In the Weeds (Lovelight #2)(25)

I swallow around it.

“I’ll show you your room.” I snap the refrigerator door closed and collect all the scattered pieces of myself. It’s one night, maybe, and then she’ll be on her way. Off to the next adventure, the next exciting thing. I’m a stopping point. I’m barely a stopping point. One she never even wanted to have.

I need to remember that.

I slip out of the kitchen and down the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. The house is all one level, the upstairs a giant, unrenovated storage space with ancient floorboards that creak beneath the slightest pressure. Nessa uses it for dance rehearsal sometimes, when her usual studio is rented or occupied. I thought she was going to come right through the ceiling the last time she was here, the gentle pitter patter of her feet interrupted by booming shakes as she practiced jump after jump. The cats had not been thrilled.

I push open the door for the first room on the left and flick on the light with my elbow, grabbing Comet from her place in my neck just for something to do with my hands. I rub her head with my knuckles and poke my head into the attached bath to make sure Nova or Harper haven’t left a heap of wet towels clumped in the corner. All of the bedrooms have an attached bathroom. It’s a remnant, I think, from when this oversized house used to be a lodge.

It’s no wonder it went out of business. The only things I’ve seen to hunt around here are a couple of squirrels and a wayward deer. A fox that Stella’s named Guinevere.

“Are you running a bed and breakfast on the side?”

Evelyn collapses onto the bed with a happy little sigh and I immediately avert my gaze to the trunk full of extra sheets and blankets at the foot of the bed.

“Some days it feels like it,” I mutter. If one of my sisters isn't here crashing in a spare room, it’s Layla, working too late at the bakery and too damn tired to drive herself home. Or Luka, saying he needs guy time and pretending he’s actually going to stay the entire night instead of wandering back to Stella’s before midnight. Or Charlie, Stella’s half-brother, snoring so loud the rafters shake with it.

“Blankets are in the trunk,” I tell her. I grab Vixen from the back of my neck where she’s valiantly trying to climb to the top of my head. Cupid leaps from me to the bed and kneads her little tiny pink paws into the pillow. Evelyn reaches out a hand and smoothes her palm down the kitten’s back. “Spare towels in the bathroom. You’re welcome to anything you find.”

I feel awkward, uncomfortable, kicked out of orbit and floundering to find my way back. I clear my throat twice. “I’ll be up and out early, but help yourself to whatever you need.”

“I won’t be in your space long,” she says quietly. “Jenny is supposed to ring the phone tree tomorrow. Find me a place to stay.”

A lot of good that will do. The phone tree is easily the most useless thing in this town. I ignore the flip in my stomach and the spike of protest that flares in response. I’m confused by the reaction. I have no reason to want her to stay any longer than she needs to, but I’ve always been a bit out of my mind where Evelyn is concerned.

“Alright,” is what I settle on, collecting the cats in my arms and turning to leave. I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I stay in this bedroom a second longer. If I took two steps forward, my knees would knock into hers. I could place my hand next to her hip and lean over her, pin her down to the mattress with my hips. She’s nothing but temptation splayed out on the bed like that, windswept and warm.

I picked this bedroom for a reason. It’s the very furthest from mine on the opposite side of the house.

“Beckett?”

I glance up from where I’ve been trying to untangle Vixen’s claws from my sleeve cuff and focus on Evelyn, sitting in a wedge of moonlight that filters in through the window. She looks tired, her hair beginning to slip from her ponytail, her white button down wrinkled with travel, one of the sleeves half rolled and the other caught at her elbow. She is deliciously unraveled, a little blurred around the edges, and I only want to mess her up a little bit more.

She gazes up at me, and I shove the urge away.

“Thank you,” she says, voice whisper soft.

I breathe in deep through my nose.

“It’s no problem.”

It won’t be. She’ll stay here, she’ll find what she needs, and she’ll be on her way. It’ll be fine.

I’ll be fine.





CHAPTER SIX





BECKETT





Dawn brings with it a pounding headache and a storm cloud of foreboding. I take back what I said last night.

It is a problem.

I am not fine.

I didn’t sleep for shit. I jolted awake at every floorboard creak, every scratch of a tree branch against the window, every single sound the house made as it settled around me. When I finally did drift to sleep, it was to dreams of Evelyn standing in front of that window in the living room, the moonlight on her bare skin, those dimples at the base of her spine tempting me. I dreamt of my hands smoothing around her hips and my lips trailing up the column of her neck.

I wake up frustrated, desire pounding through my bloodstream. I groan and drag myself out of bed and force myself into the coldest shower I can manage. The last thing Evelyn needs is me thinking about her like that while she’s working through something.