Page 32 of Red Hot Roaster

I flipped to my left side, snuggled under the comforter and squeezed my eyes shut. Color this picturewoman snoozing.

It didn’t work.

First, I couldn’t actually fall back to sleep because I’d restarted the whole thinking-about-Rafe obsession.

Second, Pirate was huffing and grunting right in my face, poking his muzzle on mine.

Third, something was making a dog-awful metallicscreech, screeech, screeeechright outside my bedroom window. The occasionalfuckorshitconvinced me it wasn’t a giant crow or squirrel trying to break in.

Wait a minute.My bedroom was on the second floor.

I sat bolt upright, swinging my legs to the floor and nudging the pup out of the way. Sliding over to plaster myself next to the window, I pulled back the curtain and peered out.

I squealed—not ashamed to admit it—and jumped back, letting the curtain go. Anotherfuuuck, except louder and longer this time. Luckily, no new sounds followed, likeloony hot guy falling to his doom on my thorny rose beds. That was, until my own loonball started barking.

Rafe had been right outside my window on a ladder, stretching overhead to clean out the gutter with a long-handled scoopy thing. Good thing he had nerves of steel, or he could’ve pitched over backward at my sorta-scream.

But hang on a minute. What the fido was he doing up there in the first place?

I moved to stand in front of the window and threw open the curtains. Rafe was continuing to scrape at the gutter, dragging out leaves to fall in clumps to the ground.

Hmmm. Guess it’d been a while since I’d done that. Or Mom or Finn or who knows?

I shook myself, undid the window latch and pulled up the lower half. He paused and looked down at me. At least I didn’t say, “What are you doing?”

However, I did say something only marginally better, “Why are you cleaning my gutters?”

Did he answer me? Nope.

Instead, he said, “Nice T-shirt” and went back to work.

I looked down and realized I had on my XXL sleep T-shirt that hung down to my knees, covering my private bits.

It readCan I Pet Your Dog?

“Rafe,” I started, but he interrupted me.

“Rose, I probably should’ve checked, but I thought you were already up and over at the café. I cleaned out Pete’s gutters yesterday and asked if I could borrow his ladder for your house since yours looked stuffed full.”

He kept babbling, which was pretty rare, so I let him go for it.

“I know this probably falls in the category of asking before doing—or telling, kinda like the beach trip. Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to assume you weren’t going to do this yourself.”

I held up my hand, palm out—the universalstop talkingsign. “Rafe. Please don’t apologize. I had completely forgotten about cleaning our gutters, and a lot of other house stuff for the last couple of years. This falls in the category of being super thoughtful. Thank you.”

He rumbled something like, “Oh. Okay, then. You’re welcome,” without looking at me.

“I’m going to pull on some clothes and come help you,” I informed him. He turned his head and frowned at me. “No, no, not on the ladder. I’ll rake the leaves and put them in bags. After that, I’ll fix us some coffee and breakfast—maybe treat you to my infamous dog-head pancakes. Do you like eggs? I make a mean puffy scrambled dish.”

I was the one babbling now, and Rafe was staring at me. I turned and stumbled into Pirate who was parked right behind me. He had that big loopy grin that Labs get, and his tongue lolled out. No doubt, he was expecting Princess to join us for breakfast.

As if dogs could have expectations like humans. As if.

I turned back, slammed the window down and closed the curtains. Before I could say anything more.

Busted.

Rafe caught me in the act and paused to quirk an eyebrow my way. Of course, my face burst into flames at once. I was surprised I didn’t set my hair on fire.

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