by Lucy Score
“No, but—”
“And you don’t expect me to stop running my business of putting paying people in my rentals, do you?” She took another step forward into my space. I had close to a foot on her, but I was man enough to admit that my sister scared the hell out of me.
She was unpredictable. And that made her dangerous. She was also a biter.
“No, however—”
“I’m so glad we have that settled. Now, you and Shelby will share the Little Yellow House for the next month. After that I’m sure I can juggle some of my renters around at great expense to myself and get one of you into a different damn place. But until then, I expect you to say, ‘Thank you, Scarlett.’ And pay your damn rent, which is now half of what it was before I so generously bestowed a roommate on you, on time.”
“Th-thank you, Scarlett.”
“You’re welcome, Jonah,” she said, batting her lashes at me from under her Bootleg Cockspurs ball cap. “See ya around, Shelby,” she called into the house as she tromped down the stairs.
* * *
Me: Which one of you dumbasses opened your big mouth to Scarlett about me being a sad puppy?
Bowie: I was planning on it tomorrow. Why?
Gibson: We all would have. No one’s had the chance yet.
Me: She just gave me a roommate.
Jameson: Of the female persuasion?
Me: Shelby Thompson, GT’s little sister.
Devlin: Scarlett works in mysterious ways.
Gibson: You can do better than that, McCallister.
Devlin: Your sister amazes and terrifies me. I fully support whatever scheme she’s concocted.
Bowie: Amen.
Me: I hate you all.
6
Shelby
I ’d been Scarlett Bodined.
And I hadn’t seen it coming. I’d heard rumors of such things. I’d been warned. And I’d still been steamrolled by a tiny Southern belle whose master manipulations deserved to be immortalized in the annals of psych journals.
I was tempted to throw out my fifty-percent done paper and start all over with Scarlett as the star.
Then Jonah walked back into the house.
Our house.
This was not the ideal solution I’d thought I was engineering for myself. And now I was stuck in a house with Jonah “Eight-Pack” Bodine.
“Um. So hi,” I said when he came to a halt and just stared at me with those green eyes. Smooth, Shelby. Super smooth and casual.
I was a nerd and as a nerd, I excelled in flirting with nerd men. My interactions with tall, lean, frowny athletic types were slightly less natural.
He was dressed in workout gear. Shorts, a t-shirt, sneakers. And everywhere I looked, I saw things I liked. Muscle. Stubble. Sharp green eyes that looked as though they could peel my skin back and look inside me. He had a breathtaking smile that I’d spotted a time or two, but he definitely wasn’t aiming that particular weapon at me now.
He gave me a long blank look.
Nervously, I smiled wider.
His brows knit together.
Our facial expressions were carrying on different conversations.
I knew there was a simple misunderstanding at the heart of Jonah’s barely concealed contempt for me. But I also knew he wasn’t exactly amenable to clearing the air right now.
“I’m sure we can work this out,” I said cheerily.
“I don’t know what you did to make my sister think this was a good idea,” he said calmly. “I don’t want to know. You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.” With that, my new roommate somberly climbed the stairs to the second floor.
A moment later, I heard a door slam and music kick on somewhere above me. Scarlett’s abbreviated tour hadn’t actually included the upstairs. But I’d get to that. For now, it was imperative to establish a territory.
I was in a hostile living situation. And I was not about to let the enemy corral me into a bedroom. With him pouting or manscaping or learning to play death metal on the ukulele—whatever attractive, athletic types did in their spare time—I was free to assert myself downstairs.
It would be too easy in this situation to retreat. To ensconce myself in a bedroom and stay out of Jonah’s way. He’d been here first. But I was sticking. I was staying in Bootleg Springs until this dang dissertation was finished. And I was going to be comfortable while doing it, gosh darn it!
Glancing around, I tapped my fingers to my lips. The kitchen was a galley setup with the back door at the far end. Not enough room for me to spread out in there. Heck, there was barely enough room to open the refrigerator door. And forget about opening the refrigerator and the oven door at the same time.
