Mitch shoved a hand through his hair. “Jesus,” he muttered.
“I turned him down,” she offered.
Mitch lifted a brow. “You better fucking have.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
There was something about that firm, possessive answer that made her wiggle on her seat. Not out of discomfort but because she felt stirrings of desire.
Guys being jealous and possessive did not turn her on.
Supposedly.
“So, you got proposed to.” He said it as if disgusted and resigned at the same time. “You said no. Got in your car. And came here.”
“Pretty much.”
“So you’re hiding out.”
She swallowed. “Pretty much.”
“Do they know where you are?”
“Whitney and Piper will. Eventually.”
“What about your family?”
“I’ll tell them I’m in Louisiana.”
“Will you tell them why?”
She lifted her chin. “I’ll tell them I came down here for Tori’s wedding and decided to stay a little longer.”
“What will they think about you being here with me?” he pressed.
She wet her lips. “I’m not sure I’ll mention you.”
He blew out a breath and focused his gaze out the windshield. “You’re staying with me.”
It wasn’t really a question, and she again felt ribbons of heat. Mitch Landry was laid-back. He was the definition of easy-going. He was charming and wanted to pitch in to help however he could. He’d been in Appleby for about thirty minutes before he’d been volunteering to help fix a furnace, a few roofs, and the wiring in the town square. He’d also been accepting of her relationship rule. Which was No Relationships.
Well, her two relationship rules. One: No Relationships. Two: No Marriage Proposals.
In her experience, it didn’t actually take a relationship for her to get a marriage proposal.
But now, the more possessive and bossier Mitch was kind of doing it for her.
She nodded. “I’d like to stay with you.”
He looked at her again. “Spare room or my room?”
Okay, so he was just going to lay that out there. “I’ve only been here for a few minutes. Should we talk about—”
“Are you here because you want a friend or because you want orgasms?”
Her eyes widened. Then narrowed. Fine. If they were just going to dive right in here…
“Both,” she said. “Friends with orgasms.”
He held her gaze for several beats. “Okay.”
Just okay.
She’d never been around a guy who was so accepting of what she wanted. Ever.
He started to shift the truck back into drive, but her gaze landed on the car parked across the road from his house. Her car. That was full of cats. Oh, crap. He’d totally distracted her from her cats.
“Mitch.” She grabbed his arm. “Wait.”
“We’re T-minus eight minutes here,” he said.
“I know. I… brought some…” She’d brought cats. Five cats. To his house. To stay for a few weeks. Without asking.
“Some?” he prompted.
“I have some stuff in my car I should take inside.”
“We’ll get it all later on,” he said, again reaching for the gear shift.
“They probably should go in now.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
“They?” he repeated. Then he looked at her car. And huffed out a laugh. “How many did you bring with you?”
Paige felt herself smiling. “Five.”
He shook his head, but he was smiling too. He pulled the truck over to the curb in front of his house and shut it off. “We’d better get them in the house then. But hurry.”
She scrambled down from the truck and headed for her car.
Five minutes later, they had all five cats and their supplies inside. Kennedy had already left, sans bra, as the dryer was still running, and they knew that meant the clock was ticking.
“We can just shut them in the bathroom or utility room or something,” Paige said. “We’ll put their food and water and litter box in there, and they’ll be fine. Then they won’t be roaming all over the house.”
He shook his head and opened the door of one of the cat carriers he’d set on his living room floor. Fred and Bernie both shot out. Paige opened the one she’d carried. Eddie crept out more slowly.
“They should explore their new home,” Mitch said.
Paige started to correct him with something like “their temporary new home,” but she couldn’t make the words come out. He knew where she stood on everything. And it didn’t really matter if he didn’t, or if he didn’t totally believe her. She just had to remember it was temporary, and she wasn’t interested in settling down or falling in love or making any promises to anyone.
Especially the promises part. She’d made promises in the past. Promises she’d felt compelled to make. Promises that seemed like the right thing to do.
Those promises had broken a lot of hearts and changed her relationship with her mother permanently. Paige didn’t think she and her mom would be totally good again until Paige was married.
She wasn’t going to make any promises of any kind to anyone unless she was one thousand percent sure she could keep them.
“Are you sure?” she asked as Bernie immediately jumped up on the coffee table in front of Mitch’s long brown couch and reached for a half-full glass of water.
She grabbed it quickly, knowing exactly what was about to happen. Bernie knocked over every glass that he found. Full, half-full, or empty. It was as if upright drinkware personally offended him.
He’d ruined two computer keyboards, and stained at least three shirts doing that at home before she had finally been trained to attend to or pick up all glasses.
“I’m sure.” Mitch sounded amused as he watched Tiny Tim jump from the floor to the seat of the armchair near the fireplace and then eye the mantel as if trying to figure out how to get up there.
She heard a cupboard door slap shut in the kitchen. She shook her head.
“Fred found a low cupboard with a light door on it,” she said.
“He likes cupboards?”
“Yeah. He can hook a paw around the door and pull it open, and then push it open from the inside when he’s ready to come out.”
“That’s kind of impressive.”
“He usually only does it when it rains. He hates the rain,” she said. “But he’s probably kind of freaked out right now. He’s really pissed about the long drive.”
“He’s fine,” Mitch said. “There’s nothing in those lower cupboards he can hurt. Just small appliances mostly.”
“You don’t mind cat hair in your toaster?”
“My toaster’s on the countertop. But I can wash the blender and food processor and ice cream maker out if I need to use them.”
“You have an ice cream maker?”
“I do. Used it once.”
“You don’t like ice cream?”
“Love it. But Ben and Jerry do a fine job of making it, and it’s a lot faster and easier to let them do it.”
They stood smiling stupidly at each other for a long moment.