“Would you like some freakin’ tea, Molly?” The laughter in his voice was so sexy. He had some nerve unleashing it on me. Hmph!
“I would love some freakin’ tea. But only if you serve it in an irresistibly cute teacup, please,” I groused as I stood there glaring at his front door.
“I think I can do that.” He chuckled.
“Of course you can! Is there nothing you can’t do?” I shouted.
He unlocked the door and stepped aside to let me in. “After you.” I scowled up at his grinning face.
What was I even doing here?
“I should just go. This is a bad idea.” I took a step to go around him but turned back when I heard the high soft trill of a meow echo in my hearing aid.
“You have a damn cat too?” I whirled back to face him with an accusatory finger pointed and at the ready.
“Sure do. He’s a cute damn cat, too.” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth to call what would most likely be the most scrumptious cat in all the known universe.
There are five things I couldn’t resist in this world: kitty cats, pie of all kinds, big shoulders, wicked grins that hinted at delicious possibilities, and all things that sparkle.
So far, Garrett was three out of five tonight—the audacity! I heaved out yet another disgruntled sigh and stepped inside. The cabin was one large room with two doors on the left and an open kitchen on the right. In the center of the kitchen area was a square butcher block island surrounded by padded stools. Copper pots hung from a black iron rack over the island, herbs grew in tiny terra-cotta pots in the bay window above the sink . . .
It was like he’d hired a fairy-tale princess as an interior decorator.
I needed to leave.
Right the frick now.
But another high meow hit me before I could bolt. “Kitty!” I cried.
At the rear of the cabin, a furry black and brown striped head popped out from behind a couch followed by a huge, chunky, kitty-cat body, then a bent bottlebrush tail that swished side to side as he moved. His eyes glowed dark yellow in the dim light of the cabin as he hobbled in our direction. The dang cat had three and a half legs and a crooked tail. He was ugly as could be, yet he was the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my life. I sank to my knees and held a hand out. “What’s his name?” I whispered as the cat nuzzled my fingers, then crawled onto my lap. Forget Garrett; I had just fallen in love with this little furry purry.
“Stan,” he answered. “He’s probably getting hungry, so watch your fingertips. He likes to nibble, and he can be kind of a grouch if I don’t feed him on time.” I beamed up at Garrett as Stan took a little nip at my finger. It wasn’t a bite, just a little touch of his teeth. “Stan, you’re a little weirdo, aren’t you?” I giggled as Stan purred like a motorboat on my legs.
“He’s an odd duck, for sure. He used to hang out on my porch. Took me weeks to get him to trust me. Now he’s never gonna leave, right, Stan?” My heart melted as Garrett baby-talked the cat and received a very loud, trilled meow in response. Then Stan snuggled into my stomach and I was done for. I was in this evening for the long haul and I would probably try to smuggle Stan home with me in my purse.
I grinned up at him. “So, you built this cabin, rescued this weird-ass cat, and now you’re going to make me some freakin’ tea.”
“Yeah. Don’t forget about the irresistibly cute teacup, cutie.” He laughed as he slipped out of his flannel shirt and tossed it to me. “Put this on until I get the fire going.” I let go of Stan to slip into the shirt. It was toasty warm and smelled wonderful—like hot guy, clean laundry, and dreams come true. Again, I say dammit!
“Thanks. Now all we’re missing is pie to make it perfect,” I grumbled as I watched him kneel in front of the straight-out-of-a-freaking-storybook stone fireplace to build a fire. If he made pie? Holy crap, I didn’t even want to think about it.
He turned to me with a grin. “I can make pie. I made a pate brisée yesterday. It’s in the fridge, and I have a jar of cherry filling that my mother made when she was doing her canning. It’s cooked, so it’s just a matter of waiting for the crust to bake and the cherries to get hot and bubbly. Do you like whipped cream or ice cream?” he asked as my jaw dropped. I envisioned myself falling to the floor legs open and slammed my mental eyes shut with a grimace. I had no tequila to blame it on tonight—just Garrett and his effing four out of five.
“Whipped cream,” I managed to answer around my dropped jaw and blown mind. I should have never stepped foot into this lady-trap cabin.
“I’ll start some coffee for me and get the teakettle going.” He stood up after one more poke at the crackling fire he’d just created.
Gently, I gathered Stan in my arms and stood to follow Garrett to the kitchen. “You can’t drink coffee at ten p.m., Garrett. You’ll never get to sleep. I haven’t forgotten about the whole insomnia thing, you know. The problem with ten p.m. is that it can turn into three in the morning real quick if you don’t watch out. No coffee allowed.” I plopped onto a black and white buffalo-checked cushioned stool at the island. Stan cuddled his head into my neck like a little baby and purred his fluffy brains out.
“Yes, ma’am. What kind of tea should we have?”
“Chamomile. I have emergency tea bags in my purse if you don’t have any.” He grinned and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as he filled a kettle with water at the deep farmhouse sink. Did he just look at me with amused and flirty masculine indulgence? Not allowed! “What about it?” I snarked with narrowed eyes. “Everyone in the world is obsessed with coffee. Tea drinking is underappreciated. One must always be prepared.” This vital fact was one he must be informed of.
He chuckled—again with the flirty indulgence. Ugh! He was making me feel girly and cute and he needed to knock it the heck off before I blushed or something else equally lame.
“I do have chamomile, but its powers are wasted on me,” he said as he gathered stuff from the refrigerator.
“Bummer. I’ll sit here and brainstorm about it. Oh! What did your mother say earlier?” I didn’t even look up at him. I was too busy ogling his perfectly veined forearms as he rolled out the pie dough on a slab of marble that he’d pulled from beneath the island. He had a tattoo of a rose slithering up his arm, and it was a sexy one too, the big, hot jerk.
His head did that tilty-dip thing guys do, and his eyebrows rose as he answered. “Don’t go nuts. She said, now that I have you, maybe I’d finally get some sleep.” He paused his dough rolling to make air quotes around have you. A nervous laugh escaped as I squirmed in my chair at the thought of him having me and what it would take to wear him out enough to get him to sleep. Obviously, that was not what Becky Lee meant, but holy heck it was all I could see—and I have to say, it was quite an enjoyable naked mental image. I shook my head to clear out the porn before I answered.
“No, no, I’m good. No going nuts. I’ve decided to stay sane. And you do have me—we’re back to best friends, right? And yeah, your eyes are definitely dark and circley. So! Challenge accepted!” I slapped a hand on the counter, startling Stan. “After tea I’ll get you to sleep and then I’ll go home.”