The dining room was on the other side of the kitchen wall. It had a funky wallpaper mural of birch trees and a battered and charming table that overlooked the scrap of backyard. But the high-backed chairs would be too uncomfortable for me to spend long hours in them.
The living room would do, I decided, testing the overstuffed beige couch. It was comfortable and angled toward the fireplace and the TV mounted above the mantel. There was a big window looking out onto the porch, and a shabby chic occasional table and two chairs tucked into the corner. I could confiscate that area and use it as my office.
Back out on the porch, I grabbed my most important belongings. My laptop bag and my box of research. Nothing was going to derail me this time. Nothing was going to stand between me and my degree. I plopped everything down on the table and lowered myself back onto the couch.
Decision made, space claimed, I closed my eyes for a minute. The backache was sharper today, and I regretted carting all of my belongings onto the porch. Now, they’d need to be hauled upstairs, and I lacked the energy for it. I was toeing the line already. Much more, and I’d shove myself right over the edge.
I’d focus on the essentials. Everything else would be safe on the porch. It was covered.
I wondered if there were bears in Bootleg Springs. I wasn’t exactly the outdoorsy archetype. I was the stay inside and read a book type. Living in Pittsburgh for the past few years had limited my wildlife experiences.
I dozed off, imagining a fat bear pawing through my box of academic journals.
* * *
I woke up to a fierce frown and green, green eyes.
My first thought was bear! Flailing, I rolled right off the couch cushion.
But I didn’t hit the floor. Somewhere in my nap-addled brain, it registered that my new safety net was a pair of hands.
“What is wrong with you?” Jonah grumbled, rolling me back on the couch. I flopped gracelessly like a walrus.
“A lot of things. You don’t really want to know. Are there bears here?” I shouldn’t have flailed. Research recommended playing dead in a bear attack.
“Bears?”
“I thought you were a bear when I woke up. Did you know that there are Timber Rattlesnakes and Northern Copperheads in this part of the state? That probably means there’s bears too.”
He was making me nervous. Looking at me all grumpy and confused. And so close. I could reach right out and touch him. Not that I would. I was an academic, not an idiot.
“You were moaning in your sleep,” he said, ignoring my bear question.
“That happens sometimes.” I sat up, managing to keep my old lady noises to myself.
“Your stuff is still outside,” he pointed out. I felt like he was running through a list of my most immediate flaws. Sleep moans and disorganized porch hoarding.
My back sang the first few bars of “O Fortuna.” “Yeah, thanks. I’ll get it.” I stepped stiffly around him and headed for the door.
“One month,” he said.
I paused. “What?”
“Scarlett said in a month she could move one of us to another rental.”
That wasn’t so bad. I could spend a month staring at Jonah’s sweaty back muscles. “We can handle a month, can’t we?”
“I guess we don’t have a choice,” he said, c
learly not thrilled at the idea.
“That’s the spirit!”
* * *
“Do you seriously have to cook dinner right now?” Jonah growled as I ducked under his arm to get at the oven.
The kitchen was small under the best of circumstances. But put two adults intent on cooking at the same time while avoiding each other in it and it became a shoebox.
“Since you’re the one with the problem, maybe you should cook your dinner later.” I pointed out the logic of the situation.
“I don’t have a problem,” he argued.
Jonah Bodine was turning out to be as temperamental as his half-brother Gibson.
“Are you always so moody, or is it situational?” I reached into the oven and flipped my chicken nuggets over, blowing on my fingers. “Ouch.”
He grabbed my hand and slapped a pair of tongs into it. “Use the right tools for the job.” It wasn’t his intended effect, I was sure, but I felt a little shiver of biochemical reaction work its way up my spine.
Jonah was not my type.
