by Jill Shalvis
His eyes turned dark and sultry. “Fierce,” he said.
Her heart skipped a beat at the heat in his gaze. “What?”
“Wyatt said you were fierce. Fiercely loyal, fiercely smart, and fiercely protective of those you care about. He said you’d always had to be, that even though you’re only a year older than him, you were the only warm, caring authority figure he ever had.”
She slid him a long look. “Wyatt said I was warm and caring?” she asked, disbelieving.
Parker flashed white teeth, and she blew out a sigh. “He said bitchy, didn’t he?”
“He said that without you, he’d be dead a few times over,” Parker said. “It seems like you never really got a chance just to be a kid.” He wasn’t kidding or smiling now, and though his voice didn’t hold pity—she might have had to beat him over the head with her empty plate if it had—he was very serious.
“He said your parents put way too much on your head with consequences you shouldn’t have had to pay,” he said, and suddenly she needed another sip of that vodka and held out her hand for it.
He obliged, and while she knocked back another shot, he gestured toward her sweatshirt. “So you went to King’s?”
“Yes.”
“A long way from Sunshine, Idaho,” he noted.
“I was born in Paris,” she said. “Which was an accident, by the way. My mother miscalculated. She meant to be back in Belize, where she was stationed at the time.”
Parker nodded. “Wyatt once said something about living in fifteen different countries in as many years.”
“We were children of foreign diplomats,” she said. “It was life.” A life that had been as vagabond and full of wanderlust as it could possibly be. As a result, Wyatt had been the kid who’d yearned to get to stay in one place long enough to join a baseball team and have a dog. Darcy had acted out, running away, going wild, and then as punishment had often been sent to boarding schools, far away from all of them.
Zoe had simply gone along with the lifestyle, unable to imagine anything else. That is, until she started coming here to Sunshine for the summers to live with her grandparents.
Suddenly she’d had normal hours and home-cooked meals and warm, loving authority figures in her life. It hadn’t been until her grandma and grandpa had died within six months of each other a decade ago that she’d felt true loss and devastation and grief.
After college she’d come back here and found that as much as she’d loved being a child of the world, it was lovely, really shockingly lovely, to have a home base. “My grandparents were born and raised right here in Sunshine and never left,” she said. “Not once.” She shook her head. “I always had a hard time imagining such a thing.”
“And yet here you are,” he said.
She shrugged. “Turns out I like having a home base more than I could’ve imagined.” She looked around at the warm, comfy living room that she hadn’t changed much. “Though the home base is a little emptier than I’m used to.”
Those sharp, assessing eyes of his met hers again, softer now. “You lonely, Zoe?”
“Nope.” At least not that she was going to admit. “I have Oreo.”
They both looked at the dog, snoring away.
“What about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
“You know what,” she said. “You’ve learned a lot about me in a short time. My job, where I live, my story . . .” Plus other things like how she’d been stood up, that she couldn’t bake or fix anything to save her life, that she cried watching Friends . . . “And yet I know next to nothing about you.”
He smiled, like that was good with him, and actually got up to leave.
“Are you serious?” she asked his back, feeling brave and daring thanks to the alcohol. “Give me something more than you’re here for a vacation, in the middle of Nowhere, Idaho. Which, by the way, I don’t believe at all. Time to fill in some blanks, Mr. Mysterious.”
Eight
Zoe watched as Parker slowly turned to face her, his mouth twitching at the corners, no doubt amused by her curiosity.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
Just about everything. “Where did you grow up, do you have family, how would they describe you, where do you live, what’s your job like . . .” She trailed off, not wanting to scare him away.
“I’m not sure I imbibed enough vodka for all of that.”
“I can fix that,” she said, and offered him the bottle.
He came close again and took it slowly. Zoe got the feeling that in his world not a lot of people challenged him. And yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing that at every turn. She wanted to know more about him.
“My life’s not all that exciting,” he warned.
“I bet otherwise,” she said, and added what she hoped was an enticing smile.
Again she got the almost-smile, but no words.
Was he being evasive on purpose, she wondered, or was he simply not into talking about himself? The alcohol hadn’t changed him at all. Even though he’d had his share, his eyes were still sharp and assessing.
