Page 21 of When Annika Met Thom

Three

Thom unlocked the door to the apartment as quietly as he could. It was dark inside, but Cerberus was waiting for him, right inside the door. He patted her and got her leash, then led her out of the apartment. Annika had to be asleep, judging by how still the apartment was.

Maybe he could feed Cerberus in the bedroom to keep from waking up Annika. He spent their walk in the park trying to figure out the logistics of that, since the dog food was in the kitchen. It was hard to imagine he could be quiet enough. Cerberus had a tendency to get pretty excited about dinner, especially on nights when it was delayed because of his shift at work.

It was hard to ignore an excited Great Dane.

He hoped Annika was really tired.

But by the time Thom unlocked the apartment door again, the lights were on inside. Annika was sitting up on the couch. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, looking like spun copper, and her eyes were wide.

Not crying but close. Worse, her nightgown revealed that she’d won the freckle lottery. She had so many on her chest and shoulders that they overlapped. Thom gave her a wave and hung up his coat, turning away from the sight of temptation and trying to steel himself for whatever was ahead.

“He’s not coming tomorrow, is he?” Her voice was bleak, a sound that predictably weakened Thom’s resistance.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, keeping his back turned as he got out the kibble. Cerberus barked with joy, flinging back her head so that one of her ears stayed inside out. She turned a quick circle, making a huge ruckus, and he couldn’t help but smile at her antics. He measured kibble into her bowl and placed it on her stool before she nudged him out of the way to start eating.

“I think you do know,” Annika said, her tone hard. Thom glanced over to find her arms folded across her chest. She looked stubborn and sweet and as her gaze bored into his, his defenses crumbled.

“I can guess,” Thom said. “But I don’t know.”

“Guess then.” There was a challenge in her voice. She’d been thinking and reached the fairly inevitable conclusion.

Bonus: he got to do the dirty work.

Thom wasn’t going to step up for that without a fight.

“It seems unlikely,” he conceded gruffly.

“Who is she?”

Thom grimaced. “That isn’t my story to tell.”

“But you’re the only one here to tell it.”

He shrugged. “Some girl, but you know that already.”

“Name.” Annika bit off the word like a drill sergeant.

What the hell. Maybe one detail would satisfy her.

It wouldn’t have satisfied any other woman Thom had ever met but it was worth a try. “Cerise,” he admitted.

Annika made a face. “Where’d he meet her?”

Thom turned to the fridge to get the milk. He kept his back to Annika as he poured himself a glass. He sucked so badly at lying to people. In the moment that his glass was full, he wondered why the hell he was bothering to try to cover Leo’s butt. “At a bar,” he said without turning around. “Just like all the others.”

He froze in the midst of lifting the glass to his mouth, realizing just a little bit too late how much he’d said.

There was no chance Annika would miss it.

“Allthe others?” she echoed and he glanced over his shoulder to see her closing like an avenging fury. “How many?”

“I’ve only lived here two months.”

She stopped in front of him and glared up at him, her eyes blazing. “How. Many.”

Thom tried to appeal to her for mercy. It was a long shot, no matter how he looked at it. On the upside, Annika looked amazing, all flashing eyes and flying hair. And freckles on every bit of skin he could see, which was probably more than she realized. He glanced down at her feet, unable to help himself and nearly roared with desire. Knowing it was against the odds, he tried to get the genie back in the jar. Damn. “I can’t tell you.”

---