Too Hot to Handle (10 page)

“God, Jenny,” she groaned when she got to the bar. “Make me something strong. I don’t care what it is, as long as I can get it down fast.”

“Hmm. Cosmo strong or something more substantial like a Long Island Tea?”

“Yes, the tea. Hit me.”

The blonde laughed as she pulled a glass from beneath the bar. “And your friend?”

“She’s not my friend. She’s my cousin Crystal, and she wants a gin and tonic with the fanciest gin you’ve got.”

“Whatever you say.” She held three bottles and tipped them all over Merry’s glass at the same time. “So you seem a little stressed.”

“God, you think so? My bitchy cousin showed up to visit, I’m freaked out about work and I haven’t had an or—” An alarm flashed in her head just in time. Or not just in time.

Jenny raised one eyebrow. “Been a while?”

“God, you have no idea.”

“Oh, I had a bit of a dry spell myself. But that’s over now. Yours will be soon, too.”

Merry was damn sure the sweet, funny blonde had never had a dry spell that lasted any longer than she wanted it to, and now she had a cute cop for a boyfriend. Merry told herself not to feel jealous. It didn’t help, but the drink would.

“Thank you!” she said when Jenny popped a maraschino cherry in the glass and handed it over. The first swallow tasted strong, but the second was much smoother. The third went down like silk. “Bless you, woman.”

“And the fancy gin and tonic.”

Wincing at the loss, Merry slid over a twenty. Jenny pushed back a ten. “Yours is on the house. With my sympathies.”

“You’re the best, Jenny.”

“Anytime.”

Merry felt so much more relaxed as she wove her way back to the table. Relaxed and maybe even willing to stand up for herself. “Don’t call me the Merry Slacker anymore,” she said as she sat back down.

“Fine.” Crystal didn’t look obnoxiously friendly now, just obnoxious. “Tell your friends to stop calling me names.”

“Stop acting like you’re better than this place.”

Crystal smirked. “It’s not an act.”

Merry close her eyes and took a long draw of her drink through the tiny red straw. Then she sighed. “Why did you come here, Crystal?”

“I came to rock climb.”

“And just be generally rich?”

“Look, I’m sorry if you have a chip on your shoulder, Merry, but I’m doing well. It’s a good time to be a lawyer in Chicago. Do you want me to apologize?”

No. No, but Crystal’s success made Merry feel like shit, and sometimes she couldn’t tell if Crystal intended it to or if it was all in Merry’s head. The paranoia drove her to distraction whenever her cousins were around. “Why did you want to see me?”

There it was. That arrogant glint in her eyes. That flash before she said something really—

“You’re my cousin, Merry. I worry about you. I know how hard it can be for you to find your footing sometimes, and I wanted to be sure you were…okay.”

“I don’t have trouble finding my footing,” Merry said, sinking lower in her seat to get more comfortable while she stared into her disappearing drink. “I like to take chances. I like new experiences. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No, there’s not. As long as you’re happy.”

“Exactly,” Merry snapped, as if she weren’t sleeping on a pull-out couch in her best friend’s living room. As if she weren’t actually a glorified temp worker.

“Great!” Crystal patted her hand. “I’m glad you’ve finally found a good situation.”

Yes.
Finally
. As if Merry had stumbled over a lucky coin in the dirt. “Well.” She set down her empty drink. “It’s been great catching up, but you should probably get back to the villa.”

Crystal looked shocked. Merry was usually more timid around her, afraid to push back out of fear that Crystal would point out just how inferior she was. The problem wasn’t her pointing it out, of course. The problem was that Merry found herself believing it.

Not anymore. She couldn’t do it anymore.

“Merry—” Crystal started, but Merry cut her off.

“I’m sorry, Crystal. I’m tired. I’m starting this place from scratch and it’s a lot of work. Let’s just leave it at that.”

Crystal set down her drink with a shrug. “Whatever you say. I’ll tell my mom I did my duty.”

“Perfect.”

On their way out, Merry already felt guilty. She was no good at being mean to people. It felt awful, and she worried that Crystal might actually have feelings and that Merry had hurt them.

“I do hope you have a great trip, Crystal,” she said over her shoulder. “The rock climbing sounds amazing.”

