Northern Rebel Daring in the Dark - By Jennifer Labrecque Page 0,113

supposed to be capturing the real you.”

“That was a jerk thing to say,” she yelled after him.

“Sorry.” Sorry, her well-ridden ass. He didn’t sound sorry a bit. “It’s my specialty,” he called from the other room.

“What? Photography or being a jerk?” she muttered to herself, thoroughly put out with him.

“I heard that.” He reappeared in the door, wearing his jeans but shirtless, camera around his neck. “Both.”

“I’ll second that.”

He approached the bed, the camera whirring. She tossed him a disgusted, haughty look, stuck her nose in the air and looked the other way.

“Perfect. Tawny in a sulk.”

She whipped her head back around. “I am not in a sulk.”

“Really? What would you call it?”

“Pissed. I’m pissed. You had no right to promise my cat I’d change his name. I love his name. You want to name a pet, go get one yourself,” she said.

She could give a rat’s patootie if she sounded rude. All her life she’d been told what to do, when to do it, how to do it. Finally she was on her own and she’d be damned if anyone—regardless how good he looked naked or how thoroughly he satisfied her in bed—was arbitrarily renaming her cat. Peaches was the first thing she’d ever had on her own that was all hers. Simon could stuff it.

“I was desperate. It was the only thing I could think of out there. And I gave him my word.”

“Well, you should’ve checked with me first.”

“What? I should’ve conducted negotiations from the window ledge, where I just happened to be hanging out naked?”

“There’s no need for sarcasm, Simon.”

“There’s no need for irrationality, Tawny.”

She would let that comment pass, ’cause the other option was to kill him. And to think she’d actually begun to like him. Ugh. He infuriated her.

“Did I ask you to go out there? No! In fact, I told you not to.”

“You really thought I’d let you go out there?”

Tawny couldn’t recall ever sputtering before in her life, ever being so spitting mad she couldn’t verbally express herself. Not even that lifetime ago when she’d found out Elliott had swung to the other side.

“Uh...uh...you...you...absolute macho...do you think just because you’re a man that you’re braver?”

“Brave?” He threw back his head and laughed, but it didn’t sound as if he was particularly amused. “Bravery had nothing to do with it. I was so bloody scared I couldn’t see straight out there. And you can hang up the macho thing because Mr. Macho wouldn’t admit that.”

“And I’m irrational? Ha! If you were scared, why didn’t you just let me go?”

“Because I couldn’t... It just seemed like the thing to do.”

He walked out of the bedroom. Typical male to just walk away in the middle of a conversation that wasn’t going his way.

Tawny yanked on her panties and tank top and marched down the hall after him.

“Well, there’s an explanation. That really clears it up for me. Thank you,” she said.

“Can’t you ever just drop anything?” Simon sat on the couch.

If he thought he could get rid of her or shut her up by holing up in this claustrophobic little den...well, he was wrong. She plopped down on the other end of the sofa.

“No, Simon, I can’t. So shoot me if I like a little logic in my life.”

“Righto! You’re not exactly the most logical woman I ever met.”

He must be kidding! “That’s rich—especially coming from a man who climbed out naked on a window ledge and promised to change my cat’s name—without my permission, I might add—because it seemed like the thing to do. Oh, yeah. You’re the king of logic.”

“You want logic? Try this on. I went out there because if I didn’t, you would, and I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.” He snapped his mouth shut, as if he’d said too much. And well, really, he’d just said a lot.

Simon had gone out there because he was worried about her? Warmth that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with emotion suffused her. It hadn’t been all about him—making him look brave and macho. His climbing out on the ledge had been about her.

“Oh,” she said rather dumbly.

“So I’m sorry that you’re annoyed, but I promised him a new name.”

Simon wasn’t just a control freak intent on running her business. Guilt displaced her anger. “Maybe I did overreact just a little to all of that.”

“Maybe you did. How would you like to be this big, bad-attitude cat with a name like Peaches?” He shuddered.

Really, he didn’t

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