“What do you think you are going to change into when you are done showering?”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I didn’t plan that far,” I said. “I just thought a nice hot shower would do me good.”
“I mean, it probably would,” he said with a grin. “Just so you know, Jacob made sure your wardrobe was stocked with a bunch of clothes. Hopefully, some of them works for you.”
“My wardrobe?” I asked. He raised an eyebrow.
“Big tall brown piece of furniture in your room?” he asked.
I felt like bashing my head against the wall. I was such an idiot.
“Oh yeah,” I replied. “Of course. Thank you, that’s great. I’m sure anything in there will be fine.”
I was babbling, and he just smiled as I snuck past him into the bathroom.
The bathroom was beautiful. There was no other way to describe it. It was white marble everywhere, with gold on the ceiling. I didn’t expect it for a log cabin, but then again, they had a ton of money to spend. Ursa Ranches was one of the top resort chains in the world, and they never sold a location outside the family, so everything was pooled together.
I admired the concept. I just couldn’t imagine a family so tight-knit. Maybe it was my cold and broken heart, or maybe it was the fact that I had forgotten what being close to your family was like.
Once I showered, I felt a million years better. I wrapped the towel around myself and headed out into the hallway.
I nearly ran into Jacob, who was walking past me. The house was huge, so I had no idea how I kept running into them. Jacob was at least fully clothed, but I was not. I pulled the towel closer to me, half embarrassed. I bet the type of women they liked were amazon goddesses. They had no room in their minds for small, curvy me.
“Sorry,” I said. “I should pay more attention to where I am going.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “These hallways can be tricky.”
We stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then he looked away. I noticed that he had been staring at me, which I didn’t really expect.
“Did you get told that…”
“There are clothes in my room?” I asked, and he nodded. “I did. Thank you so much.”
“We wanted to make sure you had everything you needed,” he said, and that made me pause.
“How long did you know the attack was coming?” I asked. “To get me clothes?”
“Oh...just twenty-four hours,” he said. “We would have come sooner, but we knew that we probably wouldn’t be able to get you away without causing a civil war.”
“Right,” I said. “Matthew can be pretty vicious."
He looked me right in the eye.
“We aren’t afraid of Matthew,” he said. “Make no mistake about that.”
I felt amazing power run through our gazes and it sent a shiver down my spine.
“No,” I said. “Of course, you aren’t. Just...I appreciate you not putting my home in the center of a civil war.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll let you get dressed. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will,” I said, and headed into my room, blushing furiously.
He must think I’m an idiot. They all must think that I’m an idiot. I couldn’t even speak right, and then I implied that they were weak. When I was going to learn how to speak to people?
No wonder things with Matthew ended badly. I couldn’t help but wonder if Matthew would have been kinder to me if I didn’t babble like an idiot.
Maybe it was my fault. Maybe all of this was my fault
I opened the wardrobe door, expecting my usual jeans and a tee-shirt type style. To my surprise, it was full of the softest and most expensive dresses I had ever seen in my life. Some of them were bare shoulders, and some of them were backless, and some of them were quite short. All of them made me feel like I was somebody I was not.
I paused as I put a few of them in front of my figure.
Maybe this was time to be someone new. Maybe this was time to take a leap.
I went through the dresses one by one until I eventually found one that I felt was a good starting point. It had a short skirt, but it also had long sleeves, and I felt comfortable enough to wear it.
I pulled my hair down and then wiped my face clean of makeup.