Evasive, she decided. Which put her on guard because unlike most red-blooded women, Zoe didn’t like evasive, mysterious men. Or at least she didn’t like evasive, mysterious men anymore. And honestly, this was almost a relief because it gave her yet another fail-safe reason not to get involved with him.
Not that she’d ever planned to in the first place.
“I grew up in a small copper mining town in northern Arizona,” he said, surprising her. “If you’re born there, you live and die there, working in the mines in between.”
“Not you, though,” she said.
“Not me.” He paused, as if hoping that’d be enough for her.
Poor, delusional man; that had only served to make her more curious. At her go on gesture, he shook his head.
“My parents would tell you that I’m stubborn, too,” he said. “And they’d add that I’m also an unfeeling, selfish son of a bitch.”
“Because you didn’t stay?” she asked, her smile fading. “But that’s not a crime. Everyone deserves to live the life they want.”
“The Jameses have always been miners,” Parker said. “It’s what we do, and tradition is tradition. My parents worked all the time; it was all they ever did. It was what was expected of everyone, me included, even though I never wanted to be a miner.”
“So you left,” she said, fascinated by the unexpected glimpse of what had created Parker the man.
“The day after I graduated high school, I hitchhiked to New York and bartended while putting myself through college,” he said.
She thought that sounded incredibly brave. “What was your major?” she asked softly, wanting him to keep talking forever. They were in a little bubble here in the warm, cozy living room with Oreo snoring on the other end of the couch and the rest of the world asleep.
“Criminology,” he said, and surprised her again.
“Impressive.”
“Not really,” he said. “I did it because it was the opposite of everything I knew, and I wanted to piss off my parents. Turns out I liked it so it stuck.” He’d settled his long body into the leather recliner next to the couch and stretched his long legs out in front of him. Now he leaned back, like maybe he was as exhausted as she was.
Suddenly she felt bad about waking him up and keeping him up. “You don’t have to babysit me,” she said. “I’m fine down here by myself.”
He didn’t say anything.
Or move.
“Seriously,” she said quietly. “Go back to bed. I’ll keep it down.”
“The sobbing, you mean?” he asked.
“Hey,” she said. “It was a touching ending to ten seasons, okay? And I’ll have you know, I never cry. Or very rarely,” she corrected. “I can’t even remember the last time I did.”
But actually that was a lie because she did remember. It had been when Darcy had moved out three months ago, right on
the heels of Wyatt doing the same. She’d been alone for the first time since she and her siblings had taken over their grandparents’ family home.
That night she’d accidentally blown up her microwave while making popcorn. She’d gone outside to fumble through the electrical box to replace the fuse and had—in the space of five minutes—locked herself out of the house and sliced open her finger trying to pry open the breaker panel.
She’d sat on the front porch in the dark, head to her knees, and cried from loneliness. She’d allowed the pity party until she’d spent herself and that was that.
She got over it.
It was what she did.
And now she wasn’t alone anymore—at least for as long as Parker stayed—and she didn’t know how she felt about that. Suddenly chilled, she hugged herself and wondered how cold her bed was going to be.
“I could build you a fire,” Parker said.
Did he notice everything? “Not until I get the fireplace fixed,” she said.
“I could—”
“No,” she said. “Thanks, but I’ve got it.”
He looked at her for a long beat, saying nothing.
“What?”
“Just trying to figure out if you’re an exceptionally stubborn person or if you’ve been badly burned.”
“I’ve never burned myself on that fireplace.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” he said quietly.
Yeah, but she’d thought maybe he’d be a good guy and let her change the subject, but she should’ve known better. One thing she knew about him already was that he didn’t let much slide. She stood up, not all that happy to find herself a little wobbly on her feet.
Parker stood, too, and she found herself disconcertingly close to him. He was tall and had a way of moving that made her think of a big cat.
A feral one.
She told herself that he was irritating and not at all sexy, but she was a big, fat liar. Or at least drunk Zoe was. “I’m working on getting myself a life,” she heard herself say. “Learning to bake, going out on dates, not getting burned . . .” Dammit, Zoe, this is why you don’t drink, shut up. “I think I should put myself to bed now,” she said, and turned to leave.
