Know Your Heart: A New Zealand - Tracey Alvarez Page 0,36
do now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She met his gaze. “Because then you weren’t treating me like a porcelain doll who might shatter if you looked at it the wrong way. You’ve gone head-to-head with me, assuming I’m tough enough to take anything you dish out. So go back to the guy who kissed me without worrying I’d flinch or run away.”
Something flared hot and hungry in his gaze. “You like that guy, huh?”
“A little. But don’t get smug about it. You’re insufferable enough as it is.”
He released the parking brake and smoothly accelerated up the slight rise after the gate. “Can’t argue with that.”
“Insufferable, but kind of sweet to allow your sister-in-law to kick you out of your own home.”
Glen grimaced. “I’m not sweet. If I were sweet, I’d have stayed down there to help with the kids during the school holidays next week instead of just offering to take Erin’s teenager off her hands.”
Wait—what? He was planning to have a teenage houseguest?
“Your nephew’s coming here?”
“Yeah—Tom. He’s fifteen and a good kid, but he’s not coping well with his parents’ dramas. I told Erin he could stay with me. That way he’ll at least have a quiet place to study for his exams next term without his younger brothers bugging him.”
Well, hell. Wouldn’t that make her look like the Wicked Witch of the West if she continued to object to Glen being in her house? The deviousness of inviting his nephew to stay so she’d feel guilty was pure genius. Because how could she continue a campaign of terror when an innocent boy was involved?
But Glen had underestimated how distracting a fifteen-year-old roomie would be. The teenager might just do what she couldn’t.
Savannah bit off a smile and said sweetly, “Having three kids living with you must cramp your style when you have company over.”
Even in the dim dashboard light, the humor in his gaze was evident as it skimmed over her. “If you’re interested, you only have to ask if I’m single.”
The thing about being an actress is that her snappy comeback lines were scripted. Not so much in real life. Not when the man next to her made her feel hot-squishy-bellied one moment and biting on tin-foil the next. A rush of blood fired into her cheeks, and she angled her chin toward the passenger window.
“I am single, by the way,” he said in a just-so-you-know tone as they continued to drive. “I wouldn’t have kissed you otherwise.”
“You shouldn’t have kissed me,” she muttered. “You messed up everything.”
“Sometimes, messing things up is fun.” He turned onto the long driveway that led to her property.
Fun? A fun kiss, was it? The kind you shared at a New Year’s Eve party at midnight if you happened to be there solo and a good-looking man was next to you. That was a fun kiss. Obviously, the world-rocking, axle-shifting, can’t-remember-my-name kiss she’d just experienced had been one-sided.
The moment the car drew to a stop outside her house, she unbuckled her safety belt and bolted. Manners hammered into her by her mother forced her to turn back before she slammed the car door. “Thanks for the interesting afternoon. Since you won’t let me in the house, give Nate a call, please? Let him know we’re back.”
“Sure.” He scraped a hand over his hair, crinkling his nose as a few granules of sand drifted onto his shirt. “Right before I have a long, hot soak in the tub.”
All sorts of images popped into her head at that, but the most tempting was not of Glen’s soaped-up, naked body, but the thought of an endless hot water supply.
Bastard.
“Don’t fall asleep then, sweetie,” she said with slitted eyes. “I’d hate for you to drown.” Then she slammed the door shut and stalked around the car.
“Goodnight, Savannah.”
His voice was muffled inside the car, but it was still sexy enough to light a slow-burning fuse inside her.
Bastard.
Chapter 6
A week later, Glen hit the road to Bounty Bay to collect his new housemate.
Glen sighed at his nephew’s thousand-yard stare partially obscured by the black hoodie pulled low over his face. The boy leaned against the bus depot wall like a gangly grim reaper, a floral suitcase and a guitar case at his feet.
Huh. Glen hadn’t realized his nephew played. Last he’d heard, it was mandatory piano lessons for Tom, cello for Reece, and the baby, Mikey, just started with a teeny-tiny violin. Jamie bought into the whole “correlation between musical training and improved executive function in children”. Or some over-achieving shit like