about that?
With effort, he wrenched himself back to the conversation they’d been having before everything had somehow gone off the rails. “You’ve been reading my handbooks.”
“Oh, yes. Mont gave them to me.”
“And you—actually read one.”
She sounded confused when she corrected him. As if she didn’t understand his disbelief. “I read all of them.”
“You—read—all of them.”
“I can read, you know.”
“You’ve been here for two days!”
“Technically three, since it’s past midnight.”
“Days don’t count until they end,” Jacob snapped. “And—and you should know, I really wrote those manuals for myself more than anyone else. To get my systems clear in my head.”
“Ah—that explains the rampant swearing and generally unprofessional tone.”
He was so beside himself with astonishment, he didn’t even scowl at the unprofessional comment. Even though it was bullshit. Jacob was the soul of professionalism. Although he had a feeling that if he said that out loud, she might laugh in his face.
Didn’t matter. He couldn’t get over the fact that she’d apparently taken his weird manuals—yes, he knew they were weird—and read them as if they were very serious materials and applied them with impressive commitment.
Serious. Application. Commitment. All these things added up to one impossible conclusion.
“Eve,” he said slowly. “Are you . . . do you . . . by any chance . . . respect my B&B?”
“What on earth kind of question is that?” she demanded. “Of course I do, you widgeon.”
Well. Well. He’d expected someone like Eve—someone carefree, someone flexible, someone who could bend without breaking—to look down on his rigidity. To laugh at it, maybe. But this . . .
“In that case,” he said stiffly, his mind still sifting through evidence, “it is entirely possible that I have been operating on some incorrect assumptions about you, based solely on your horrific taste in T-shirts and your annoyingly whimsical manner.”
“Is that your way of saying you’ve been a judgmental prick?” she asked. “Gosh, I hope so. Say sorry next. Go on. You can do it.”
“Piss off.”
“There he is.”
Jacob was disturbed to find himself grinning ear to ear. God, why did she have to be funny? He felt himself being dragged against his will toward the certain doom of not-hating her. Dangled over the explosive volcano of enjoying her as a person.
“And what exactly is horrific about my T-shirts?” she asked, as if she’d just remembered the comment.
“Everything.” Except for how tight they were. He was a fan of the tightness.
Wait, what?
Jacob was busy checking his own pulse (because his thoughts indicated a lack of oxygen to the brain, possibly caused by some kind of cardiac event) when the clouds covering the moon danced away again. Eve came properly into view, but this time, she wasn’t standing—or duck-chasing—safely on the banks. This time, she was at the very edge of the pond, waving her arms like a wind turbine and muttering, “Shoo! Shoo!” at a certain beady-eyed minion of poop and destruction. Which was wonderful, except for the part where she was leaning perilously far.
“Eve,” Jacob said.
“Go on, Mr. Duck. Bugger off.”
Make me, said the duck’s tranquil glide and vicious gaze.
“Eve. Be careful. The banks are uneven and you’re too—”
“Shit sticks,” said Eve, and fell