“Trust me. It’ll adjust the torque on the tires and give you better traction. And don’t floor it. Just give it a little bit of gas.”
Three more tries and they were out of the snowbank and slip-sliding down the icy road.
“And no, I’m not staying with my mother and Carl, and I don’t have friends to stay with either. Not around here. In case you didn’t catch on to what my mother was saying, I haven’t really kept in touch with the old Bell Harbor gang.”
“Can’t you stay at a hotel?”
He rubbed a glove over his chin. “I could, I guess, but I have to be honest . . . I don’t want to. That house is mine, so in spite of what my mother said, your lease is no good. If I stay at a hotel, that’s money wasted I can’t get back. It’s money wasted for you too, really. But if we stay together, eventually, I’ll get your full six months’ rent back. That’s actually a pretty good deal for you, don’t you think? You can stay there rent-free until one of us comes up with a better solution.”
Elaine was silent as the car’s wipers scraped icy particles across the windshield. It was snowing again, in big clumps. The wind whipped around as she white-knuckled their way to the next road. Terrible driving weather. Terrible weather for just about anything other than sitting next to a roaring fireplace with a beer in one hand and remote in the other. That’s what he wanted. A fire, a drink, and a ball game. Or better yet, a big, soft bed.
Finally Elaine sighed. “I’m not interested in having a roommate.”
“Honestly, neither am I, but I’m making you a good offer. You’ve got a heck of a lot more money than I do at the moment—”
“That money,” she interrupted him, then stopped and pressed her lips together for a moment. Then her voice went low. “That money has to last me for a while. It’s all I have.”
It’s all she had? It looked like plenty, but there was a lot this girl wasn’t telling him, and no matter what her financial situation was, his family still owed her six grand.
“Listen, I want to get you your money back, and I don’t want to be a jerk about this, but I don’t have the time to figure out another place to go right now. Tyler is getting married this weekend, so if we could just share for like, four days, maybe five, then I can figure something else out. But right now I’m going on hour thirty-eight with no sleep and I just want a place to lie down. Stay or go, but give me some time to work out an alternative.”
Her sigh was quiet, a puff of white against the cold air inside the car. The pause hung in the air next to it.
“OK,” she finally answered. “I guess that would be OK. Maybe. But just for a couple of days, and then you have to leave, or get me my rent back. Agreed?”
A warmth passed over him. It was a surprising sensation. What was that? Relief?
Sure, because if she stayed, then he didn’t have to feel guilty about kicking her out, and if he stayed, he didn’t have to bother finding another place in the next hour. It was all about taking the path of least resistance. This was the easiest thing, and it would work. For the short term, anyway. She wouldn’t take up much room and didn’t seem to be much of a talker.
“Agreed,” he said.
This could work.
Or . . . it might be a terrible mistake.
Chapter 5
GRANT CONNELLY HAD MADE A terrible mistake. Elaine Masters was quiet, sure, and he appreciated that. Most women he knew were interested in sharing all the details of their lives, the more insignificant the better, but his housemate was just the opposite. She said almost nothing. In the past day and a half, she’d read, murmured into her phone, and did something with knitting needles and yarn which in no way produced anything recognizable and was typically followed by her mumbled cursing and the sound of something soft being tossed into the trash basket.
None of that bothered him, though.
What bothered him was the yoga.
The yoga that she’d been doing for over an hour now, wearing a miniscule top and clingy pants. He tried not to watch her but the house just wasn’t that big. Unless he was in the bathroom or his bedroom, he could see her. The stretching and the balancing and the arching. Heaven help him, the arching! She was as bendy as a pole dancer and ten times sexier because she seemed so unaware of it.
“Are those my panties?” Her voice broke into his illicit thoughts.
He’d come into the living room to say a pair of her underpants had accidentally ended up with his laundry, then he’d gotten stupidly distracted by her ass. It wasn’t his fault, though. He’d walked in and there it was, perky and round and way up in the air. Come on. What was he supposed to do except appreciate the view?
She stood up and he glanced down at his hand where his thumb was rubbing absently over the silky pink material. God damn it. She was going to think he was a pervert.