Crystal said something back, but Merry didn’t hear her, because she was just registering that Shane’s truck was parked at the curb ahead, and he was walking around the bumper.

Oh, shit. She didn’t want him to see Crystal.

But of course, he wasn’t blind, and he looked up and caught sight of Merry just as he stepped onto the sidewalk. “Hey! I was just coming to knock on your door. I thought I’d see you on-site tonight.”

“Sorry, I…”

His eyes slid past her and locked on Crystal.

“My cousin’s in town,” she said quietly. “Shane, Crystal. Crystal, this is Shane.”

“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” she purred.

God. He was probably eating this up. Platinum-blonde beauty with a husky voice. Merry hated that she was standing right next to her. “Thanks again for coming, Crystal.”

Her cousin smiled at Shane as she walked past him, but she left without another word to Merry. Shane watched her go, of course.

When he turned back to Merry, he frowned. “You okay?”

She realized she’d poked her lip out in a pout. Apparently alcohol did not make for a great poker face.

When she nodded, Shane shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “So I found that show you told me about. I downloaded the first two episodes. I thought we could order a pizza. But you’re all dressed up, so maybe you’ve got other plans.”

“Are you kidding?” Keeping with the theme of not hiding her emotions, Merry clapped and squealed like a five-year-old presented with a princess dress. “I’d love to. Just let me—” She dragged a hand over the silver rope around her neck, meaning to say “get this stuff off,” but his eyes followed the slow slide of her hand, and Merry immediately changed her mind. She wasn’t exactly comfortable in jewelry and makeup, but she always felt some level of awkwardness around men. Better to feel the I’m-too-sparkly kind.

“Sure.” He finally focused on her face again. “I need to take a shower, so maybe in fifteen?”

They walked into the Stud Farm together, and Merry gave him an enthusiastic wave just before she closed her door, likely looking as nervous as she felt.

“Stop it,” she told herself as soon as she was alone. Her stern words didn’t work. In fact, she leaned against the door with a dreamy sigh. Thanks to Grace, she felt pretty tonight, and that illusion was making her stupid.

This wasn’t a date. It was nothing more than two friends hanging out. If it were a date, he would’ve asked her out earlier, maybe even the day before. He wouldn’t have just come upon her on the street and asked if she wanted pizza. In fact, he wouldn’t have mentioned pizza at all. He’d take her to a restaurant. He’d try to impress her. This was nothing more than watching a TV show with a friend.

Her grin finally faded at that, because it was so damn familiar. She’d fallen for that mix-up a dozen times already. It was the same every time: guy asks her over to watch a movie or play video games, she gets excited and hopeful, and then…nothing. Worse than nothing, actually. Oftentimes he wanted to talk about problems with the girl he was really interested in. Or worse yet, he wanted to feel Merry out about one of her cute friends.

There was nothing worse than being felt out when you really wanted to be felt up. Nothing.

She almost changed into her normal look. She almost scrubbed off the makeup and shucked the jewelry. But what the hell. If she were just going to be a buddy, she could look cute while doing it.

So instead of changing anything, Merry checked her email and loaded the dishwasher and then added a tiny bit more lip gloss before crossing the hall to knock on his door.

He didn’t answer, so she knocked again, then worried he wasn’t ready yet. Maybe she had the time wrong. Maybe— The door opened. Shane might be ready, but she wasn’t. She hadn’t braced herself for the sight of him in just jeans and a black T-shirt. No hat, no boots, just bare feet and damp hair and over six feet of clean man in between. She was suddenly assaulted with the fictional memory of him in the shower, naked and aroused. Soapy water streaming down his chest, sneaking lower over his abdomen and then…

“Hi,” he said.

“Oh,” she answered.

Shane’s smile faltered but he stepped aside to let her in. “What kind of pizza do you like? There’s a pretty good local place.”

“Anything except peppers. Actually jalapeño peppers are fine.”

“Yeah? You like a little heat, huh?”

Her blushing face got even warmer. Apparently she did. Apparently she liked a
lot
of heat when it came to Shane Harcourt. God, she was turning into a creepy, perverted neighbor.

“Me, too,” he said, then called to order the pizza.

