crippling new low.
Mitch Goodwin sure could pick his times.
“You should have rung first,” she said. “I could have saved you the trip into town.”
The words came out more tersely than she’d intended, and Mitch’s gaze narrowed in response, although his expression lost none of its determination. A shiver rocketed up her spine. Standing on her porch in the pearl-edged winter sunlight, he should not have looked so steely hard. Hard eyes, hard face, hard body.
“You’re not finished packing?” he asked, hard voiced.
“I’m not moving.” Emily allowed herself one small luxury, one hand on Joshua’s head, one fleeting caress of his silky hair. “Not today, at least.”
“Because you lost your job?”
Emily’s hand stilled, although she had no reason for surprise. In a town such as Plenty news traveled fast, bad news even faster, and with all the cosmic forces currently conspiring against her, it made sense for Mitch to turn up on her doorstep…while she was at her most vulnerable.
“I didn’t only lose the job,” she said. There seemed little point in hiding the truth. “I also lost the room.”
“Emmy, did you really sock that moron?” Joshua asked.
While the father admonished the son for his language, she closed her eyes. Shook her head. “I didn’t sock anyone, sweetie.”
“But Uncle Zane said—”
“Too much,” Mitch finished. “He also said he’s seen you out walking a dog.”
“Was he right, Emmy? Have you got a dog?” Instantly diverted, Joshua fizzed with excitement. “Is he black and white like Mac? Didya know Uncle Zane’s keeping Mac ’cuz he’s grown ’tached? That’s what Daddy said. Is he a she? Is he big?”
Emily squatted down to four-year-old level and waited for him to draw breath. “He’s a bitzer, not as big as your Mac, but just as smart. His name is Digger.”
“Where is he?”
“In the yard out back.”
“Can I see him?” His eyes, so like his father’s, pleaded with hers. Oh, boy, she was in some trouble if he started asking for things other than viewing her gramps’s dog. “Please, Emmy?”
“Let’s see what your dad says.” She looked up past long denim-encased legs, hands in pockets— Don’t look there, Emily Jane!—and a sky-blue sweater she’d always fancied. Perhaps because of the way it stretched across his broad, beautiful chest. She swallowed to find her voice. “He’s used to kids. The Connorses next door took him after Gramps died, until they moved.”
“Okay, but make sure you…” Mitch’s voice petered out as Joshua sprinted across the porch and disappeared around the corner. “Is there a fence to negotiate?”
“There’s a gate. He’ll manage.”
Excited barking announced his success, and Emily was suddenly very conscious of being alone with Mitch. Despite the broad daylight, she felt more self-aware than the other night in the rain and dark. With every movement she felt the gentle slide of satin nightwear against her skin. Hoped he couldn’t see the effect of that stimulation through her thick robe. She folded her arms across her chest and tried to remember what they’d been talking about before the dog distraction.
“So, you didn’t sock the moron?”
Now she remembered. Unfortunately. A flush warmed her cheeks from the inside out. “I didn’t touch him, I only threatened to—”
“Did he touch you?”
Emily shook her head. “I don’t know what you heard, but I’m sure at least fifty percent is exaggerated.”
“Suppose you tell me which bits are true?”
Ahh, that protectiveness. She heard it in his grim voice, saw it in the tight set of his jaw and wished she didn’t find it quite so bone-meltingly appealing. She wanted to be strong, wanted to stand up for herself and develop some backbone, but every time she was put to the test lately, she managed to fail.
“This traveler was trying to chat me up in the bar. Harmless stuff,” she said quickly when his eyes darkened. “I didn’t think anything of it, but then he was waiting when I finished my shift and, well, I told him I wasn’t interested.”
“Did he touch you?” he asked again.
“No.” She shook her head, surprised by his vehemence. “It was nothing, Mitch, really.”
“If it was nothing, how did you come to lose your job?”
“Maybe I walked under a ladder or a black cat.” Emily faked a laugh. “It’s like bad luck’s following me around.”
“What happened, Emily?”
Mitch Goodwin in journalist mode made a formidable opponent. He kept on ferreting around, circling and digging. She might as well get it over with, the whole belittling truth. “The next day he told my boss that some money was taken from his room. I cleaned it, so I was the scapegoat.”
Mitch swore. “You were sacked on this jerk’s say-so? Because you rejected him?”
It sounded bad, put like that, but at the time she’d almost understood her boss’s dilemma. She hated it, but she’d understood. “His company does a lot of business with the hotel. I guess they didn’t want to lose it.”
“So you’re just going to take this?” Their eyes met and held, his as dark and angry as a winter storm.
“I know I should do something, and if it didn’t involve conflict, I would. But these last months with Gramps’s will and his family and all…”
“Chantal told me about that. I’m sorry, Em.”
She sighed and shook her head. “I’m just tired of fighting.”
Something shifted in his eyes and he nodded, as if with satisfaction. “I’m pleased to hear that.”
Then, before she realized what he was about, he strode along her porch, hunkered down in a way that threatened the seams of his jeans and lifted the first of her packed boxes.
When he started back the way he’d come, Emily jumped into his path. “What are you doing?”
His look was an undisguised challenge. “Are we fighting about this or not?”
“Yes.” She tugged at the box, but he held firm. “No.” She released her grip and a heavy sigh. “I don’t know.”
There was something incredibly undignified, not to mention futile, about playing tug-of-war with a man nine inches taller and at least forty pounds heavier. Especially while dressed in one’s nightwear. Emily lifted a hand to tuck a loose tress of hair behind her ear and felt him looking. Not at her hair. Face flushing, she pulled the gaping sides of her robe back together and tightened the sash at her waist.
