Page 26 of Once Upon a Holidate
She laughed. “Even if that’s true, I would remind you to be cautious. And maybe learn how to play computer games.”
Chapter Five
Tuesday morning Wynn woke up a few minutes before her alarm. It was still dark outside and the room felt a little cool. Winter, she thought, standing and stretching. At least as much of a winter as Happily Inc ever got. Not that she’d ever experienced real winter. Oakland, California, where she’d grown up, also had temperate winters.
She used the bathroom, then brushed her teeth before walking toward the kitchen. As she turned on the coffeepot she’d prepped the night before, she glanced out of the living room’s side window, toward Garrick’s house. She hadn’t seen him in a couple of days and wondered how things were going with Joylyn. Their dinner together had been relatively pleasant. Hunter was an excellent buffer, and the two got along well. Joylyn had been less pleasant when it came to her father. There was definitely something going on there, although Wynn couldn’t say what it—
Something moved in the living room. Something large that seemed to get bigger. Her heart thundered and her body went cold as she realized there was a strange man in her house. Panicgripped her. She had to protect Hunter—that, she knew for sure. Should she run or scream or—
“Sorry, Wynn. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
The man stepped out of the shadows and she immediately recognized Garrick. He had on jeans and a T-shirt, and his hair was mussed, as if he’d been asleep.
Adrenaline poured through her, making it hard to focus. Her mouth was dry and her head was spinning. Her heart continued to race, making it difficult to talk.
“You scared me!” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”
He shoved his hands into his front pockets in what she would guess was an attempt to look nonchalant.
“I slept on your sofa.”
The statement was so incredible, she couldn’t begin to understand what he was saying.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “You don’t sneak into someone’s house and sleep on their sofa. You can’t just be here, lurking in the darkness. It’s not right.”
She thought longingly of the self-defense class she’d taken years ago and wished she could remember a few moves so she could break his nose or something. She pressed a hand to her chest only to realize she was wearing an oversize T-shirt, panties and nothing else.
“Dammit, Garrick.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stalked away, hoping the back of the T-shirt covered her butt. After pulling a robe out of her closet, she slipped it on and tied the belt at the waist. Only then did she return to the kitchen where she found Garrick seated at the island, sipping on a mug of coffee.
She poured herself a cup, then leaned against the counter and eyed him warily.
“Sorry,” he said, before she could speak. “The light was onlate last night and I knocked. Hunter let me in. He said you were in the bath. I thought he told you I was here.”
“He didn’t. He was in bed when I got out of the bathroom.” Having never said a word.
Garrick drank his coffee. “I really am sorry.”
“I believe you. Now, why did you spend the night on my sofa?” She looked at him as she spoke, trying not to notice that despite the casual clothes and mussed hair, he looked good. Men, she thought humorously. It was always that way with them.
He sighed heavily. “I had to get away. Your place is right next door. I could have gone to Jasper’s or Cade’s but they’re both a few miles outside of town.”
“Okay, that explains why you picked my sofa over theirs, but not why you left your own bed in the first place.”
He glanced away from her. “Joylyn’s a nightmare. I know it’s wrong to say that, but she is. Sunday she mostly stayed in her room, but every time she came out she was complaining about one thing or another. So I tried giving her a little space, and then she complained I was abandoning her all over again. When I tried to talk about what it was like when she’d been a kid, she said she didn’t remember any of it.”
He clutched his coffee in both hands. “Last night I offered to take her out to dinner. She said she didn’t want to. I said I could get takeout or go to the grocery store, only she said she wasn’t hungry. Thirty minutes later, she accused me of trying to starve her and wanted to know why we weren’t going out to dinner. I don’t know if she’s torturing me or if she’s having some kind of breakdown.”
She relaxed. “You’re afraid of her.”
“You would be, too, if you had to live with her.”
“Poor Garrick.”
“It’s awful.”
