just things I thought would make a good litter box.”
He spread out the papers, a small, shallow plastic tray, a box of baking soda, several old towels, and an old blanket.
“And some bedding,” she said, lifting one shoulder. “Which, honestly, I’d have picked the cashmere, too. Sorry. I’ll pay to have it cleaned, or…whatever else might need done to it. Replace it. Once she gets up, just put that stuff under there instead.”
“Don’t worry about it. Thanks,” he said, carrying the box into the bathroom.
She realized she was just standing there, watching him again, and snapped back to attention. “No, thank you. I—the least I can do is fix you dinner. For, you know, saving me. Earlier.”
He paused in the bathroom doorway, his hands empty now. He looked remarkably…domesticated. All well worn blue T-shirt and faded jeans. Bare feet, tousled hair. He also looked worn out.
“I’ll—let me get out of here so you can rest. Just say the word later and I’ll bring a tray up for you. Pot roast. It’s not much, but—”
“That would be great, actually,” he said, surprising her. “What time?”
“Uh, anytime you’d like. Just ring down and I’ll—”
“I mean, what time are you eating? Unless you’d rather eat alone.”
“No,” she blurted, even more surprised. “That would be fine. Usually a bit later for me, around six thirty.”
“Sounds good. If I don’t come down, if you wouldn’t mind, just ring the room and wake me up.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather sleep?”
He shoved his hands in his front pockets, the picture of laid back and relaxed. Or would have been if it wasn’t for the tired lines creasing the corners of his mouth and eyes. “I’d have thought so, yes. But the distraction is proving to be kind of nice, too.”
She stood there a moment longer than necessary, trying to figure out if he meant what most men would mean when they said something like that…or, if it was more like he was just being honest. Maybe he really was just hungry for some human contact.
Do not look at the bed, she schooled herself. There were all kinds of human contact. “I’d enjoy having some company, too.”
“Good.” He smiled. “Don’t let me sleep through.”
“I won’t,” she said, scooting around the bed and heading toward the door, before any of her thoughts dared play out on her face. Only once she was in the hall, door shut safely behind her, did she allow herself a sigh of relief. Now she had a few hours to figure out how to stop thinking about her only guest—her only paying guest—as a possible bed mate.
And how to make pot roast.
Chapter 4
Brett finally gave up on sleep and rolled off the bed, intent on heading for the shower. One peek under the bed showed that the kitty from hell was having no problem snoozing. “Good thing you look like you do,” he muttered, looking over the snagged and balled-up cashmere sweater the little fuzz ball was now calling home. “Couldn’t take my T-shirt or old sweats.” He’d packed light when he’d left Vegas, putting everything else into storage until he decided what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Which meant that, short one sweater, he basically had nothing decent to wear down to dinner.
He dragged his bag across the bed and rooted around until he found the one T-shirt with long sleeves, and dug that out. He shook it out, shook his head, and took it into the bathroom with him. It was doubtful any amount of steam was going to make it look much better, but at least he’d make an effort to look halfway decent.
The hot, steamy shower felt like heaven on earth as it pounded his back and neck. He should have done this earlier. It was almost better than sleep. Almost. He’d realized after Kirby had left that he’d probably only grabbed a few hours after arriving, and he’d fully expected to be out the instant his head hit the pillow again. But that hadn’t been the case. This time it hadn’t been because he was worried about Dan, or Vanetta, or anyone else back home, or even wondering what in the hell he thought he was doing this far from the desert. In New England, for God’s sake. During the winter. Although it didn’t appear to be much of one out here.
No, that blame lay right on the lovely, slender shoulders of Kirby Farrell, innkeeper, and rescuer of trapped kittens. Granted, after the adrenaline rush of finding her hanging more than twenty feet off the ground by her fingertips, it shouldn’t be surprising that sleep eluded him, but that wasn’t entirely the cause. Maybe he’d simply spent too long around women who were generally over-processed, over-enhanced, and overly made up, so that meeting a regular, everyday ordinary woman seemed to stand out more.
It was a safe theory, anyway.
And yet, after only a few hours under her roof, he’d already become a foster dad to a wild kitten and had spent far more time thinking about said kitten’s savior than he had his own host of problems.
Maybe it was simply easier to think about someone else’s situation. Which would explain why he was wondering about things like whether or not Kirby was making a go of things with her new enterprise here, what with the complete lack of winter weather they were having. And what her story was before opening the inn. Was this place a lifelong dream? For all he knew, she was some New England trust fund baby just playing at running her own place. Except that didn’t jibe with what he’d seen of her so far.
He’d been so lost in his thoughts while enjoying the rejuvenation of the hot shower, that he clearly hadn’t heard his foster child’s entrance into the bathroom. Which was why he almost had a heart attack when he turned around to find the little demon hanging from the outside of the clear shower curtain by its tiny, sharp nails, eyes wide in panic.
After his heart resumed a steady pace, he bent down to look at her, eye-to-wild-eye. “You keep climbing things you shouldn’t and one day there will be no one to rescue you.”
He was sure the responding hiss was meant to be ferocious and intimidating, but given the pink-nosed, tiny, whiskered face it came out of, not so much. She hissed again when he just grinned, and started grappling with the curtain when he outright laughed, mangling it in the process.
He swore under his breath. “So, I’m already down one sweater, a shower curtain, and God knows what else you’ve dragged under the bed. I should just let you hang there all tangled up. At least I know where you are.”
However, given that the tiny thing had already had one pretty big fright that day, he sighed, shut off the hot, life-giving spray, and very carefully reached out for a towel. After a quick rubdown, he wrapped the towel around his hips, eased out from the other end of the shower, and grabbed a hand towel. “We’ll probably be adding this to my tab, as well.” He doubted Kirby’s guests would appreciate a bath towel that had doubled as a kitty straightjacket.
“Come on,” he said, doing pretty much the same thing he’d done when the kitten had been attached to the front of Kirby. “I know you’re not happy about it,” he told the now squalling cat. “I’m not all that amped up, either.” He looked at the shredded curtain once he’d de-pronged the demon from the front of it and shuddered to think of just how much damage it had done to the front of Kirby.
