Chapter 13

“Damn.” The whispered word startled Rosie awake.

“What?” She sat up and tried to remember where she was. When she fell asleep, she was out for a good nine hours. Any interruption in her sleep cycle was usually met with outrage and confusion—always in that order.

“Sorry, I was trying to get up without waking you,” a male voice said.

She looked around, but it was so dark.

Thoughts crashed through her brain. She was in the Villa with Dallas Rose, and he’d hurt himself making sure she was safe.

“Are you okay? Is it your ankle?” Her eyes were beginning to adjust to being open. She felt around on the bed for him, but all she got were cold, empty sheets. “Where are you?”

She knew he was close, but she had no sense of where.

He gritted out an embarrassed breath. “I’m on the floor. I tried to hobble quietly to the bathroom, but I tripped over the nightstand.” He heaved and the mattress jerked like he was using it to help himself up. “I’m pretty sure I took out the lamp. I have to say, when you fall asleep, bombs exploding in the front yard couldn’t wake you. That’s impressive.”

He did sound very impressed.

“Thanks… I think.” She slid off the bed and went to help him. She rounded the bed and stopped short. “Is there any broken glass?”

She wouldn’t be any help to him with sliced-up feet.

“No, I don’t think so.” He hopped around. “Can you hurry? I really need to pee.”

“Sorry.” Inwardly, Rosie scolded herself. She really should have helped him to the bathroom before she’d fallen asleep. She skirted the bed and put her arm around his waist and felt only warm, male skin. She’d forgotten he was buck naked except for a robe. “Okay.”

“You totally forgot I was naked except for a robe, didn’t you?” He leaned on her as they shuffled to the bathroom.

“Yes.” She would offer no further comment on his state of undress, and she tried really hard to keep her eyes looking forward instead of down. She’d put his clothes in the dryer hours ago. While he answered nature’s call, she’d slip into the kitchen and pull them out of the dryer.

They shuffled into the bathroom, and she decided against turning on the light. It was enough that she felt the tapering-in of his hips and the rock-hard muscles of his back; she really didn’t need to see him too. When they made it into the bathroom, she came up short.

“How do you want to do this?” She hoped he wouldn’t go into detail, but she was willing to admit there were some logistical problems. He couldn’t stand by himself to pee, plus the light was off, and she didn’t want to think about the cleanup that might be involved with his seriously limited field of vision. Would he take it as a slight against his manhood if she suggested he sit down?

“I can practically hear the wheels turning in your head. Just help me sit down and I’ll take care of the rest.” His breath tickled her ear.

She opened the door to the closet-sized room that held the toilet and helped him down on the seat. She stepped out and closed the door. Liquid hit water as she made it to the kitchen. She folded back the accordion doors that hid the stacked washer and dryer. She hit start on the dryer just to freshen the clothes and pull out any wrinkles. Plus, warm clothes always felt good.

She went back to the bathroom, and liquid was still hitting water. Not wanting to interrupt him, she went back to the dryer and pulled his clothes out. For lack of anything better to do, she carefully folded his shirt, boxer-briefs, jeans, and socks. She grabbed the boxers and the shirt and left the remaining clothes on the sofa. She headed back to the bathroom.

The toilet flushed and then all she heard was silence.

She knocked on the door. “Are you finished? At the risk of sounding gross and unladylike, that was some championship peeing. Your bladder must be the size of Lake Michigan.”

She wasn’t trying to hurry him, but she wanted him to know she was ready to help.

“I’m done. Come in.” There was a smile in his voice. “I have been blessed with an extra-large bladder.”

She opened the door and found him already standing. She kept her eyes on his face. “I brought your clean boxers and shirt in case you’d like to put them on.”

“Are you afraid you’ll lose all control in the presence of my nearly naked self?” The grin in his voice turned cocky.

“I think I can control myself.” She handed him the clothes.

“Warm clothes. Nice.” He put his arm around her. “Can you help me back to bed and then back into my shorts?”

“Your wish is my command.” She took his weight and they shuffled back to bed.

“Really? I can think of all sorts of wishes.” His hip kept bumping hers. “Want to know what I’m wishing now?”

“Does it involve sleep?” She couldn’t help but smile. Even in the middle of the night, as they were stranded for God only knew how long and he had a broken ankle, he was still a horny male. In her experience, sex took first, second, and third place in every man’s life, leaving little room for beer and food—the other two things men cherished.

He leaned close to her ear. “Not at first. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to sleep and I prefer it to most other activities, but what I have in mind requires mental acuity and dexterity and a love of pleasure.”

“Let me guess, you’re referring to sex.” She couldn’t help the eye roll. “At first, I thought you were talking about chess, but the pleasure part most certainly refers to sex.”

“Only if you do it right.” His voice was dark-chocolate covered sin. “Actually, I wasn’t referring to sex, and I’ll thank you to get your mind out of the gutter. I of course was talking about the pleasures of the midnight snack. Specifically, more ice cream.”

“I don’t think we have any ice cream left.” She hadn’t thoroughly inspected the freezer, but she was pretty sure there had only been the one carton. The Villa hadn’t been fully stocked yet. “Wait, how do you need mental acuity and dexterity to eat ice cream?”

