Still Not Over You(11)

He shoots me a fiercer glower. “And the security team won’t get here fast enough for them.”

He jerks his chin toward the windowsill – toward the two near-identical slate gray, velvet-furred cats sprawled there, both staring attentively out the window at the small, distant figures of the firefighters still working around the beach house.

Now, I get it, and I kind of wish I didn’t.

Landon could be a hero in one of my books.

Snarly asshole with a soft spot for his pets.

And just like one of my heroines, I’m going all wibbly inside over it. Sometimes, it's the clichés that get a girl when she isn't looking.

Damn, I know this trope. I write it. I should know better than to fall prey to it.

Hell, I make my heroines smarter than this, don't I? And I’m smarter than my characters!

Then again, old history and dangerous men have a way of making a girl weak, too. Pair them up with a bad cliché, and it's a drama cocktail on the rocks.

I keep my eyes on the cats. Not on him. I feel like if I look at him, he’ll be able to tell all the weird stuff going through my head. “Well,” I say neutrally. “I mean, taking care of the cats isn’t a huge problem, I guess.”

“Good.” It’s harsh and tight like he’s back in the military and I’m one of his soldiers, and he’s just finished detailing a mission. “You’ll stay in the guest room. Don’t get me wrong, Kenna, this is a trial run. Just for the weekend. We’ll see how you do.”

Right. Trial run.

Because the Landon who screamed my name while tearing himself up to get to me is gone, and cold, angry, hateful Landon is back.

And cold, angry, hateful Landon can’t be caught dead actually giving ground. Especially not to me.

I close my eyes. “Trial run,” I repeat, trying to force the words around the knot in my throat. “Got it. Promise I won’t let you down.”

“I don’t want your promises. Just feed and water the cats, and try not to let this house catch fire.”

I wince. I know he’s not deliberately trying to say it’s my fault, but right now, everything hurts way more than it should. Even if I wasn’t in the fire, the whole thing is catching up to me in a rush of trauma. Cold shock.

My emotions are all poisoned on one raw nerve, and he’s scraping on it just by breathing in my space. Which is why I shouldn’t say anything else. Just accept it, and try to hunker down for some sleep.

I already know it’s a bad idea to open my mouth, and yet I do anyway, asking, “Since when do you have cats?”

Silence. It’s an innocent question, one that shouldn’t mean anything, but I can feel the tension bristling.

I risk a glance at him, and there’s nothing there. I see flesh, I see the shape of a man, I see a hard, forbidding stare, but there’s nothing there to make him a person anymore. It’s all walled away inside, completely shut down, and the only thing I get from him is a sense of expectation that says he doesn’t want me to be here.

Fine. I slide off the barstool, turning my back on him. “I’ll go. Better see if my stuff survived the fire, and get my other things from the car.”

“Guest room’s the second door to the right off the stairs. I’ll be gone by tomorrow afternoon,” he grinds out.

I start to answer, but there’s a sudden rattle, a hard slam. I look up in time to see the chair he’d crashed into toppling back into place, and his back as it disappears through the open arched doorway into the rest of the house.

How does this situation just keep getting worse and worse?

I stand there in the kitchen for long moments, heartsick and heartsore, then drift over to the cats and let them sniff my fingers. “Hey, little guys.” I offer a weak smile. “Guess we’re spending the weekend together. Maybe at least you’ll like me.”

One of them meows. Loudly.

As in, so loud it almost hurts, but there’s something about it that startles a laugh from me, especially when the loud one butts up against my hand, followed by the other swarming in for attention.

Suddenly I’m super busy. Two hands, two cats, and if there was a third, I’d be in trouble because they want all the love right now. I spend a few minutes finding soft spots under their jaws. Then that little sweetness right behind their ears that makes them melt.

When Landon’s willing to speak to me again, I’ll have to ask their names.

Thinking of Landon, though, sobers me up. Reminds me I should get moving. I don’t want to piss him off more by coming back to the house late enough to wake him when he’s probably got a busy morning ahead.

I let myself out through the kitchen door and head down the path to the beach house. The flames are completely gone, but the firemen are still moving in and out of the house, probably checking for structural damage. I hope it’s safe to go inside. Doesn’t look like the bedroom or living room where I’d left my things took too much of a hit, though I hope my stuff doesn’t reek like smoke.

My heart sinks just looking at it, even though it isn't mine. The whole place will need big repairs.

I’m trying to figure out who I should talk to for permission to go in, when I overhear two of the firefighters talking.

“Anything we should note on the report?” one of them asks, glancing at his partner, a woman with soot smeared down her cheeks and dotted on her baggy, oversized fire-retardant uniform.