Page 64 of Smith

“Baby.” He chuckled when he found me sitting on his counter, plate of cheesy eggs in one hand, fork in the other.

“I’m taking my time enjoying your culinary brilliance. Bravo on the perfect amount of cheese.”

He smiled and I decided to take that as Smith finding me amusing.

“You’re procrastinating going to work.”

And he got it in one.

“Okay,” I blew out a breath. “I don’t want to go to the house today.”

“So don’t,” he said, stopping to press a kiss on my lips before continuing to the coffee machine.

His answer was unexpected. I figured he’d give me some sort of Team Guy pep talk about not ringing out and giving up.

Not that I was giving up. Sure, I’d had a pity party for one yesterday and did some hardcore internal whining about not wanting to finish my house, but that was nothing more than my reaction to finding disturbing pictures in George’s room.

“Do you have other work to do, like editing or something?” he went on.

“Yeah and I need to make a new martial list and call in an order. I should also update my accounting and adjust my schedule.”

“Would you be comfortable doing that in my office if I wasn’t there?”

Panic hit so hard I swayed with it.

“Where are you going?”

Smith eyed me over the rim of his mug.

“I thought you and Kira got on.”

“We did. I mean, we do.”

He set his mug on the counter and strolled my way. When his stomach hit my knees, they automatically opened, giving him room, and he stepped between them. He did all of this holding my eyes, which meant now that he was close his study of me intensified.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Nothing. I was just wondering?—”

“Baby, you look freaked. If you’d rather work here while I go to your house, then you can work here. But I don’t have a desk, so you’ll be working at the table or the bar. Neither would be comfortable. You could work from the couch but I figured that’d be a pain in the ass having to work with your computer on your lap.”

That made sense. Way more sense than my sudden, unexplained panic.

“Why are you going to the house?”

“I want to get into the attic.”

Right.

The attic.

“Maybe I should demolish the whole house and rebuilt from scratch,” I mumbled.

“Be a waste, baby, that house has good bones.”

That was what I was afraid of…bones…or more to the point more skeletons hiding in the attic.

“If the next thing you tell me is you have to dig up the backyard I’m going on vacation some place tropical and sipping fruity drinks while you do your thing. I’ll come back after you’ve excavated the bodies.”

---