I liked the academic, glasses-wearing, “let me tell you about my research” type. But the fact that I was reacting to Mr. Frowny Jock on such a physical level was… interesting.
“Thanks.” I flipped the rest of the nuggets without scorching off my fingerprints.
“I’m not moody,” he grumbled, pushing the handle of the frying pan out of my way when I stood up. He was sautéing vegetables. A whole bunch of them. I sniffed at them with suspicion. I’d been born a picky eater. And, to my parents' undying embarrassment, I was still a picky eater at thirty. I kept waiting for this adventurous palate that everyone assured me would come. But sushi grossed me out. Mushrooms made me gag. And don’t even get me started on lunch meat. Or mayonnaise.
“Are those nuggets shaped like dinosaurs?”
“They are.” I beamed at him, rewarding him for his attempt at polite conversation. I could spend a month positively reinforcing him.
“That’s not food.”
I looked at the cookie sheet. “Of course it’s food. I cook it. I put it in my mouth. It’s food.”
“Food is fuel with nutrition.”
“It’s meat. Meat is nutritious.” At least I assumed it was.
Jonah looked at me like I was the dullest crayon in the box.
“Look. We don’t have to be friends, but we don’t have to be enemies,” I told him.
“You are the enemy,” he said.
I could have corrected him. But his attitude was annoying. I didn’t care if he liked me, I decided. I wasn’t here to make friends or develop a crush. I was here to work. And maybe I would take just the tiniest bit of pleasure in letting Jonah act like an idiot for a while.
“Do you really think your sister would make you share a house with a sworn enemy?”
“I haven’t known her that long. It’s a possibility.”
My annoyance inched up into irked territory. “I’m not your enemy. Let’s just be adults about this. How bad could the next month possibly be?”
7
Jonah
I t was horrible.
The house that had seemed reasonably sized just days before was getting smaller by the minute.
She was everywhere.
I was an early riser by nature. I enjoyed the dawn of the day with its reverent silence and quiet potential. There was nothing reverent or quiet about Shelby dancing around to Maroon 5 and Panic! At the Disco while making those god-awful sugar bomb toasted pastries.
She wanted to make small talk about the weather while I laced up my running shoes.
Then she was singing in the shower. Or leaving bras in the bathroom. Or snort-laughing over reruns in the living room. The woman snorted when she laughed. And I hated that some dark corner of me found it kind of cute.
She’d taken the guest room and had made herself at home. I was the one who felt like I was intruding. Like I was a guest in her home. But, dammit, I’d gotten here first. I belonged here more than she did. I was building a relationship with family. She was just trying to exploit a scandal. Wasn’t she?
I made it a point not to let her chase me into my room. Made a big deal out of being “home” as much as she was.
We both had jobs without a consistent nine to five. Most of the classes and training that I did were in the mornings and evenings. Which left me in the house with her during the day while she muttered over reams of notes and typed like her fingers were on fire.
Every time I turned around, she was there. So I fought back.
Whenever she sat down to work in the living room, I turned on the TV and settled on the couch.
Whenever she got in the shower upstairs, I ran the hot water in the kitchen sink until she yelped from the cold.
Whenever she “cooked”—the woman lived off canned food, nuggets, and peanut butter and jelly—I made a production out of my superior meal prep.
And judging by her bubbly morning greetings every damn day, I wasn’t bothering her in the least.
Unless it was all an act, Shelby was the happiest damn person I’d ever met. It was like she was hosing down the house with fairy dust.
It made me irrationally angry. Something I hadn’t felt for a long time.
I pushed harder in my workouts, focusing my energy on them. But every time I came home, there was Shelby. Perky and happy, giving me a little wave from her corner of the living room or shoveling canned ravioli into her smiling mouth.
I needed to have some words with that half-sister of mine.
* * *
“I hereby call this Bodine Family breakfast to order,” Bowie said, smacking the bottle of syrup on the table. Kitchen renovations were almost finished for him and Cassidy. They’d lived in two halves of a double for years before ceremoniously knocking down the wall between them and plotting out a new future together.
