Gin Fling (Bootleg Springs, #5)(12)

I dozed off, imagining a fat bear pawing through my box of academic journals.





*



I woke up to a fierce frown and green, green eyes.

My first thought was bear! Flailing, I rolled right off the couch cushion.

But I didn’t hit the floor. Somewhere in my nap-addled brain, it registered that my new safety net was a pair of hands.

“What is wrong with you?” Jonah grumbled, rolling me back on the couch. I flopped gracelessly like a walrus.

“A lot of things. You don’t really want to know. Are there bears here?” I shouldn’t have flailed. Research recommended playing dead in a bear attack.

“Bears?”

“I thought you were a bear when I woke up. Did you know that there are Timber Rattlesnakes and Northern Copperheads in this part of the state? That probably means there’s bears too.”

He was making me nervous. Looking at me all grumpy and confused. And so close. I could reach right out and touch him. Not that I would. I was an academic, not an idiot.

“You were moaning in your sleep,” he said, ignoring my bear question.

“That happens sometimes.” I sat up, managing to keep my old lady noises to myself.

“Your stuff is still outside,” he pointed out. I felt like he was running through a list of my most immediate flaws. Sleep moans and disorganized porch hoarding.

My back sang the first few bars of “O Fortuna.” “Yeah, thanks. I’ll get it.” I stepped stiffly around him and headed for the door.

“One month,” he said.

I paused. “What?”

“Scarlett said in a month she could move one of us to another rental.”

That wasn’t so bad. I could spend a month staring at Jonah’s sweaty back muscles. “We can handle a month, can’t we?”

“I guess we don’t have a choice,” he said, clearly not thrilled at the idea.

“That’s the spirit!”





*



“Do you seriously have to cook dinner right now?” Jonah growled as I ducked under his arm to get at the oven.

The kitchen was small under the best of circumstances. But put two adults intent on cooking at the same time while avoiding each other in it and it became a shoebox.

“Since you’re the one with the problem, maybe you should cook your dinner later.” I pointed out the logic of the situation.

“I don’t have a problem,” he argued.

Jonah Bodine was turning out to be as temperamental as his half-brother Gibson.

“Are you always so moody, or is it situational?” I reached into the oven and flipped my chicken nuggets over, blowing on my fingers. “Ouch.”

He grabbed my hand and slapped a pair of tongs into it. “Use the right tools for the job.” It wasn’t his intended effect, I was sure, but I felt a little shiver of biochemical reaction work its way up my spine.

Jonah was not my type.

I liked the academic, glasses-wearing, “let me tell you about my research” type. But the fact that I was reacting to Mr. Frowny Jock on such a physical level was… interesting.

“Thanks.” I flipped the rest of the nuggets without scorching off my fingerprints.

“I’m not moody,” he grumbled, pushing the handle of the frying pan out of my way when I stood up. He was sautéing vegetables. A whole bunch of them. I sniffed at them with suspicion. I’d been born a picky eater. And, to my parents' undying embarrassment, I was still a picky eater at thirty. I kept waiting for this adventurous palate that everyone assured me would come. But sushi grossed me out. Mushrooms made me gag. And don’t even get me started on lunch meat. Or mayonnaise.

“Are those nuggets shaped like dinosaurs?”

“They are.” I beamed at him, rewarding him for his attempt at polite conversation. I could spend a month positively reinforcing him.

“That’s not food.”

I looked at the cookie sheet. “Of course it’s food. I cook it. I put it in my mouth. It’s food.”

“Food is fuel with nutrition.”

“It’s meat. Meat is nutritious.” At least I assumed it was.

Jonah looked at me like I was the dullest crayon in the box.

“Look. We don’t have to be friends, but we don’t have to be enemies,” I told him.

“You are the enemy,” he said.

I could have corrected him. But his attitude was annoying. I didn’t care if he liked me, I decided. I wasn’t here to make friends or develop a crush. I was here to work. And maybe I would take just the tiniest bit of pleasure in letting Jonah act like an idiot for a while.

“Do you really think your sister would make you share a house with a sworn enemy?”

“I haven’t known her that long. It’s a possibility.”

My annoyance inched up into irked territory. “I’m not your enemy. Let’s just be adults about this. How bad could the next month possibly be?”





7





Jonah





It was horrible.

The house that had seemed reasonably sized just days before was getting smaller by the minute.

She was everywhere.