about to tell him that her idea of essentials had more to do with reading material, her glasses, and, yes, her retainer, than eyeliner and manicure supplies. “Some snacks I packed are in the front. I’ll get those. If you’re sure you don’t mind.” She nodded toward the load he was carrying. She still had the satchels to carry in. Again.
“This? No, not at all.” He poked along behind her, like a nosy puppy, when she moved around to the passenger-side door. “What kind of snacks?”
She grinned as she turned and opened the plastic supermarket bag. “Dental bones and liver treats. Your pick. Or, maybe you’re more a millet seed guy.”
He looked in the bag, and back at her, pity clear on his face. “You need remedial road trip lessons. Where are the chips, sodas, and cookies?”
She’d felt his hands on her, and though his clothes hung a bit loosely on his frame, there was doubtful a spare ounce of fat to be found on the man. It wasn’t fair that he could look like that and talk about cookies. “Right where they need to be,” she said. “Out of my undisciplined reach.”
He lifted his free hand up, and for a split second, she thought he was going to touch her face, but he just snagged the strap of one of the satchels, which doubled as her laptop bag. “You need help,” he said, as he straightened, his face having come far too close to hers. He smelled good. Really good. So unfair. What had she and her perfectly innocent hormones done to deserve this kind of torture, anyway?
“Well,” she said, sliding out from between him and the car and stepping back out into the open area of the garage. “I guess I’m lucky you’re here, then. I really appreciate you lugging that stuff in for me.” She should take at least the laptop off his hands, but decided retreat was the better part of saving herself from doing something really embarrassing, and all but fled back to the kitchen.
Trevor entered a minute later. “You’re sure this is it?”
“Yep,” she said, busy putting on the dogs’ jackets and leads again for their last trip out for the night.
“Could you do me a favor, then?”
She looked up warily.
“I was going to pull my rental into the garage to keep it out of the storm. You’ll need to set the alarm code for it anyway. I don’t know the current one. Anyway, if you’ll go out there and open the doors so I can pull in, then we can set it for the night.”
Emma didn’t want to think about spending the night with Trevor Hamilton. Well, not with Trevor Hamilton. But under the same roof. Even one as big as this one. “Uh, sure. But, can it wait until I get back in? They’re all ready to go and—”
“No, no problem. I’ll just pop this stuff in your room. Where are you set up?”
It was silly, because, in the big scheme of things, who cared? But she didn’t want him in her bedroom. If she knew where it happened to be. Which she didn’t. “I’m—actually, can you just wait for me to get back in? Don’t worry about my stuff. I’ll take my own bags up.” Or over. Or wherever they were supposed to go in this rambling monstrosity of a mountaintop mansion.
She glanced back as she led the dogs through the French doors into the Florida room in time to see him lift those broad shoulders and shrug her bags gently to the floor, then wander over to the massive fridge instead.
Sighing in relief, for the moment, anyway, Emma turned and opened the door to the backyard, only to be met by a wall of stinging sleet and pellets of ice. She started to retreat back into the closed-in porch, but Martha was already pulling her out into the now blistering storm. Jack wasn’t as enthusiastic, but trudged along, head ducked. Emma flipped the hood up on her fleece-lined canvas coat and kept her head ducked, too, as she led them to the edge of the trees. “Here, guys,” she said, having to raise her voice over the cracking sound of the storm as the ice and sleet pummeled the trees and ground. “Not going up that hill in this.” She had her good hiking boots on, and they had great traction, but ice was ice. She’d have to look in the addendum section to see if there was a note about where she might find a bag of gravel or something to throw around, at least in the backyard.
Maybe Trevor knows, she thought. No. If she was lucky, he’d have already fixed a sandwich or something and gone to bed. Wherever that was. A vicious gust drove the ice pellets sideways, hitting her cheek as she tried to corral the dogs back toward the house. And even that didn’t stop her from picturing Trevor in bed. Getting ready to get in bed. Possibly taking a shower before going to bed.
“Come on,” she shouted to the dogs, perhaps a bit more loudly than absolutely necessary, then all but dragged them back inside. “My God, it’s nasty out there, isn’t it?” she said, talking to them as she took their jackets and leashes off and toweled them down. Poor Jack was trembling, not enjoying the rubdown nearly as much as he had last time. She crouched in front of him and worked the ice from his paws. “I’m sorry, little guy. It sucks to be a small dog in a big storm, I know.”
Martha was licking at the ice clumps in her paws, but otherwise didn’t seem to be all that adversely affected.
“Wow, check that out,” came a male voice almost directly overhead. “The storm’s really picked up.”
She prided herself in not even glancing up as Trevor’s jean-clad legs passed by her lower line of vision. A mere tip of the chin would have put her eyes right in line with his—“Sorry, fella,” she told Jack, forcing her attention to stay exclusively on finishing up with Jack’s ice-clumped feet. “I know it hurts.”
“Maybe it’s too late to get my car in, it’s probably encrusted by now. But I’d like to at least go check.”
She finished with Jack and had to stand to attend to Martha, who had already taken care of the worst of things with her big feet. Emma rubbed her head, neck, and legs down with a dry towel. “Suit yourself,” she said to Trevor, completely unconcerned. Completely unconcerned that they were going to be stuck in this house—together—for possibly longer than one night.
Right.
Just as soon as she stopped thinking about him naked in the shower, she’d be unconcerned.
“Here,” he said, reaching out to take the towel from her hands. “I can finish drying her off if you’ll—”
“Just because I was just out there does not mean I’m heading out to check on your car. You want it in the garage, I’ll be happy to—”
“Did I ask you to go out there? All I need you to do is open one of the garage doors.” He tugged the towel out of her grudging grip.
“Fine,” she said, knowing she sounded like a shrew, but he did things to her equilibrium she really didn’t appreciate. Too bad if he didn’t understand that. She wasn’t about to explain it to him. She left him with the dogs and headed down the passageway to the garage, then realized she’d forgotten the Hamilton bible with the garage code and turned around to head back. A second later two things happened almost simultaneously. The lights flickered out, casting her in immediate full darkness…and she ran chest first into Trevor Hamilton.
“Hold on there,” he said, finding her arms easily despite the complete lack of light.
“The lights,” she said. “What happened?”
“The storm, I’m guessing. Ice is heavy. It probably coated
