by Jill Shalvis
Later Colbie got in her bed. The black cat had come and gone a few times. Worried about her, Colbie had left the window open just wide enough for her to seek shelter if she needed. Then she lay in bed in the dark thinking about her crazy day. Crazy but good, she decided. Shockingly good.
But that was because she hadn’t yet looked at her phone. Remembering, she got out of bed and fished the bag of rice from her purse. She pulled out the phone and turned it on.
Notifications began to fill her screen. She chose to start with a group text with her assistant, Tracy, and publicist, Janeen.
Tracy:
Hey, Editorial wants to know your projected delivery date for the manuscript.
Janeen:
Whoa, hold up there, missy. First I want to know Colbie’s projected delivery date for the articles and blogs she’s supposed to write for promo.
Tracy:
Don’t make me sorry I put you on this convo, Janeen. Colbs—I didn’t tell Editorial that you ran away from home to find yourself, because I didn’t want to set off a panic avalanche. Why should everyone panic when I’m doing enough for all of us?
Tracy:
P.S. At least tell me you’re on a warm beach somewhere with a really hot cabana dude pouring you wine?
Janeen:
Oh, you’re panicking, are you, Trace? How about me? Colbie hasn’t done a damn thing on her list! Listen, Colbs, I get it. You needed to get away. Fine. But at least go thru your damn e-mail and send me back the articles and posts I need pronto. P.S. Miss you, but I’d miss you more if you’d GO THROUGH YOUR E-MAILS.
Colbie answered with I’ll send everything soon, making sure not to define soon. Then she silenced her phone and slept like a baby, at least until around two a.m. when something shook her bed.
She sat straight up with a gasp and came nose-to-nose with the black cat.
“Meow.”
“You need a curfew,” Colbie said.
The cat, noncommittal, turned in a circle three times and then plopped on Colbie’s feet and closed her eyes.
Fine with her—her feet had been cold anyway. She fell back to sleep, waking only when daylight was streaming in through the window.
“Wow,” she said to the cat in genuine shock. “A whole night’s sleep, with the exception of your arrival. It’s a miracle.”
The cat looked pleased, like it’d been all her doing.
Colbie picked up her phone. She had texts from her brothers, which she ignored for now. Same with Jackson’s. “Whoa,” she said, surprised to see a text from her mom. Colbie had bought her an iPhone Plus so she could text with ease rather than always calling. So far her mom had refrained.
Until now, apparently.
Mom:
Love you that’s it send Siri send it Siri are you on crack send the message to Colbie
Colbie laughed and sent a return I love you text just as a certain black cat’s face came right up against hers, gold eyes very serious.
“Meow.”
“Let me take a wild guess. You’re hungry?”
The cat’s eyes said duh.
Colbie got up and showed the cat her bowls filled with water and the cat food she’d purchased last night at the store when she’d been stocking up for herself. “Do you feel like Cinderella?” she asked the cat. “Because I do.”
“Meow.”
Colbie smiled. “Maybe I’ll call you Cinder for short.”
With a low, approving chirp, Cinder dove into her food, apparently feeling as completely at home as Colbie did.
Colbie showered and dressed and took a deep breath before reading the twins’ texts.
Kent had locked his car keys in the car. While it was running. In a blizzard.
Shock.
Kurt had been fired from his sandwich shop job for hitting on the boss’s daughter.
“Son of a Cheez-It.” Instead of responding, or giving in to the stroke she could feel coming on, Colbie set her phone aside and filled out the rental app Elle had given her. “Should I list you as my roommate?” she asked the cat.
Cinder rolled onto her back on the hardwood floor in the sole sunspot and closed her eyes in bliss.
“I’ll take that as a yes. You don’t listen to rap at earsplitting levels in the middle of the night or ask for money, right?”
“Meow.”
“Good enough.”
Five minutes later, Colbie brought the application and her rent money to Elle’s office on the second floor. Elle wasn’t alone in the office. She had two others with her, and they were all eating muffins from the downstairs coffee shop.
