“Why don’t you go upstairs and change into your new clothes?” Gia suggested as she followed Holly into the house from the garage.
“I was going to help bring in the groceries,” Holly said uncertainly, glancing back toward the loaded SUV. Dante and Tomasso were bigger shoppers than Decker, Anders, and Justin put together. But then they were also bigger eaters. In the two short days since they’d arrived, the twins had gone through nearly half the groceries the other men had bought.
“The boys can handle it,” Gia assured her. “And you aren’t terribly comfortable in those clothes of mine.”
Holly grimaced at the comment and glanced down at herself. She had got up this morning, redonned the sweater and tights Gia had given her the day before and then opened her bedroom door to find another outfit neatly folded and set on the hall floor. Relieved that she wouldn’t have to wear the same clothes twice, Holly had scooped them up and backed into the room to change. But the moment she’d realized how short the skirt was, and how see-through the top, she’d nearly changed back. Gia’s style was definitely edgy/sexy, while Holly’s style was . . . well, just not. She was more the jeans and T--shirt kind of gal when she wasn’t dressed up for work. And yes, she had been terribly uncomfortable in the other woman’s clothes.
Mind you, she hadn’t been any more comfortable at allowing the woman to pay for the clothes she was now wearing. Even when Gia had explained that she wasn’t buying them, the Enforcers were. Apparently, since Justin had turned her while on an Enforcer job, they were footing the bill for everything from the food they were eating to the clothes on her back.
“You’re right,” Holly said finally. “I guess I’m just not brave enough for your clothes. But they are beautiful and I do appreciate your letting me borrow them.”
“Bah.” Gia waved away her words. “I knew that. I can read your mind,” she reminded her and then urged her forward. “Come, let’s get these up to your room.”
Nodding, Holly turned and led the way upstairs. She had to do some juggling once they got to her door to open it, but then she stumbled in, headed for the bed, only to pause after just a -couple of steps.
“What the—-?” She turned slowly, her gaze moving over the flowers on every surface in the room. Flower arrangements sat on the bedside tables, crowded the dresser and covered every inch of the sitting table in the corner of the room. There were even flowers strewn on the bed and petals on the floor.
“Ah,” Gia said, and that was it. Just “ah.”
Holly shook her head with bewilderment. “Did someone die?”
Gia choked on a laugh and moved past her to the bed. She started to set the bags down, then paused to brush some of the flowers out of the way first. Setting the bags down then, she turned to survey the room and said, “I think maybe this is Justin’s idea of the romanticismo.”
“Romanticismo?” Holly echoed blankly. “What the devil is that?”
Gia frowned briefly and then offered, “The romance?”
Holly groaned at the suggestion. Decker and Anders had warned her that he might go a bit over the top in his desperation, but this was . . .
Well, it was kind of sweet, really, she supposed. Or would be if she hadn’t developed such an aversion to flowers since working at the funeral home. Prior to that she would have welcomed such a gesture. From James, she added quickly to the thought. She would have welcomed flowers from James before working at the funeral home, but they had both been as poor as church mice since getting married and hadn’t been able to afford the extravagance of even a vase of flowers let alone a whole bloody store’s stock, and that’s what it looked like to her. There were so many she was quite sure Justin must have left the store he’d bought them from completely barren of flowers. They’d probably closed shop the moment he left.
Shaking her head, she carried her bags over to the bed and set them next to the ones Gia had put down. She then glanced worriedly at the pale blue carpeting, concerned that the crushed petals might be staining the carpet.
“I don’t suppose you noticed if there was a rake in the garage, did you?” Holly asked, surveying the floor with a frown. For some reason that made Gia burst out laughing.
“I will go see,” Gia said, heading for the door.
“Oh, no,” Holly protested at once, turning to move after her. “I didn’t mean for you to—-”
“I know, I know,” Gia said, waving her to a stop. “I can read your mind, remember? You change. I shall get the rake.”