Page 3 of Boats, Moats, & Root Beer Floats

Recalling what Bettina said about the easels hidden behind a sticky tower door and keen to find my nest for the next few weeks, all thought of the kitchen, cow, and my broken suitcase forgotten, I gripped the blackened handle, jammed my shoulder to the scarred surface and pushed with everything I had.

The door flung open on well-oiled hinges, not sticky in the least, letting me in on feet that stumbled and tripped over themselves. I surged into the center of the room, managed to hoist my lurching body upright and announced myself in grand fashion.

“Taa-daa!”

The words withered from my lips as I noted the other occupant in the room who turned from a dusty desk filled with books stacked in perfect, color coded towers in different hues of brown. Wavy hair was pushed back from his face as he peered at me over a pair of spectacles that could have come from the previous century or the one before that. Broad shoulders tightened beneath a brown tweed jacket that didn’t disguise his height he had folded into a narrow wooden chair that matched the color of his suit.

The perfect camouflage.

But the man I burst in on didn’t take half as long in his study of me as I did in him.

Hard hazel eyes narrowed as they fixed on me while I invaded his space in spectacular style. Arched lips too generous for his severe face tightened above a jawline made for a movie star.

And all rational thought left me the moment he spoke, his raspy voice left somewhere on a battlefield long ago.

“Who the hell are you?”

Always good to make a decent first impression.

CHAPTER TWO

COVIN

The woman who fell into my space straightened herself and sent me what she probably thought was a winning smile but fell shy of the mark by more than a country mile.

Not that any of that—including her still-flailing limbs—made her any less attractive. A slightly too-skinny frame peeked out from the edges of baggy jeans and way too much frizzy hair. She wore a plethora of looped, multicolored scarves over her puffy blue jacket that seemed too warm even for this climate and most certainly for the traipse up the tower stairs.

But it was her eyes that did it for me.

Even with her high cheeks flushed and pretty lips parted on a huff of a breath that might be a laugh, her eyes were by far the most expressive thing about her—and that was considering the mass of hair that frizzed about her like a previously undiscovered lifeform with an aura that mingled with her own.

Brown, liquid and swirling like pools I might fall into and never emerge.

The stuff dreams were made of. Or perhaps nightmares.

I pressed my lips together, willing my rage back that so frequently simmered beneath the surface now, desperate toburst free hence my self-induced seasonal hibernation, and released a controlled breath. When she didn’t appear willing to offer any further announcements I cleared my throat.

Pointedly.

“What are you doing in here?” I tried for manners.

“Well, clearlyyou’renot Buttercup,” she said, waving her hands far too much for a short sentence, her words edged in exasperation like her untimely appearance wasmyfault.

I raised both eyebrows. Perhaps she was as insane as she looked. Insanely pretty. I banished the thought as fast as it appeared. Not the time for that. The penny dropped.

“Ah, the cow.”

“Coo,” she muttered with a truly atrocious attempt at a Highland accent.

I closed my eyes, searching for her dialect in my mind, and came up with the answer way too close to home. “California?”

“Not bad.” she whistled, and the sound pierced my remaining active brain cells.

Where’s that bottle of whiskey I brought with me?

“I’m glad we established that. Now please, go away.”

“I was looking for easels.”

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