“Willa owns the pet shop,” Elle said by way of introduction, pointing to her friend on the right. “And Kylie here works at Reclaimed Woods, the furniture shop.”
Kylie offered Colbie a muffin while asking the room a question for the ages. “How am I supposed to stay in shape when the best part about life is food?”
“You could exercise,” Elle said.
“I do,” Kylie said. “My cardio of choice is online shopping.”
“Very mature.”
Kylie laughed. “I am mature. But not, like, mature mature. I mean, I pay my bills on time but I still have to say stuff like ‘righty tighty, lefty loosey’ to figure shit out.”
“Honey, we all do that,” Willa said, finishing up a muffin and licking her fingers. “Ungh. If I were murdered right now, my chalk outline would be a circle. Keane won’t be able to get his arms around me.”
Muffins weren’t on Colbie’s diet either but she told herself that her New York diet could be different from her San Francisco diet. Her first bite of a blueberry muffin had her moaning. “Tell me this counts as a serving of fruit.”
“Maybe we should go to the gym later and do some crunches or something,” Willa said, sounding less than enthused about this prospect.
Kylie shook her head. “My brain just auto-corrected the word crunches to cupcakes. And we all know that once you lick off the frosting, a cupcake is really just a muffin. Which is almost a serving of fruit, as Colbie pointed out.”
Contemplating this, they all ate some more muffins.
“Listen,” Willa said to Colbie. “I’m really sorry about what Daisy Duke did to you yesterday. She’s usually such a good girl but that stray black cat is her nemesis.”
“She’s not a stray anymore,” Colbie said. “She’s sleeping on my bed as we speak.”
“You were able to catch her?” Willa asked. “I’ve been trying for weeks. I wanted to find her a home.”
“I didn’t catch her,” Colbie said. “She caught me.” She took another muffin. “So who makes these little bites of heaven? I want to bow down before them.”
“Tina. And she’s currently spoken for,” Kylie said. “If she’s ever single again, we’re all on a waiting list for her.”
They all eyeballed the last muffin.
“How about we split it four ways,” Kylie suggested.
Elle produced a pocketknife.
“What the hell is that?” Kylie asked.
“I always carry a knife,” Elle said. “You know, in case of having to split a muffin into four pieces. And don’t look so shocked. You carry dangerous tools yourself. Yesterday I watched you use a huge jigsaw like it was nothing.”
“Yes, but that was for work,” Kylie said. “Although you’ve got a point about being able to split a muffin. I bet I could do that with a jigsaw in an emergency.”
Elle carefully and surgically split her muffin. “How’s the elbow?” she asked Colbie.
“Fine.” She’d had far worse injuries breaking up fights between her brothers. “Thanks again for taking such good care of me yesterday.”
“That was all Spence.”
“He was great too,” she said.
“He’s always great,” Willa said. “He’s one of the good ones, smart, super-sexy eye candy, and he doesn’t even know it.”
Elle shook her head.
“What?” Willa said. “I’m taken, not dead.”
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“What is it that Spence does for a living?” she asked.
Elle gave a little smile. “A lot.”
“Such as?”
“Such as a lot.”
Kylie and Willa, watching the exchange like they were at a tennis match, popped their quarters of the last muffin into their mouths in unison.
Colbie turned to them. “Is she being mysterious on purpose?”
Kylie choked on her muffin. Willa patted her on the back before answering. “Spence is our resident genius.”
Elle gave her a look.
“Well, he is,” Willa said. “He’s the smartest person we all know. That’s no secret.”
“But what he does for a job is?” Colbie asked.
“Let’s just say we’re a little protective of him,” Willa said. “For good reason.”
“He seems like a guy who can protect himself,” she said slowly.
“Oh hell yeah, he can,” Willa said. “Just a few weeks ago, Kylie here was locking up late one night on her own and some guy started hassling her, and Spence—”
“Willa,” Elle said in warning.
“What?” Willa asked. “He . . .” She mimed some sort of karate motion and straightened with a smile. “Kicked ass like a glasses-wearing superhero.”