When it was done, it would be a great gathering place. But right now, there were construction tarps and drywall dust everywhere.
Cassidy was dressed for work in her deputy uniform, and I had a sinking feeling this breakfast was part of her official business.
Gibs was bleary-eyed and knocking back coffee like it was his job. I got the feeling the guy wasn’t sleeping much. If he’d been remotely human, I’d have asked him about it. But the way he snarled at Jameson when he asked about the softball lineup clued me in that it would be a wasted question.
“Where’s Leah Mae and Devlin?” I asked.
Scarlett was already working her way through a stack of pancakes and checking her calendar on her phone. “Dev’s in the office today. Had some client meetings to take care of. I think Ol’ Judge Carwell’s paying him a visit, too.”
Devlin had traded in his political aspirations to fall in love with Scarlett and open a private law practice in Bootleg Springs. Judge Carwell was about ten years past retirement age, and rumor had it, he was looking to get Devlin elected once his Olamette County residency was official.
“Leah Mae and June are checking out the shop. Juney finally stopped winding up the landlord over the rent, and they signed the papers last week.” Jameson grinned.
“How’s construction coming?” Bowie asked Scarlett.
“Hallelujah, thank you, Lord! We have a basement,” she sang. “Or at least a hole in the ground. I’m thinking about taking some of Dev’s law journals over and throwin’ em in the mud to celebrate.”
“Maybe you could take your new tenant over with you and leave her there,” I suggested.
“Now, Jonah. I thought for sure you would be mature enough to share your space with a roommate,” she said, batting her eyelashes at me.
“Are you trying to fix me up with Shelby?” I demanded.
Gibson dragged himself out of his grumpy stupor. “Damn, Scar. We didn’t even get a chance to tell you all about poor Jonah’s broken heart.”
I glared at him. “Never should have said a damn thing to you assholes.” I wanted to say that I never should have shown up in Bootleg. But, ev
en mad, I wouldn’t have meant it.
“Tell me what? What broken heart? Was it that Lacey and her dumping you at the prom?” Scarlett demanded, flinging her fork down on the table.
George had thrown a prom re-do when he found out Cassidy’s sister, June, had missed out on hers. Under duress to pick a date, I’d invited Lacey Dickerson, who left with Amos Sheridan. I hadn’t advertised the fact that Lacey had asked me to go to help her make Amos jealous or that her plan had worked perfectly. I’d had a “date” that kept my elderly clients from matching me up with any number of their single—or, in Myrt’s case, unhappily married—relatives. And Lacey got her Amos. It was a win-win.
“No. I have no hard feelings toward Lacey. I do, however, have hard feelings toward you forcing me to cohabitate with a reporter who came to town just to get dirt about our father.” I was yelling now. I blamed it on my overexposure to the Bodines. None of them could speak at normal volume for longer than a minute or two.
“First of all, have you even tried talking to Shelby? Because you, brother dear, are sorely mistaken about Shelby’s line of work. Though that’s mostly Cassidy’s fault,” Scarlett said, joining me in shouting range.
“Hey!” Cassidy complained at being thrown under the bus.
“Secondly,” Scarlett continued, ignoring her best friend’s outburst, “I didn’t force you to cohabitate with anybody. I have a business to run and a house to build. I don’t know why you feel like you should get special treatment at my expense—”
“Admit it, Scar. You put us in that house together on purpose.”
“How dare you, Jonah Bodine! I did no such thing!” Scarlett’s gasp moved paper napkins across the table. She was lying. We all knew it. Except maybe Scarlett.
Cassidy groaned, and Bowie leaned in to give her shoulder a fortifying squeeze. “Okay, listen up,” she said. “This fight is super entertaining, but I’ve gotta be at the station in twenty minutes, and I thought y’all would want an update on the body.”