It took another step.
Right then, Kat made a solemn vow to watch as much Animal Planet as possible until she knew how to survive every living species she would ever encounter, and even some she wouldn’t.
When she tried taking a step back, the alligator reacted with several quick moves in her direction. Which was when she fucking lost her shit and screamed like a little girl.
Irish, ever her savior, bolted out of the garage. “Knock it off, girl. Back up!”
She willed herself to obey, but the last time she tried that, it charged, so her body refused to comply. He bravely placed himself between her and the reptile, but the last thing she wanted was for him to get eaten protecting her. “Let’s make a run for the front door.”
“Nah.” He peered back over his shoulder. “She’s just being bitchy ’cause she doesn’t know you. I told you she doesn’t like strangers.”
“Who doesn’t?”
He nodded at the alligator. “Ally.”
The lightbulb over her head lit up. Her mouth fell slack. “Are you telling me that this gigantic lizard threatening to eat me and use my bones as toothpicks is Hissing Ally? You told me she was a cat!”
“No, I didn’t. You assumed she was a cat. I didn’t see any reason to worry you after the day you had yesterday. Come on.”
Irish grasped her hand in his much larger one and tugged her in the direction of the garage. She did her best to bring her pulse to a healthier rate along the way. By the time he provided a sturdy box for her to sit on and returned to his place on the stool by his Harley, Kat had nearly recovered.
Then he leveled those intense blue eyes on her and gave her appearance a once-over. It seemed a normal heart rate would be next to impossible when she was with this man. His gaze hovered over her chest, and her cheeks flushed with heat.
Trying to draw his attention somewhere else, she gestured lamely to the T-shirt ponytail she’d made. “Um, I hope you don’t mind. I did this to make it fit better. I’m smallish and you’re pretty huge…” He stared at her, not moving, not saying a word. She demonstrated by wrapping her hand around the bunched cotton. “I mean, look. It’s so big I can barely close my fingers around it.”
Irish coughed behind his fist as he shifted, like he was uncomfortable on his low stool. When he spoke, his voice came out even more gruff than usual. “Kitten, you’re going to inflate my ego to dangerous levels with all that talk about me being so big.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and wished for a hole to swallow her up. “Oh my God. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”
A low chuckle caressed her eardrums and slid into her brain. “Relax, I know what you meant. I was just giving you shit.”
He was teasing her? God, when was the last time she’d had some good-natured teasing? Probably not since Nessie, which was a lifetime ago. How sad was that? Irish mentioned having sisters. He probably teased them all the time growing up.
She wondered if she could drop her defenses enough to remember how to tease him back. That could be fun. Normal, even. And wouldn’t that be a miracle.
He’d changed into a holey pair of faded jeans and white tank, both of which were smeared in grease with his shirt sporting the bonus V of sweat in the front and back. His hair fell over his forehead in small chunks at different intervals.
Needing a distraction before she started drooling, she scanned the garage. A makeshift table made of plywood and construction horses held various tools and gadgets and grease-stained rags. Several buckets held other tools and tool accessories, but nothing seemed to be in any sort of order.
“You haven’t been here very long. How’d you get all this stuff?”
“This is all my stuff from home. Xander brought it with him.”
“How do you find anything you need?” she asked.
He glanced around the room as though trying to figure out what she meant. “I know where everything is,” he said defensively as he set down one tool and went to grab for another. But just short of picking anything up, he paused, furrowed his brow, and looked around several times. “Mostly,” he mumbled.
Kat tried muffling her chuckle, but it didn’t work. He narrowed his eyes at her. “This further proves your Oscar theory, doesn’t it?”
“Just a little,” she said with a wry smile, showing him about an inch gap between her thumb and forefinger. “Honestly, though, I don’t even know why that reference came to mind. I haven’t thought about that show since I was a little girl. I used to watch it late at night as a distraction from…”
“Distraction from what?”
No way was she finishing that sentence, much less that thought. The memories of watching the show with Nessie were good ones. But the reasons they watched it weren’t, and she had no desire to revisit them any time soon.
Or ever.