Page 84 of Always Meant for You
“Can we use pink for my ideas?” she asks.
I frown. “What ideas?”
“Get another whiteboard and we’ll write them down. I know you’ve got an extra. Probably three. And grab another pink marker. I’m sure you’ve got a box in reserve.”
She’s right on both counts.
I look down, watching drops of water pool at our feet. “We’re soaked, Mabel. How are we going to work like this?”
“Change into something dry and grab a T-shirt for me.”
“Why don’t you go home and get one?”
“No, that’ll break the rhythm. I’ve got ideas and I need to get them out.”
“Any T-shirt I have won’t be vintage couture,” I say.
A ghost of a grin curves her lips. “I’ll survive.”
But will I?
I set the basket with the sleeping goat next to the couch, duck into my room, and strip off the wet clothes, trading them for athletic shorts and a faded tee. From the drawer, I grab a shirt for Mabel—plain, oversized, nothing fitted.
I step into the hallway.
“I’m in the bathroom, Cal,” she calls over the spray of water. “I’m rinsing off. Give me a second.”
I swallow hard. Christ, she’s in my shower.
“Okay,” I eek out, like I’m going through puberty.
The tap squeaks. Water stops. She wasn’t in there long.
I hear her moving.
“I’m out,” she calls. “You can slide the shirt through. It’s unlocked.”
I crack the door an inch and pass it in, careful not to look. Still, I catch a glimpse of her. Bare shoulders, damp skin, a blur of movement in the mirror. My pulse trips, and I shut the door fast.
She’s naked in my house.
I’ve seen women undressed. But this—her, here, after everything between us—it hits deeper. Not lust. Not exactly.Something else I don’t want to name. I close my eyes and count backward from ten.
“Did you say something, Cal?”
I cringe. “No, nothing.”
I need to pull it together.
Do something!
I head to the storage closet, grab an extra whiteboard and a pink marker, and bring them into the living room.
When she reappears, it’s worse. Or better. Hell, I don’t know. My shirt swallows her frame, sleeves cuffed up, hem brushing bare thighs. Her hair’s towel-dried, cheeks flushed from the heat. I should have known she’d be beautiful like this. Hell, she’d make a potato sack look good.
I look away before she catches me staring, but the image stays.
The kid whines. She lifts the goat from the basket and eases onto the couch with him in her arms. Duke lumbers in, tail slow and steady, the cats trailing close behind. They gather around her.
