it is.” He glanced at his home security panel. The light was blinking a steady red. It was armed. “Now, you want to tell me how you got past the security system?”
She opened her mouth to shout again—he could tell—so he put his fingers over her lips. His head was one word from the jackhammers breaking the rest of the way through his skull. “Quietly. Tell me quietly.”
“I punched in the pass code,” she said through her teeth. “Now you. How did you get in?”
“By unlocking the door I installed when I bought this house.” He jerked his chin to the key ring hanging by the door, only then noticing the starlit sky beyond the windows. It was just as dark as when he’d closed his eyes earlier. “What time is it?”
“Eight-thirty.”
He’d barely slept a few hours. No wonder he felt like crap. He was thirsty, tired, and needed to pee. Time to tell Goldilocks to start looking for a new bed, because even if his was just right, it was closed for the summer.
“Look, it’s been fun,” he said, running a hand down his face and coming to a hard stop when he reached his jaw. He touched it again and felt the days-old scruff against his palm. “What day is it?”
“Wednesday.”
“Jesus.” He’d slept twenty hours—not two—losing an entire day.
Slowly, he made his way to the kitchen, where he opened the fridge and grabbed a beer.
“You’re Emmitt Bradley?”
“Never heard my name sound like an accusation before, but yeah.” He popped the cap, took a long swallow, then contemplated spitting the liquid back in the bottle.
Whoever thought—he read the label—kiwi paired with hops should be fired. With a grimace, he lowered the bottle and found her standing in front of him, her earlier outfit covered by a blue scrub top.
“Emmitt of the ‘Hey Emmitt, this is Tiffany,’” she said in a perfect barfly voice that was three parts helium, one part phone sex operator. “‘You’d better call me when you get back in town. I had to hear it from Levi that you’d come and gone without so much as a kiss hello.’” She rolled her eyes and her voice went back to the deep, throaty one he preferred. “That’s Tiffany with a Y. Not to be confused with Tiffani with an I, who won’t be back until the leaves start to fall but wanted you to know she was thinking of you.”
Fighting back a smile, he wiped the back of his mouth and set the bottle on the island. “And you know this how?”
Her bare feet shuffled over to the telephone. There was a stack of sticky notes posted next to it. She flipped through them, then held up exhibit one. “This is Tiffany with a Y.” She walked over and smacked it on his bare chest. “This is Tiffani with an I.” Another smack. “Then there’s Shea, Lauren, and Jasmine.”
Slap slap slap.
“Rachelle and Rochelle.”
He grinned down at her. “That was only one slap. Which was it, Rachelle or Rochelle?”
“Both,” she said dryly. “When your mailbox here filled up, they stopped by. Together.” As his grin grew, her lips pressed together until they resembled a single line. “Then there’s Chanelle, Amber, Ashley, Nicole, Sweet P, Diana”—she looked up—“who made me promise I’d write down ‘Dirty Diana.’ Said you’d know what that meant.” That one got a big smack.
“Ow,” he said, but she didn’t look concerned.
“Here.” She handed him what was left of the stack.
He pulled them off one by one, looking for the only message he cared about. He dropped them to the floor as quickly as he disqualified their importance. The further he went, the worse his head ached, until squinting only made things unbearable.
He held the notes back out to her. “Can you find the one from Sweet P?”
“I’m not your secretary.”
“Now, there’s another side of Annie I’d like to see. Glasses, pencil skirt.” He gave a low whistle to which she responded by folding her arms over her chest.
The action didn’t do much up top but gave him a hell of a lot of skin to admire down below. This getup was far less revealing than what she’d been sporting a minute ago, but he liked Hot Nurse Annie almost as much as Stripper Annie.
Almost.
“But just the message from Sweet P will do for now.” He shoved the remaining sticky notes into her hands. When she didn’t move to take them, he sighed. “Seriously, you’ve been squatting in my place for what?” He looked around at the cozy little nest she’d made for herself. “Six months?”
“Six weeks.”
“You did all this in six weeks?”
His normally sparse cabin was decorated with minimal furniture, minimal fuss, and minimal effort. All he wanted was a quiet street with unobstructed views of nature. It was the one place on the planet he could decompress, find a sense of balance and peace.
There wasn’t a shred of peace left. Every surface held a picture frame or stack of old books. His beer stein collection was hidden behind sparkly wine flutes. And the usual scent of cedar was now masked by some kind of flowery candle. Probably the light purple ones burning on his mantle beneath his stuffed moose head.
He blinked—twice. “When did I get a mantle?”
She shrugged.
Then there was his couch. His very manly leather, made for watching hockey and Bear Grylls couch was barely visible beneath 137 throw pillows and a matching blue blanket.
And not a masculine dark blue either. Not even superhero blue. Nope, the big fuzzy atrocity was the same light blue as those jewelry boxes women go bonkers for. And don’t even get him started on the twinkle lights dangling from Bull’s antlers.
Emmitt had barely been upright when he’d arrived from the airport, so he hadn’t noticed the changes. But now they intruded so violently, it was triggering a migraine.
“It’s not permanent, so when I go, it goes.”
At least she was honest about her crimes. Other people, he’d witnessed firsthand over the years, would go to great lengths to hide them.
“Then reading me one message is the least you can do for emasculating Bull”—he pointed to the moose—“and violating the privacy of my messages.”
“Your voice mail is apparently full, so they started calling here. All hours of the night, ringing and ringing, so I began jotting down messages. And you emasculated him when you stuck his head on your wall as a trophy.” She took the stack and flipped through it, huffing the entire time. Then handed a sticky note to him. “Here it is. Sweet P.”
“Bull isn’t real, and he was a gift. Now, could you read it aloud to me?” There went the stubborn set of her chin again. “I don’t have my contacts in and I don’t know where my glasses are,” he lied.
With
