Page 27 of Tempting as Sin
“I’ll be that one guy standing in the middle of the room after the cops leave, then,” Rafe said. “Because I’ve never been arrested in my life.”GQmight have dubbed him “Every Woman’s Type” after the last Beast movie, but somehow, he’d ended up with the two least impressionable females on Earth. And, of course, Chuck.
“Dog food,” he said. “Right. I don’t know where it is, so we may have to search. All I’ve unpacked is my weights, so you won’t be imposing. Feel free to browse.” He went into the kitchen and started opening cupboards.
“Back porch,” Lily said, moving past him, and if he went with her—well, he was being polite.
“Not much here,” she said, pulling a nearly-empty bag printed with bison and wolves off the shelf and shaking it. “Enough for now, though, and trust Jace to have the good stuff. Practically wolf food, entirely suitable for active dogs owned by manly men. And Bailey and me, of course.” She took down a metal dog dish, set it on the floor, and told the dog, “Sit.”
He sat for an instant—at least his rear end hovered somewhere near the floor. Until he bounced up again. Lily held the bag up, looked at him sternly, and said, “Chuck.Sit.”
“Could be he’s too hungry to sit,” Rafe said. “Also, he’s drooling all over the floor.”
“Could be that he’ll be even happier with boundaries,” Lily said.“Andfood. Although I keep thinking that a happier Chuck is a scary thought. And don’t worry. I’ll wipe it up.” She poured a couple cups of kibble into the dish as every muscle in Chuck’s skinny body quivered, his brown eyes went from the bowl to her face, and the pool of drool grew into a lake. “OK, boy,” she said. “Go.”
Chuck lunged, the food vanished in a few chomping gulps, and he started licking out the metal bowl so enthusiastically, he moved it across the floor. His enormous paws slipped in the drool lake, and Lily laughed. “Paper towels,” she told Rafe. “I’ll get them. If you could see your face. Wasn’t this what you had in mind for your wilderness retreat, then?”
“We should give him some more food,” Bailey said. “He was really hungry.”
“I will,” Lily said, heading into the kitchen and grabbing paper towels off the roll, then picking up Chuck’s metal dish and filling it with water, which he went to work on with maximum enthusiasm and absolutely maximum splashing. Because he had a paw in it. “Last thing tonight, and tomorrow morning. We’ll do three meals a day for a while, and we’ll get him fed up, don’t worry. If we feed him too much all at once, he’ll just throw it up, and Rafe willreallylove us.”
“I thought his name was Clay,” Bailey said.
“I meant Clay,” Lily said, without looking at Rafe. “I got mixed up.”
Bailey didn’t say, “I don’tthinkso.” But she was clearly restraining herself.
Lily had worried about this. She’d lostsleepover this. Right now, though, all she wanted to do was laugh. Rafe looked so…nonplussed. She went into the kitchen, threw the paper towels in the trash under the sink, and told him, “Let me guess. You’ve never lived in the country before. Or even a small town.”
“Well, no,” he said, “not in the States. How could you tell?”
“For one thing, that you thought you could live up here and not run into me. Paige told me you’d said that. And can I just say? You’re an idiot. There’s one supermarket, one Walmart, one brewpub, four decent restaurants, one of which only serves breakfast and lunch, and one road leading up here from town. You’d have seen me.”
“Right,” he said. “Granted. All the same, it’s not exactly the Wild West. I don’t have to shoot a bear for food. Got a car and that one supermarket and all.”
“Uh-huh. You wouldn’t do that anyway. Bear meat’s disgusting. Very gamey. Also, this cabin has a wood stove, and that’s all.”
“And it’s June.”
“And the low last night was 42. Canada’s an hour up the road, and you’re in the Rockies. Fortunately, I’ll bet Jace has enough wood under the house to get you through. Would you like me to show you how to split it for kindling?”
“No, I would not.” He was scowling. He really was a ridiculously attractive man. Too bad she still wanted to laugh at him. “How hard could it be?”
“All righty, then,” she said. “The offer’s there. Wear gloves, and watch for black widows. Scared of spiders?”
“Do me a favor,” he said. “I’m from Queensland. Unless they have a legspan greater than thirty centimeters, I’m not fussed.”
“How much is that?” Bailey asked.
Rafe held his hands a foot apart, and Bailey said,“Wow.Could they eat, like, a mouse?”
“Reck— I guess they could,” Rafe said. “In a spider competition, I win. Also sharks, jellyfish, crocs, and snakes, for the record. And the blue-ringed octopus, of course.” He was holding onto that Southern accent for all he was worth, but Lily could swear he was slipping. Also, Bailey was going to look up Queensland and crocodiles and be more convinced than ever about the warrants.
“An octopus isn’t dangerous,” Bailey said. “They’re very intelligent. They use tools and communicate and everything.”
“This one is,” Rafe said. “Trust me. That thing’ll kill ya. Only if you pick it up, of course. Don’t pick it up.”
“It lives in the ocean,” Bailey said. “I live in Montana.”
“Well,” he acknowledged, “there’s that. Tell me about this dog, then.” Chuck was sitting on the rug in front of the wood stove, scratching himself industriously. “Whose is he? And is it just me, or are his paws weirdly large? That is also the biggest, blackest nose I’ve ever seen on a dog. Especially a brown dog. Sorry, but that is one funny-looking dog.”
