admit you were taking care of your sister’s kids?”
“Maybe I didn’t want to disillusion you.”
“Into thinking that you had a heart in addition to your hormones?”
He shrugged. “We both know that our relationship is...safer—” he decided “—when you don’t have any illusions about me being a nice guy.”
“Don’t worry—discovering that you spent a weekend with your nieces isn’t going to change my opinion of you.”
“Good to know,” he said.
“Although I am curious about why they’re here—and where your sister is.”
“Long story.”
“And why haven’t you been answering your phone?” she asked.
“Because I can’t find it,” he admitted.
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “I remember answering a text message when I was scooping up ice cream for the girls last night, but I haven’t seen it since then.”
“I assume you’ve looked in the kitchen?”
He hesitated, just a fraction of a second. “Yeah.”
“That didn’t sound very convincing.”
“The kitchen is a bit of a mess right now,” he admitted. “But I’m hoping the phone will turn up as I clear things away.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” she offered, already moving toward the kitchen.
Josh followed, enjoying the sexy sway of her hips—and nearly ran right into the back of her when she halted abruptly in the doorway.
She slowly turned to face him. “This is a bit of a mess?”
“I didn’t have a chance to clear away breakfast dishes before it was time for lunch,” he admitted.
“But you have a dishwasher,” she pointed out.
“Still filled with clean dishes from yesterday.”
She shook her head despairingly. “I’ll put those away while you get the rest of this chaos organized.”
He should have refused her offer of help, but the truth was, he was grateful. He was also appreciative of the fact that every time she bent forward, he could see down her top. Because Tristyn Garrett might be a pain in his ass a lot of the time, but she had a body that seemed to have been designed to fuel male fantasies.
She removed the cutlery basket and set it on the counter, then paused. He gestured to the drawer on the other side of the dishwasher, assuming that she didn’t know where to put the clean forks and knives. But she made no move to open it.
“Um...Josh.”
He immediately shifted his gaze from the nicely rounded curve of her butt to her face, hoping like hell she hadn’t seen him looking where he had no business looking. “What?”
She lifted something out of the basket and held it up. “I found your phone.”
While his response was a harshly muttered four-letter expletive, Tristyn had to press her lips together so that she didn’t laugh. Because it wasn’t funny.
Well, it was kind of funny.
Because Josh’s phone was as essential to him as the air he breathed into his lungs and the blood that flowed through his veins. A fact that was evidenced by the apoplectic expression on his face.
He snatched the device out of her hand and marched purposefully down the hallway. Curious to see how he would handle this incident, Tristyn followed, her steps faltering when she realized she was in the doorway of the master bedroom.
Josh’s bedroom.
Part of her wanted to turn away, to let his private sanctuary remain private. Another part urged her to take a peek. That part won.
Her gaze moved around the space, noting the enormous king-size platform bed centered on the far wall and flanked by a set of night tables that matched the wardrobe, long dresser and entertainment stand. She glanced up at the ceiling—nope, no mirrors. So maybe he wasn’t quite the degenerate she’d always believed him to be.
And while there was no denying this room was a man’s domain, the decor was simple but inviting. Walls painted in a pale neutral tone that reminded her of the sand on a pristine Caribbean beach; pale floors that she guessed were bamboo and that contrasted nicely with the dark walnut finish of the classic mission-style furniture she recognized from the Garrett catalog.
Usually a man’s domain, she clarified, as her attention shifted to the three girls snuggled together on the bed, propped up on a mountain of pillows against the headboard. Emily—the one who hadn’t wanted to watch the scary movie—was on the side closest to the door. In the middle was Hanna—a preschooler, Tristyn guessed, with big blue eyes focused on the screen and uneven blond pigtails sprouting out of the sides of her head. On the far side was Charlotte—obviously the oldest sibling, also blond and blue-eyed, wearing ripped jeans and a black T-shirt with some kind of picture on the front that Tristyn couldn’t see because the girl’s arms were folded across her chest in a posture that she recognized as pure unhappy female attitude.
None of them paid any attention to their uncle. It was as if they weren’t even aware that he was facing them from the foot of the bed. But that might be because they were all mesmerized by the animated feature playing on a television screen that was probably ten inches bigger than the one Tristyn had in her living room.
Josh scooped up the remote and thumbed a button to pause the movie, which finally succeeded in drawing the girls’ eyes to him.
Charlotte opened her mouth as if to say something, then saw the phone in Josh’s hand, slid a quick glance toward the sister snuggled up beside her and closed it again without saying a word.
“Anyone?” Josh prompted.
“I talk,” Hanna offered, crawling to the end of the mattress and reaching her hand up for the phone.
“That would be great, wouldn’t it?” he said, his gaze moving over each of them in turn. “But someone put it in the dishwasher.”
His littlest niece nodded solemnly. “Make it c’ean.”
Tristyn saw a muscle in his jaw flex. “It didn’t need to go in the dishwasher to be cleaned,” he said through gritted teeth. “It was already clean.”
This time Hanna shook her head. “I dwop ice cweam on it.”
Josh blew out a frustrated breath and scrubbed his free hand over his face.
“You did say that you didn’t want to find sticky fingerprints on any of your things,” Charlotte pointed out