“So the answer’s yes.”
Like a moth to the flame, she turned back. “Yes what?”
“Yes, you’ve been burned.”
His hand came up and cupped her jaw, his long fingers sinking into her hair. “It’s because we’re all assholes,” he said.
“The entire male race?” she asked, meaning to tease, but her voice came out soft and a little shaky.
“Every last one of us.” His gaze dropped to her mouth as the pad of his thumb gently rasped over her lower lip. “Remember that on this new lease on life you’re going for.”
Since she doubted she could speak, she nodded. And then, before she could do something really dumb, like let the vodka talk her into kissing him, she backed away, turned, and headed up the stairs.
At the top, she moved to her bedroom door, looked into the cold, empty room, and then turned back and . . . tripped over Oreo, who’d followed her. “That’s it,” she said. “There’re too many men in this house.” She crouched low to love up on the sweet, sleepy dog. “And one of you is nosy, mysterious, and smarter than the average bear, yes he is.”
Had she been burned by a man?
Hell yes. Not that she was going to talk about that.
Ever.
“We’re not going to like him,” she whispered nose to nose with Oreo. “You hear me? No more melting over him, either of us. I’d ask you to shake on it but you don’t have opposable thumbs.”
“Would you like me to shake on it?” came the low, amused male voice behind her.
She grimaced to herself and rose, turning to face Parker. “Okay, new rule. Wear a bell or stop sneaking up on me.”
He smiled easily. “You’ve got a lot of rules. You should know, I’m not much of a rule follower.”
“Try real hard,” she suggested.
“I will if you will.”
She stared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? You have rules for me?”
“Only one. And it’s easy,” he said. “No W’s.”
“W’s?” she repeated.
“We’re coexisting here in this house for the duration, right?” he asked.
“Right,” she said slowly.
“So let’s do just that, in the moment,” he said. “No wondering, wishing, or worrying.”
She stared at him some more. “I don’t understand.” But she did. She understood exactly even before he stepped into her, before her heart kicked into gear, before he gently pushed her up against the wall and then not-so-gently kissed her.
Heat swamped her because, holy cow, this was not like when she’d sweetly, chastely kissed him on his first day here.
Not. Even. Close.
Of their own accord, her hands slid up his chest and fisted in his shirt to hold on tight for the ride—and it was a ride. A helpless moan clawed its way out of her throat, but just as it was getting good, really really good, Parker broke away.
Stepping back, he looked deep into her eyes. Apparently he saw something he liked because he smiled. “I’d suggest rule number two be that you try to keep your hands—and mouth—off me,” he said. “But as it turns out, I like both of those things very much.”
It was official. She really was going to have to kill Wyatt for asking to let Parker stay in her home. And then Darcy just on principle. And then Parker himself.
Slowly.
Sure she’d go to prison for it, and she looked horrible in orange, but she felt it would be worth it. Especially when, with a soft laugh, he vanished into his room.
Nine
Zoe was still a little mad at herself when her alarm went off two hours after she’d finally crawled into bed. She stared up at the ceiling wondering what had possessed her to stay up until three in the morning on a workday.
Idiocy, that’s what.
And okay, maybe a little misguided lust.
Misguided, because hot as Mr. Mysterious was, she wasn’t going there, not with him—no matter how much she might secretly want to.
She blamed the vodka for that. Surely it had been the over-imbibing that had made him seem sexier than he really was, not to mention made that kiss seem like the very best kiss of her entire life.
Stupid vodka. Why couldn’t the alcohol have made her forget the taste of Parker, the heat he’d generated, the way his hard body had fit against her softer one?
Instead, it was making her replay the entire scene every two seconds.
Don’t think about it now, she ordered herself. Yeah, right. She’d have better luck attempting not to draw air into her lungs. Racing around her room to gather clothes, she headed to the bathroom, this time pausing outside the door to listen carefully before she barged in. The other shower had been fixed, so he’d probably be using that one. She still knocked twice to make certain before entering, rushing through her morning routine, forgoing makeup and hairstyling to be on time.
So she was doubly mad when she finally arrived at the airport only to find that her morning flight lesson had been cancelled.
Now she looked like crap and she had nothing to do for three