Third Time's a Charm (Holland Springs #3)(48)

This was not the reaction he’d been expecting from her. He would’ve thought she’d yell at him or kick him out of the house by now. Jason Everett had been right about one thing: Rose was an exception to every rule.

“I can’t.”

“You can,” he said, leaning his hip against the counter. “I’ll kick out the first asshole that so much as looks at you wonky-eyed.”

“It’s not that,” she said after long moments of hesitation.

Relief filled him. For a dark moment, he thought she had a date. “Fantastic. I’m going as a stunningly handsome—and let’s be perfectly honest—fashionable man in black. You?”

“A date.”

He wobbled his head from side to side, pushing out his lips a little and scratching his chin. “I reckon I can change my costume. Perhaps go as a bowl and carry you around all night, shall I?” He’d rather hoped she would have picked something sexier. There had to be a law somewhere that said women had to dress in the most erotic way possible on the thirty-first of October.

She shook her head, her pretty curls dancing around her head. “No, I’m not going as a date. I have a date.”

His mouth dropped. He couldn’t help it. Severe jealousy stabbed him in the heart along with the panic of losing her. No, not her, the opportunity to find the right damn spring. If she was distracted by another man, then she couldn’t spend time with him and he couldn’t earn back her trust. “With whom?”

“Gabriel Edwards.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why?” Her stubborn chin tilted as she crossed her arms. “He’s too good for someone like me?”

Sasha silently counted to ten and then did it twice more before he answered. “He’s nothing like what you deserve.” The temperature in the store suddenly felt as if it had gotten twenty degrees cooler. He shivered, but Rose didn’t appear to be affected at all. In fact, her pretty eyes fairly blazed at him.

“You mean someone like you—a liar and a user? That’s what you think I deserve?”

“Don’t twist my words.” His breath came out in steady white puffs of air as he spoke.

“Says the man who twists everything to his advantage.”

If only she knew what a disadvantage his entire life was. If only she could see his mother, laying helpless and colorless in a hospital with a gun in her mouth. If , if, if.

Rage filled him, heating his body until the goose bumps that had begun to dot his skin disappeared and his hands clenched into fists. He jerked his gaze around the room until he found the thermostat and strode to it, nearly breaking the plastic tab as he shoved it to seventy–five.

“Leave my things alone,” she said, ducking under his arm and wresting his hand away.

The back of her sweater collided with the front of his shirt. He cupped her shoulders to steady them both, but it only served to throw him off-balance. He had the insane notion to sweep her hair aside and drink in the jasmine perfume she wore behind her ears. To nibble on her neck until breathy moans filled the air.

Another blast of cold air hit him and he dropped his hands as if he’d been scalded. “While your Holland hocus-pocus seems to scare everyone else, might I remind you that not only am I wholly unimpressed, but you’ve Ivy to consider.”

She stiffened her spine. “And let me remind you, Alexander, that who I choose to spend time with is none of your concern.”

He made an inarticulate noise and turned on his heel, marching to the door he didn’t remember leaving open, and out of her store.

***

The last person Sasha expected to see sitting on the sofa with Rose was Gabriel Edwards. Her bloody date to his party. His party. And the son of a bitch was holding Ivy.

The baby stared at the man holding her in his arms, her little mouth puckered. His clever girl was not happy.

Rose gave Gabriel one of her rare smiles and it took all of Sasha’s self-control not to walk in there and bodily throw Gabriel out of the house. Breathing deeply, pressed the heel of his hand against his chest and rubbed. The last time she’d smiled at him he’d run like a first-rate coward out of her house.

Walking up behind them, he cleared his throat. Ivy looked up at him, her puckered lips spreading into a toothless smile while Rose and Gabriel jumped apart like teenagers caught making out by their parents.

Sasha leaned over and plucked Ivy out of Gabriel’s arms before anyone could say a word. Ivy raised her brows and he kissed her on the nose. “Hullo, darling.”

Rose looked up at him, her eyes narrowing. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Sasha gently bounced Ivy and smiled at her, ignoring Rose’s irritated expression. “Has Aunt Rose fed you? I’m starving.” He walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, looking for a bottle of formula to heat.

Rose’s footsteps sounded behind him.

“I’ve already fed her and you can’t just waltz in here like—”

“Like I live here?” he supplied, hitting the door with his elbow and turning around.

Briefly, Rose impersonated a fish gasping for air, then held out her arms. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to hug him. However, she wasn’t wielding a knife in order to cut out his heart and feed it to Blackbeard. Speaking of which, where was that damn cat? Usually the beast tried to trip Sasha as soon as he walked in the door.