Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters #1)(13)

His eyebrows flew up. They were the same amber-copper shade as his hair, so they stood out starkly against his pale skin. “Is that right?”

Time to change the subject. Otherwise, he’d start asking questions, and she’d answer out of politeness, and then they’d be sitting there discussing her medical history as if it were a topic as mundane as the weather.

“Do you know,” she said, sinking her icy fingers into her troublesome cat friend’s fur, “I think I might be stuck after all.”

He folded his arms. Considering his height, the breadth of his shoulders, and the beaten-up black leather jacket he wore, the overall effect was slightly intimidating. “Thought you said you weren’t?”

“Don’t be a pain,” she huffed, then immediately regretted it. The problem was, she was in pain, which tended to shorten her fuse. Her joints were stiff and aching, her lower back was screaming, and during physical catastrophes, her politeness was always the first function to go.

But Red, for once, didn’t snap back. Instead he squinted up at her and asked slowly, “You okay?”

She stiffened. “Yes.”

“Are you hurt?”

Hurt? No. Hurting? Always. “Are you going to help me or not?” she demanded.

He rolled his eyes. “You do know how to charm a fella.” But he unfolded his arms and pushed off his jacket, clearly preparing for action. The leather landed at his feet like a dead thing, which she supposed it technically was. Unless it was fake.

“Is that real?” she asked, nodding toward it.

He arched an eyebrow again—the show-off—and approached the tree in his T-shirt and jeans. “That’s what you’re worried about right now?”

“I’m the sort of person who climbs trees to rescue cats. Clearly, I care deeply about animal welfare.”

“You a vegetarian?”

Well. He had her there. “Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“I’m working on it.” Ethical consumption had been easier at home, where they had a cook.

He grinned up at her, grabbed a branch, and started climbing. “Right. You only eat veal on Sundays, that sort of thing?”

“Certainly,” she quipped. “Which is no worse than doing drugs on Sundays.”

“Chloe. I don’t do drugs on Sundays.”

There; he’d used her name. Now was the perfect time to follow suit and use his. The one everyone else called him, not Redford or Mr. Morgan. But she felt so awkward about it that she couldn’t figure out what to say, and in the end, after an uncomfortable pause, she …

Well. She simply blurted out, “Red.”

And that was it.

He hauled himself up another branch—he was much quicker and more graceful than she’d been, the awful man—and cocked his head. “Yeah?”

Oh dear. “Um … do you know this cat?”

His climb continued. She tried not to stare at his hands and his forearms and the way his biceps bunched beneath his shirt as he lifted himself up. “Why,” he asked, “would I know that cat?”

“I’m not sure. You are in a position of authority in the local community.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “I change lightbulbs for old ladies and send out rent reminders.”

“Sounds like authority to me.”

The cat, which had been purring quietly, chose that moment to miaow again. Chloe scratched it between the ears. She appreciated the vocal support.

“Whatever you say,” Red muttered, and then he was directly beneath her. Proximity to him unnerved her more and more every time they met. Which might have something to do with the mountains of guilt she carried after spying on him repeatedly.

At least she knew for sure, now, that he hadn’t seen her last night. Because if he had, he probably would’ve left her to die in this tree.

“So, is it real?” she asked, mostly to divert her own train of thought.

“Is what real?” he shot back, sounding more than a little exasperated. His voice was gravelly, its cadence oddly musical, his words flowing together in an elision of consonants and shortening of vowels. He sounded as dynamic as he looked.

“The leather.”

“No, Chloe. Don’t worry. I’m not running around wearing a dead cow all the time.” He reached up from the branch beneath her and said, “Can you hold my hand?”

Could she? Possibly. Should she? Debatable. His touch might stop her heart like an electric shock. Then again, she was hardly in a position to refuse. “Let me secure the cat,” she mumbled.

“Fuck the cat. It’s playing you like a violin.”

Her gasp tasted of ice and pollution. “How dare you? This cat is an angel. Look at it. Look!”

He looked. His eyes were pale green, like spring pears. He studied the cat thoroughly before saying in very firm tones, “That thing could climb down any time it wanted. It’s having you on.”

“You’re a heartless man.”

“Me?” he sputtered, as shocked as if she’d accused him of being Queen Victoria. “I’m heartless?”

She drew back, affronted. “Are you trying to suggest that I’m the heartless one?”

“Well, you did—”

“Please don’t bring up the post room incident.”