Page 27 of For Butter or for Worse
“King.”
One step forward is enough to convince the llama that his freedom is in jeopardy. Abandoning his sniffing, he lumbers quickly toward the pool. I shout and leap forward, but he’s too fast for me and plunges into the dark water with akerplunk.
I curse and stuff a hand into my hair. “Stupid beast,” I mutter.
Standing, Georgie hurries to my side but stops about a foot away when she seems to realize I’m in nothing but my boxers. Though she averts her gaze, her blush is still obvious in the dim light. “Can, uh, can llamas swim?”
I press a hand over my heart to try to calm its racing. I think my dream had been a nice one, whatever it was. I also think Georgie might have been in it, so maybe it’s a good thing she interrupted it. “Yes, they can swim. Whether they can float is another question.”
Prince Harry lets out a mournful cry when he realizes his feet can’t touch the bottom of the pool. A few feet to the left, and he’d be fine…
“How does he keep getting out?” I ask under my breath, moving over to the pen and the wide open gate. Even I can barely get the latch open half the time, so I really have no idea how an animal with a clear lack of opposable thumbs has managed it more times than I can count.
“Why don’t you just wire it shut?” Georgie asks.
I turn to explain to her Prince Harry’s bizarre need for a walk around the neighborhood every couple of days but stop when my eyes catch on whatshe’swearing. A tank top snugly hugs her curves, and her shorts could never be accused of being long. The sight of her legs—the sight of all of her, really—traps any words I might have said in my throat, leaving me standing here like an idiot with my mouth gaping open. Georgie is all woman, and I have never been gladder that I’m forcing her to sleep in the pool house.
Only the sounds of Prince Harry’s splashing and complaining fill the space between us for a long few moments, until Georgie clears her throat and wraps her arms around her middle.
“Um. Does he need help, or…?”
I glance at the llama, who has begun doing laps side to side. If he would turn ninety degrees, he would discover a whole other side of the pool that he could enjoy. “He’s fine. For now.” I’m tempted to jump in and force him out anyway, if only for the shock of cold water to keep my thoughts where they are safe. I may need to make a few more rules if I’m going to make it through this marriage. No tank tops. No shorts. No early morning wakeups when I’m too tired to keep my eyes from studying her face. And everything else. “What time is it?”
She looks at her watch. “Three.”
A laugh escapes out of my lungs. I’m used to waking up early, and bakers tend to keep early hours. But this is Willow Cove, and this town tends to sleep in. Kingston’s doesn’t even open until eight. “Why?” I breathe.
She shrugs. “I was slee…” She stops, seems to consider what she wants to say, and then shakes her head. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I would get an early start today. But then thiscreature”—she nods toward Prince Harry—“decided he wanted to take a bite of my hair.”
“Llamas don’t eat hair.”
“Yours seems to.”
I lift my eyes to her head, which is a safer place to look anyway, and barely hold back a wince when I see a giant glob of slobber in her damp curls. At the same moment, a breeze picks up, and I get a whiff of her shampoo. My body tenses up as I resist the urge to step forward and get a deeper lungful of the tantalizing scent. She smellsamazing, and I would love to bury my face in her hair and breathe her in. Kiss her like I did in the bakery. Maybe…
I dive into the pool before I get any bad ideas.
It takes a good twenty minutes to coax Prince Harry up the stairs on the far end and out of the pool, and neither of us are happy when I shove him back into the pen and triple check that the latch is closed. I’m soaked, I smell of wet llama again, and my early morning wakeup is starting to catch up to me; the only reason I’m not in a foul mood is because I can probably go back to sleep for a couple more hours now that Georgie is around to handle the bakery. I haven’t had that luxury in weeks.
“Will it hold?”
I jump at the sound of Georgie’s voice, crashing into the wire fencing with a soft curse. “I thought you were gone,” I gasp.
She twists her lips up in a smirk. “And miss watching that show? I never would have guessed a llama would be so intent on staying in a pool.”
I brush my hand through my hair to keep it out of my face, all too aware of Georgie’s eyes tracking the movement with unveiled interest. She really needs to stop looking at me like that. I fold my arms, trying to cover some of myself up. “He loved the pool at Uncle Bill’s, but mine is too deep for him. It’s a miracle he hasn’t drowned yet.”
“Why don’t you drain some of the water out so it isn’t so deep?”
Her question hits me hard. Too hard. The solution is so simple, but it never once crossed my mind because I’ve been so tied up trying to keep everything else afloat along with Prince Harry. To my shock and horror, tears well up in my eyes, like all the emotion I’ve been tamping down is finally pushing back against my efforts.
I hate that Georgie is the only thing that’s been able to save me from drowning when she’s the one who pushed me in in the first place.
I clear my throat and turn toward the house. “That’s a good idea.” By some miracle, my voice comes out clear and calm. “Uh, I’ve got a family coming in for surf lessons today, so I probably won’t be able to stop by the bakery.”
“I can come by when I’m off.” Georgie’s voice sounds smaller than normal. “King, are you—”
“It might be a couple of busy days, honestly, so we’ll have to find some way to make sure people know we’re really married. I’ll, uh, text you.”
