Page 33 of Wrapped with a Beau

He shakes his head. “Never about books.” And that’s the honest truth. He’s not an elitist snob; plenty of his author colleagues are incredibly successful at penning diverse, inclusive romance. They’re New York Times bestsellers and award winners and some of the best writers he knows.

She looks surprised, like he’s robbed her of the fight she was gearing up for. “Oh... Well, that’s okay, then. Sorry. Didn’t mean to jump down your throat. I don’t like when people look down on what brings others joy. It’s just so unnecessary.”

“I do understand that.” His mind slingshots him back to the night he told his parents he had gotten a book deal. His father’s voice rings in his ear: Not exactly the next Great American Novel, is it? Well, you’re just twenty-four. You have time. Your sister Hanna can read it and let me know what she thinks.

Ves waits until Elisha meets his eyes. “Trust me, as someone who writes fantasy for kids, I get it.”

Her eyes are soft. Understanding, even. It makes him feel dreadfully exposed. His heart hurtles into his throat when her lips part as if to speak. Part of him wants to kick himself for saying that, laying himself so bare before her.

The other, more insistent part, wants to know what will happen next. What this unpredictable, kindhearted, unimaginably protective woman will say. But then, at the last second, she seems to change her mind. As the thoughtful expression drops from her face, he’s disappointed.

And then he’s disappointed in himself. She’s a means to an end. A way for him to get through the holiday with someone resembling a friend and absolutely nothing more. His timeline in town may have changed, but nothing else about his situation has.

He knows he’s not that guy—the guy who gets the girl, the happy ending. Those are other guys, ones who don’t come with his emotional baggage and fucked family history. He should be more wary of her sympathy and her smiles—of getting too close to her, period.

So then why is it so easy to forget?

Chapter Sixteen

Elisha

Wow, you’ve really scourged the kitchen,” Elisha says in surprise. Over the last few days, between the hour or two she spends helping Ves after work and his own efforts during the day, they’ve already made a huge dent. Now, the cabinet doors are splayed wide open to air out and there’s still a hint of lemon all-purpose cleaner hovering in the air. Maeve kept the place as clean as she could, but the gunk built up quick in a working kitchen. “Oooh, nice, you got rid of the musty smell.”

Ves wrinkles his nose. “That’s not all. I also degreased the range hood and inside the oven.” As if he can’t help it, he does a full-body shudder.

Blech. Elisha knows how filthy those get. With sympathy and just a sprinkle of amusement, she says, “Please tell me you had rubber gloves on.” His glower is all the answer she needs. She hides her laugh behind a fake cough that even she doesn’t buy. “Um, thanks for being a true gent and not involving me?”

His scowl doesn’t drop. “You’re not getting off that easy. You’re doing the next gross task. De-squirrel the rain gutters or evict the family of rats nesting in the crawl space.”

“You’ve got it,” she says brightly. Not, she thinks, that it will ever be an issue. The only thing in Maeve’s gutters is clumpy brown leaves and the old Victorian doesn’t even have a crawl space.

He looks suspicious at how easily she agreed. Her gaze snags on the kitchen table, and she quickly blurts out, “You got your laptop! And a... whatever that thing is.”

“Arun sent them.” Ves grins and pats his MacBook Pro, then the thermos-looking object.

Okay, she likes him surly and broody, but her heart jolts with a happy little ping! when she sees his explosive handsomeness. One little grin did that?

Oh lord, she really does have to make him smile more often.

Oblivious to her giddy thoughts, he continues, “It’s a travel coffee press. I know it’s a little extra but I can’t survive without it, and trust me, Arun has already teased the hell out of me.”

Elisha throws up her palms. “Far be it from me to criticize a man and his coffee habits.”

She wants to be as delighted for him as he clearly is, but there’s a little thought in the back of her brain that now that he has his favorite Starbucks grounds and his fancy-schmancy press, he won’t take her up on the standing offer to swing by the house and have breakfast with her family.

She blinks back the warm and fuzzy daydream she’s had of him since they sparked at their first meeting: In it, he comes over in a dress shirt at seven thirty in the morning, hair still wet from his shower, trying not to show how much he’s enjoying the fuss Anita is sure to make over him. He’ll sip from a Ben Lomond High School Film Society mug she had printed in high school and still has twenty more of sitting in a box in her parents’ garage. Maybe ask her the story behind it, and she’ll tell him that after all the trouble she went through to convince the administration and get a teacher sponsor, only the kids who wanted easy extracurriculars to pad their college apps showed up.

After frustrating months of being constantly outvoted on their weekly movies, she eventually left her own club. Undoubtedly, because he’s Ves, he’ll tease her about not being over it (true) and probably figure out that spring day in tenth grade when she stomped all the way home in the rain to comfort-watch Sleighbells with Maeve is why she’s like a dog with a bone about this whole movie filming in Piney Peaks (also true).

It would be so nice if a man understood and supported her instead of mocking or undermining her. Is Ves that guy? When she first met him, looking down his nose at her (literally), she wouldn’t have said so. But now? Is it him who’s changed or just her feelings toward him?

“What’s that smile for?”

She comes back to him with a start, swallowing furiously when she sees that his glacial eyes are trained on her. She replays his question, suddenly unsure about everything: the uncertainty in his tone as if he isn’t sure he’s allowed to ask, whether the seesawing in her stomach is because of indulging in her little daydream or his scrutiny. “Um, just noticing how much progress we’ve made? I can actually see the kitchen table and most of the living room carpet.”

Ves takes in the kitchen, brow furrowed, and she wonders if he sees the same mental before-and-after she does. In all the common living spaces, they’ve sorted through the salvageable appliances and furniture for donation, bagged old magazines and newspapers for recycling, and de-doilied all the surfaces. Of which, to his disgust, there were many. Elisha even tackled Maeve’s bedroom yesterday, setting the less worn items aside for a local thrift store where she remembers they took Grandma Lou’s wardrobe.

“Yeah, it’s a good start,” he says at last. “Better with you here.”

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