Colbie had no problem picturing Spence stepping in to help a friend in trouble. But picturing him using actual physical force gave her a ridiculous feminine flutter.
Kylie was hugging herself now and Willa’s smile faded as she seemed to realize that she’d brought the vivid memories back too harshly. “I’m sorry,” Willa said, hugging Kylie tight. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it’s okay. Really.” Kylie gave a little smile. “He was my superhero that night. And he never even lost his glasses.” She was wearing a heavy work apron and covered in wood chips. And Colbie realized that in one of her big apron pockets was a stuffed animal. A very small French bulldog.
But then it moved. It was real, and she laughed in delight because the dog was smaller than Cinder.
“His name’s Vinnie,” Kylie said. “He’s a foster fail.” She handed him over to Colbie and she and the dog eyed each other.
Vinnie’s head was the same size as the rest of his entire body and his huge deep brown soulful eyes melted Colbie. “Oh my God,” she said, snuggling the thing close. “How do you get anything done other than loving him up all day long?”
Kylie smiled. “That’s why he practically lives in my pocket—well, unless I’m working the big table saw or the planer or anything dangerous like that. He’s small because he was malnourished but I think he’s still growing.”
“I need a cutie like this to keep in my pocket,” Colbie said. “No danger in what I do.”
“Which is what again?” Elle asked.
Colbie met Elle’s gaze. Friendly enough, but sharp as a razor. “I’m a writer.”
“Oh, cool,” Kylie said. “What do you write?”
“Yes, and how do you make a living while doing it?” Elle asked.
Again, not unfriendly, not at all. But the woman was definitely reserving judgment. “I write young adult,” Colbie said to Kylie, still snuggling with the lovebug Vinnie. To Elle, she said, “And I do other stuff as well. Write short stories, waitress, retail, whatever comes my way.”
Again, more of an omission than a lie, as she’d done all those things—just not since the royalties had started rolling in.
“You landed in a pretty amazing place to write,” Kylie said. “This building’s a fun place to be creative.”
Exactly what Colbie was banking on.
Chapter 7
#WhatTheFrenchToast
That afternoon Spence was trying to apply himself to his computer. He needed to be working on the software for the security of the cargo on the drones he’d built but he was getting nowhere fast.
When Elle showed up carrying his first choice of poison—coffee, black and strong—he was grateful for the interruption.
He couldn’t concentrate or focus to save his own life. Instead he kept picturing Colbie’s fathomless green eyes and how they revealed her thoughts more than her words.
“You also got another present in the mail,” Elle said. “One of the Real Housewives producers is apparently a fan and she sent a box of your favorite candy. Wants to know if you date cougars.”
Spence slid her a look.
Elle laughed. “Right. I’ll decline politely.” She paused. “Your newest tenant’s been busy,” she said casually.
But here was the thing. Elle was never casual. “Yeah? Doing what?”
“Asking questions about you, trying to figure out what you do for a living.”
Spence shrugged that off. “It’s just a little game between us—relax. She’s not press.”
“As long as you know what you’re doing. Oh, and check your e-mail. I sent you some things I need you to go over and get back to me on. I’ll be in my office.”
“Ah, don’t go away mad,” he said.
A little humor came into her eyes. “Just go away?”
“That’d be great.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said, heading to the door. “Follow your heart, whatever. Just promise me you’ll take your brain with you. Oh—”
She stopped short and turned back. “I almost forgot the best part.” She set her iPad on the desk in front of him, her browser opened to an article.
SAN FRANCISCO’S TOP TEN
MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELORS
Jesus. “Tell me I’m not on this list,” he said.
Elle didn’t speak.
“Shit. Tell me I’m not number one on this list.”
Elle let out a breath. “You’re not number one.”
“Number two?”
She grimaced.
He scrolled through the list and felt insulted. “Number four?”
She laughed at him as he pushed the iPad away. “So let me get this straight. You didn’t want to be on the list, but now that you are, you want to be number one?”