He leaned heavily on the bed and eased himself down. “You have to be able to read the label. Trust me, you don’t want to eat expired ice cream. I’m speaking from experience here. When the ice cream tastes funny, throw it away.”

“And the dexterity?” How exactly was she supposed to help him on with his boxers?

“Only the highest-functioning mammals have opposable thumbs. You can’t pop the lid on a pint of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla without opposable thumbs. And sometimes even with opposable thumbs there’s some weird suction thing going on and it takes brute strength to pry that lid off. Think about it. If dogs could open a pint, there’d be tons of meat-flavored ice creams. I, for one, am grateful that God chose to bestow only humans with the highest evolutionary honor.” He exercised his opposable thumbs in front of her face to prove his point.

“What about the other primates? They have opposable thumbs too.” She loved how his mind worked. It was so bizarre yet charming.

“Yeah, but they don’t have money, and I’m not sure they could fully appreciate mint chocolate chip. Their palate isn’t sophisticated enough to detect the fudge flakes in Cherry Garcia.” He sounded like it was the sanest argument in the world.

“What about Chunky Monkey? I bet they can appreciate Chunky Monkey.” She knelt down in front of him and gently worked his feet through the leg holes of the boxers. She made it all the way to his knee before he put a hand on her shoulder.

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, it was really hard not to notice everything about him, what with him sprawled out on the bed in front of her. She should stand and look away, only her body wasn’t listening to her mind.

“I can take it from here.” He lay down, inched the shorts up his thighs, and up over his hips. “Stop licking my body with your eyes. I’m not just a piece of meat. I have feelings and ideas. There’s more to me than just a hot body.” There was a whole lot of mock outrage.

“Sorry, I was just…” She stood and turned her back to him. Her whole body felt flushed, and not in a good way.

“Ah ha. You were checking me out.” His ego practically sucked all of the air out of the room. “I knew it. You know, you could take off your clothes and let me check you out. That way we’d be even.” He made it sound like he was doing this solely for her benefit.

“You’d do that for me?” She made her voice go all high and squeaky. “That is so helpful.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Thanks, but I’m good.”

“Well… later, if you get to feeling guilty, the offer still stands.” He made it sound like his generous spirit knew no boundaries. “Now, about that ice cream.”

“I’m pretty sure we don’t have any more, and even if we do, I’m not sure you’d want to eat it. I don’t think the generator stays on at night.” At least that’s how she thought the generator worked.

“Did you have to turn it on when you first got here?” He push-dragged himself into an upright position against the headboard.

“No.” Come to think of it, it was a propane generator, and she had no idea how they got propane to it. She really felt like she should know these things, but tech stuff wasn’t her strong suit.

“The generator stays on all the time because my mother insisted on that. The propane line runs directly to the generator. We couldn’t get electricity out here because we’d have to install seven poles and two transformers, but there’s a propane hub for this side of the ranch about a quarter of a mile north.” He certainly knew his stuff.

“I vaguely remember something about a propane line. Wasn’t it back in January? I think I was working on the Boots and Black Tie Inaugural Ball.” She really should have been more involved. Usually, micromanaging was her middle name. She hated that something as big as this had got by her. “I should have been more on top of things.”

“Why? We had it handled.” He chuckled. “You can’t stand that there are details you don’t know about your B&B. Hello, control freak.”

“I’m not a control freak, I just like to be…” She was about to say “in control.” Why was she denying her inner control freak? She knew she was one, and so did everyone else. She needed to let her control-freak flag fly.

“Let me guess, this is the first time you’ve ever really relinquished some of the control?” He didn’t sound judgmental. It was just an observation.

“Yes.” She still couldn’t wrap her head around it. “What else have I missed?”

“You didn’t miss anything, you just let others step in and take some of the burden for once. You don’t have to do everything yourself. I choose to think of it as you trusting us all enough to let us help out.” He reached out and took her hand. “That’s a good thing. And you obviously didn’t worry about it because you knew we could handle it.”

She hadn’t thought of that. Maybe there was help for her inner control freak; then again, she liked being in control, which meant she liked controlling her inner control freak. It was a vicious cycle.

He squeezed her hand and let go. “Now, why don’t you check the freezer.”

“Okay.” She stopped herself from saying, “Your wish is my command,” because that was how this whole conversation had started in the first place.

She opened the freezer side of the side-by-side refrigerator, and sure enough, down at the bottom were two entire rows filled with pints of ice cream. There was quite a mixture of Blue Bell, Ben & Jerry’s, and Häagen-Dazs. The other shelves held white-butcher-paper-wrapped bundles of meat.

“What’s your poison?” Whoever had stocked the freezer was fast becoming her most favorite person.

“Anything with lots of chocolate will do,” he called from the bedroom.

She grabbed a pint of Häagen-Dazs Chocolate Chocolate Chip and two spoons and turned toward the bedroom.

If the freezer was this well stocked, what was in the fridge?

She paused to open the fridge. There were several kinds of cheese, five bottles of white wine, a case of Shiner beer, a case of bottled water, and a bottle of ketchup, and that was just on the first shelf. The other shelves were packed too. Wow, she really had trusted others a lot.

For her, that was monumental. The best part was that she was okay with doing it again.