I glance at Adam as we walk by rows of houses with peeling fences and overgrown lawns. He’s talking about his job as online marketer, which apparently allows him to settle pretty much anywhere where there’s an internet connection—but which doesn’t explain why he’d choose to live in the backwater that is Destiny.
He’s waving a hand as he talks, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright. Again I examine the cut of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders.
He’s undoubtedly handsome. Objectively cute.
He obviously likes me—at least well enough to talk to me and take me for ice cream. Oh, the glamour!
Still. Not like there’s much to do around here, and it’s sweet of him.
It is, I repeat to myself, sweet of him.
No idea why I have to keep repeating these things to myself when they are so obvious. It’s nerves, I decide. And exhaustion from running behind Matt Hansen’s giggling kids all day.
“What are you smiling at?” Adam asks, reaching for my hand to cross a street.
Without thinking, I take a step away from him and tuck my hand into the pocket of my coat. “Nothing.”
A shadow of disappointment crosses his face, and I look away as we take a shortcut down narrow streets that will take us out to the main street.
Why did I do that? I keep thinking about it as we buy ice cream—that he insists on paying—and head back, about me snatching my hand away, not trusting him with it.
I really need to work on those first, stupid instinctive moves. I’m just not used to a guy treating me right, showing me he’s attracted to me.
It’s just hand-holding, for God’s sake.
It doesn’t escape my attention that he doesn’t try it again. That’s right. Great job, scaring nice next-door hunks off.
You’re as bad as Matt Hansen.
And… that brings me right back to the one guy I’ve been trying to put out of my mind.
Nice work, girl. Nice work.
“He has a girl, right? And a little boy.”
I nod. “Mary. And Cole.”
I can’t remember how the conversation swung back to Matt, but as we sit underneath the stars in the garden, on an old bench, it seems that at some point it did.
“I’ve seen them around town,” Adam says, leaning back and lacing his hands behind his head. “Tiny things. I hope he treats them right.”
I hope so, too. I think of how he asked me to take care of them, in that soft voice.
And then how he told me I’m only paid to feed them and keep them from falling to their deaths, and stiffen.
Matt doesn’t like me. He gave me the job because he tried to protect me from Jasper and Ross. He claimed me, somehow.
And I shouldn’t like that so much.
He did it as a last resort, and then gave me the job because he felt sorry for me. It was obvious from the first time he laid eyes on me that I wasn’t what he’d been looking for in a nanny.
Or in a woman, a voice whispers in the back of my mind, and I wince.
A woman who’s barely legal, too insistent and opinionated. And who knew that a man would object to a woman wearing dresses?
“You like being a nanny?” Adam asks.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Practice for the real thing, huh?”
Never thought of it this way. I turn to look at him, and there’s a hardness in his gaze that startles me.
“Everything’s practice for the real thing,” I say, not sure why he’s upset.
He glances away, and his shoulders relax. A smirk pulls at his mouth. “True.”
“Why are you so interested in Matt Hansen?”
“Me? It’s not him I’m interested in.” He grins, his gaze clear once more. “His nanny sounds really hot.”
“She does, huh?”
“Ah-huh.” He leans closer, and I think he’ll kiss me—but he only flicks a strand of hair from my face. “She looks hot, too.”
As come-on lines go, this isn’t the best I’ve heard. Then again… What’s my problem? I should stop being so cynical and accept the compliment. Thank him.
“It’s getting late,” I say instead. “I should go to bed.”
He blinks, brows arching. Not used to girls not falling right into his arms?
Or to rude, unappreciative ones, at least.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my cheeks warm as I get up. “Thank you—for the ice cream. And everything.”
He relaxes back on the bench, his eyes hooded. “Any time. In fact… we should do it again tomorrow.”
Really? I duck my head, smiling faintly. Seems that I didn’t manage to scare him off, after all.
Not yet.
From the corner of my eye, I catch Gigi standing at the kitchen window, watching us, and my ears burn.
“That would be nice,” I breathe and start toward the door.
“It’s a date,” he says, and the echo of his words follows me into the house.
Avoiding Gigi, I lock myself in the bathroom to gather my wits. I grin at my reflection in the mirror.
A date. It’s a nice stroke to my ego, one I need badly after Ross’s comments and Matt’s rotten behavior.
See? There are guys out there who find me interesting and attractive. Who appreciate me.
So take that, Matt Hansen.
Jerk.
“Adam is soooo into you,” Gigi tells me as we lie in our beds later on. “The way he stares at you… it’s so intense. I get goosebumps!”
“Peeping Tom.”
“No way. I just happened to see you as I was closing the curtains.” She shifts on her side, folding an arm under her head, and I don’t call her out on her lie. “I thought he was going to kiss you at the end.”
I guess we’ll never know.
“He’s in love with you, Tati.”
“Like Quinn is with you?” I stick my tongue out at her.
“Maybe.” She rolls a shoulder in a shrug.
“When are we meeting the mysterious Q?”
“Stop changing the subject, Sis.”
I sigh, throwing an arm over my eyes. “I’m not feeling it with Adam.”
“What exactly it is you’re not feeling?”
I think about it. “The attraction?”
“The chemistry,” Gigi says sagely.
“Yeah. That.”
“Pff.”
“What?”
“Chemistry is a myth. Sparks don’t fly. You have to work for it.”
I lift my arm and stare at her. “How old are you again? And I thought you believed in love. What about Quinn?”
“What about him?” Said airily, but underneath there’s tension.
Oh dear.
I think my little sis might be in love, and chemistry or not, she doesn’t exactly look radiant with joy.
“Is he working for it?” I whisper, shifting my gaze to the window and the moving shadows of the tree branches outside.
But she pretends to be asleep already, and I pretend to believe it.
Chapter Eleven
Matt
The ground is crumbling under my feet as I’m running. Always running, toward the house framed against the dark clouds and the lightning flashes. The house is dark, but I know they are inside. I need to reach them before it’s swallowed into the earth and is gone.
Before they are gone, too.
My boots sink into the mud. I stumble, and fall, and scramble on my hands and knees.
The earth shakes, and I roll. A chasm is opening, deep, with a stench of something dead. I dig my fingers into the ground, trying to hold on.
I can’t. I’m falling.
And the house is sinking. Screams echo in my ears.