“Can’t blame a guy for letting you know you’re on the right track.”
This time, she was the one huffing out a laugh. “Whatever.” She suddenly felt so loose-limbed and numb that she didn’t see the point in prolonging their conversation. “If you really want to come, I guess you’ll do.” She could barely keep her eyes open, but there was one more thing she needed him to know before she gave in to the urge to close them. “You’re going to like my stepsister. Everyone does. Brittany is really pretty. And perfect.”
With that, Zara laid her head on the table and let sleep take her.
CHAPTER TWO
What the heck had he just done?
Rory reached out to take Zara’s bright green glasses off, but though he had to nudge her to get the side of the frame out from between her cheek and arms, she just kept snoring.
They’d worked together for a year, but he wouldn’t have said they were friends. On the contrary, most days they were barely civil.
Case in point: He’d come to the kitchen to give her grief for parking in his space again. Having worked in the building the longest, Rory figured he’d earned the parking spot outside his workshop door. Plus, as a furniture maker, he usually had the heaviest supplies and tools to cart in and out of the building.
Everyone else played by the rules, but Zara never seemed happier than when she was thwarting them—and especially him.
The last thing he’d expected was to find her getting bombed on bubbly at nine in the morning. If someone had asked him for a one-word description of Zara Mirren, he would have said bulletproof.
Today, she seemed anything but.
The bare bones of her story were bad enough. He couldn’t imagine stealing one of his brothers’ girlfriends. The sibling code was crystal clear—if he, Brandon, Turner, or Hudson so much as looked at a woman, she was off-limits to the others. Family came first.
Zara’s stepsister obviously didn’t feel the same way, not only having no compunction about cheating with Zara’s boyfriend—but about agreeing to marry him too. He supposed some people might somehow think that because they were now headed to the altar, “true love” had won out in the end and that all wrongs were now made right. But Rory didn’t see it like that at all.
If anything, it only made their betrayal cut Zara deeper.
It was why he’d impulsively offered to go with her to the engagement party. He didn’t have to be Zara’s best friend to hate the thought of a colleague wading into that shark tank on her own.
And, not to toot his own horn, but he had it on good authority that he scrubbed up pretty well. It wouldn’t hurt to make her ex a little jealous after the nonsense the jerk had put Zara through—not only cheating on her, but with her stepsister.
If some guy did something like this to one of Rory’s sisters…
His hand fisted on the handle of his mug. No one deserved to be treated like dirt.
Even if Zara was a total pain in the butt.
And snored like a vacuum cleaner.
A car door slammed in the parking lot as the other artists who rented space in the warehouse started to arrive. Rory might not be Zara’s bestie, but he knew enough to be absolutely certain that she would hate anyone else in the building seeing her like this. She didn’t just come across as bulletproof, she was also fiercely proud.
What’s more, he would never forgive himself if something happened to her while she was drunk. Especially after what had happened with Chelsea last year…
Forcing the thought back into the dark recesses of his mind, he put his hand on Zara’s shoulder and jostled her gently. “Hey there, sleepyhead. Why don’t I take you home so you can dry out in bed?”
She opened one eye. “I always knew you wanted to get into my pants.”
Her words were slurred enough that he almost couldn’t make them out. Nor could he hold back his laughter. “In your dreams.”
“I was dreaming,” she grumbled, “until you woke me up.”
Still laughing at the idea of wanting to get into her pants—the fact that he had been turned on when she’d licked bubbly off her fingers was surely down to his year of abstinence, rather than the fact that it was Zara doing the licking—he put one of her arms around his shoulders, slid his arm around her waist, and hoisted her up from the table.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“None of your business.”
Even when she was only half there, she was still a stubborn pain in the rear. It was pretty impressive, to be honest.
“Then my place it is,” he said.
He waited for her to exclaim in horror, but at this point she really was down for the count. He slid her glasses into his pocket, then lifted her into his arms to carry her out to his truck before anyone could catch sight of them.
Thankfully, she woke up just enough to help him lift her into the passenger seat and buckle her in. But by the time he reversed out of the lot, she was leaning fully against him. Not wanting her to slide into the footwell, he put his arm around her and held her close as he headed toward his house.
In a million years, he never would have seen any of this coming. Zara, he’d noticed at various warehouse events, wasn’t much of a drinker. It was how he’d known something must be wrong this morning. Had Zara truly been celebrating, it was far more likely she would have asked his sister Cassie to bring her those marmalade candies she loved so much. His sister was a marvel with sugar—but even he couldn’t stomach marmalades. Only someone as weird as Zara would like an equally weird candy.
His house was on the shore, a lighthouse that had been in such a state of disrepair the State of Maine had nearly demolished it. Last year, his brother Brandon had mentioned it during Friday night dinner with the family, and Rory had known instantly he had to buy it. He’d needed to move somewhere he could be alone, where no one was close enough to drop by and ask him if he was okay when he felt like standing in the high tower and staring out into the rugged, swirling sea for hours on end.
Since moving in, he’d been renovating the living quarters in his spare time. Though he wasn’t done, thus far he’d made good progress in the living room, kitchen, master bedroom, and bath. He’d also done the necessary work to make the lighthouse fully operational again—and he’d done operator training with the state, as well—so whenever a strong storm blew in, he stood watch in the tower the way a true lighthouse keeper would have.
Rory had loved growing up in Bar Harbor, and though he’d traveled extensively after college, he’d always planned to come back to the small town in northern Maine. His family was here, his friends were here, and the woods and ocean that inspired his furniture were here too.
Zara woke as he lifted her out of the truck. “Why are you carrying me?”
“It’s what knights in shining armor do.” Even when she was having one hell of a morning, he couldn’t resist teasing her.
He thought he saw her lips curve up slightly before she buried her face against his chest. “You smell nice.” She inhaled, loud enough that he could hear it. “I wish you didn’t.” And then she fell asleep again.
She smelled good too. A little like the Prosecco she’d dripped on herself, but mostly like lavender-scented shampoo.