Page 3 of Frosted and Sliced

“What’s wrong with your brother that you think he needs your protection so bad?” he returned.

“Nothing is wrong with him; he’s perfect. Some of us here just have perfect abs.”

Georgie didn’t understand what was happening. She hadn’t consciously clocked his rock-hard abs, but they must have made an impression for her to mention them in the middle of berating him. Her interactions with men consisted of her brother and his goofy friends, who had always treated her as their surrogate little sister. None of that had prepared her for this stranger, who saved her one minute and poked at her weak spots the next. She returned to the inn, her safe space. “The point is that I assigned the rooms. You can’t go willy-nilly changing that.”

“What room did you willy-nilly assign to me?” he asked, tipping his head in question.

“The front room in the middle.” She pointed down the hall.

He shook his head. “No good. I need to be able to escape easily, in case of emergency.”

“All the rooms are on the second floor,” she told him.

He blinked.

“You can’t escape from any of them,” she added, because he seemed not to comprehend.

“Of course you can, and I took the one with the best route.”

“No.” She shook her head.

“No what?” he said.

“No, you can’t escape from a second story room. It’s dangerous.”

He laughed, the cad. “Come on.” He stood and put down a hand to her.

She stared at it. “What? No. I have stuff to do to get ready for my guests.”

“I am your guest, and I demand that you watch me escape from that room. When I’m gone, it’ll be part of the security issues you need to address.”

She stared up at him, perplexed. “You’re going to break out of my guest room to show me how wrong it is that you can break out of my guest room?”

“Yes, because if I can get out, someone else can get in,” he said.

“Exactly who do you think will scale a two-story building to break in here?” she demanded.

His eyes went sort of fuzzy, doing the thousand yard stare she’d only ever seen in movies. “You never know.” He jangled his hand impatiently in her direction. “Now come on.”

Deciding agreement was the better part of valor for the moment, Georgie put her hand in his, allowing him to yank her up. She yelped when he gave a hard tug that catapulted her airborne a few inches before she landed back on her feet.

Once she was up, he dropped her hand and stalked—actually stalked, like a puma—to his room, the room he’d stolen for himself, and disappeared inside. Georgie came inside like a stranger, pausing tentatively in the entryway. Somehow the room already smelled masculine and not like the citrus carpet spray she’d used before she vacuumed. “Hello,” she said, because there was no one there. The room was empty, besides a lone army duffel. “Rambo?” she tried, but no answer. Or she thought there was no answer. It was possible he answered and she couldn’t hear or comprehend him.

Tentatively she went over to the window and peered down, but there was no sign of him there, either. When a hand touched her shoulder, she yelped and whipped around, backing up a step so she was in danger of hitting the window, possibly breaking itand plummeting to her death. The man once again caught her, righted her, and pulled her forward a step until she was clear of the window.

“Ta-da,” he said, and she didn’t know if he said it in reference to his escape or this latest rescue.

“Where did you go?” she asked.

“Out the window.” He pointed to the closed window.

“No, you didn’t,” she said.

“Yes, I did.”

“No. I got here literally one second behind you, and this room was empty. You must have hidden, waited for me to turn my back, and then stepped out.”

“How would I have done that? Better yet why?”

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