While he was on the phone, she took the chance to look around. He had more furniture than she and Grace did. A coffee table made out of a wide slab of polished wood. A beautiful old bookshelf made of something that looked like ancient pine. She walked over to examine the books, all of them worn paperbacks that looked like they’d been read a hundred times. Westerns, of course, but not very many. Most of them were thrillers and spy novels and biographies, with a few surprising choices mixed in: vampire sagas and historical novels. No sci-fi, but maybe she’d turn him tonight.

Merry took a step back and found herself flush against a very warm body. “Oh, shit,” she gasped, lurching away. She spun around so quickly that she had to reach out to balance herself on his arm. But she missed his arm and found her hand pressed to his chest. “I’m sorry,” she choked out and jerked her hand from its hot, solid resting place. “I didn’t… I’m not trying to molest you, I promise.”

His eyebrows flew up. “That’s a strange promise.”

“I know! I’m so sorry! I just don’t want you to think I think that we…that this… I know it’s not, all right? So don’t worry.”

“Not…what?”

“Anything!”

He was too close. She couldn’t back up without running into the bookshelf. But he was watching her so strangely and her heart tripped into a panicked beat. She slipped past him as quickly as she could and moved to the couch. “Let’s watch the show!”

He turned to stare at her for a long moment, and she knew she’d revealed too much. The cocktail she’d downed had combined with her natural awkwardness with disastrous results. She’d blurted out all the things she never should have said, and now he knew she was thinking them. The sudden, awful urge to confess that she’d indulged in a dirty fantasy about him hovered on her tongue, as if it wanted to escape and free her from the last of her secret guilt.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

She swallowed hard, forcing down the compulsion to confess. “I’ll sit over here,” she said instead, pointing at the far end of the couch.

He blinked slowly. Blinked again. Then nodded. “Okay. Sure. How about a beer?”

“Please. Yes.” She sat in mortified tension through the first ten minutes of the show, clutching her beer like a lifeline that was her last link to dignity. Silly, of course. There was no chance she had any dignity left, but at least the rush of new alcohol let her hold on to the fantasy.

She relaxed a little as the magic of the show pulled her in and she forgot to be hyperaware of Shane sitting two feet away. The show was too damn good to ignore. She laughed out loud at a joke, and glanced over to find Shane smiling at her. Something deep inside her belly tightened with wistful yearning.

“This is good,” he said.

It was good. It was nice having him as a friend, her physical attraction aside. If she could just learn to relax around him, it would be even better.

“A space Western,” he said, turning back to the TV.

She smiled at his profile and pretended that she wasn’t wishing she could snuggle up to his neck. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Pretty damn cool,” he agreed.

By the time the pizza came, she felt almost normal again. She took off her shoes and curled her bare feet beneath her and tried to pretend she was with Grace. “Did you make this table?”

“No, a friend made that for me. But the bookshelf is mine.”

“They’re both beautiful.”

“Thanks.”

“Is it strange to be a carpenter living in an apartment? Do you secretly build cabinets in the middle of the night?”

He laughed. “You think I have an untamable need to renovate?”

“I know you do,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “How do you handle it? Custom closet shelves? Refinishing the wood floor?”

“If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.”

“Or you could just buy my silence with some furniture. In case you hadn’t noticed, our place is a little spare.”

He shot her a hooded look. “There might be something I can do for you.”

This time, Merry didn’t give in to the embarrassment that wanted to rise up. She didn’t blush at the brush of his eyes down her body. He was teasing her, so she stretched out a leg and kicked his hip with her toes. “Shut up.”

“I’m serious.” His hand closed over her ankle when she tried to pull her foot back. Merry would’ve been a trembling mess at this point if she hadn’t finished her beer. But instead of holding her breath and noting every nerve he touched with his callused fingers, Merry poked his leg with her toes again. He playfully tugged her ankle before letting her go.

“Come on. I’ll show you.”

He got up and walked toward the bedroom, and she followed him. “Are you luring me to your room?”

“Sure. I’m not the one who promised no molesting.”

If he could laugh about it, maybe she hadn’t freaked him out so badly after all.

When he stepped into the bedroom and out of the doorway, Merry gasped. “Oh, my God, Shane! Did you make that?”