by Taryn Quinn
I shrugged. “I do okay.”
“I’ll say.”
I needed to veer her away from this line of conversation. “Speaking of dinner, I even have fresh bread from the market bakery too. I didn’t have time to bake some myself.”
“You do not bake bread.”
“I like the rustic kind that you eat with stew or soup, but yeah.”
“We’re totally doing that one snowy night.”
I swallowed. She was thinking about more than today. More than me just helping her out.
I wasn’t great with signals, but even I was starting to pick up some now.
“I can’t believe you did all this anyway. Especially after I’m asking you for a favor. That doesn’t seem right.”
“I don’t mind. I don’t get to cook for people too often.” I looked down at my feet before I did something stupid like lower my lips to hers.
“Well, all I do is cook—well, bake—for people. So this is really nice. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She took a step back and washed the spoon before laying it back down next to my Ninja Pot. Latte decided he’d been ignored long enough and started dancing around in circles.
“Uh oh. Does someone need to go outside?” She crouched down and scratched along his ears. “I think he does.”
“I’ll take him. Too many predators out there for this little guy.” I scooped him up and prayed he didn’t pee on me before I got him outside, then noticed my damn computer was still on.
Shit.
My logo was bouncing around the screen. Way to go, idiot.
“Speaking of…it was a long ride.”
“Huh?” I blinked back in at her voice.
“Bathroom?”
“Oh, sure.” I pointed to the wall just beyond the kitchen. “There’s a little water closet just there.”
She tilted her head at me. “In the wall? Oh, is that a hidden door?” She pressed against the little seam and the door popped open. “How cool is that?”
“I didn’t want to ruin the flow of the house, so I hid it.”
“Well, I love it.” She smiled and slipped inside, closing the door.
I rushed over to the computer and clicked on the mail and chat window. Damn, I’d only written half a letter back to her. No time to figure that out right now. I’d just do it later.
I heard the toilet flush, then the water running.
Move faster.
I tried to close the email window, but Latte gave a little distress bark and the quick whoosh of the email sent sound told me I had not hit the right thing at all.
“Shit,” I whispered.
I didn’t have time to unsend it, and that option didn’t work half the time anyway with web email clients. I’d have to do some triage later. Maybe I’d just keep her busy so she didn’t look at her phone until we were apart.
Not that I’d be saving CF any trouble. But he could fast talk his way out of situations better than I could.
I could practically hear my best friend now.
Talking about yourself in the third person, son? Slippery slope there.
Something else I could worry about later.
I flicked off the screen and hustled out the back door before she could come out and find me.
I’d have to face the music before long, but maybe we could have dinner and some pleasant conversation first.
Tomorrow would come soon enough.
Ten
Vee
Vee,
I have a very nice king-sized bed we can make super comfortable for you. I’m not quite sure on the bear though. Could we turn him away from us? I’m not sure I could…perform under those circumstances without a few practice rounds. At least I’d hope you’d feel secure enough to try it without Sir Mix A Lot. Besides, I wouldn’t want to compromise your bear. I plan on—
The note stopped. Just stopped. Just like my heart as I stared back and forth between the unfinished note I’d just received and the spotless mirror.
I was standing in Murphy Masterson’s hidden away bathroom—or water closet as he’d called it, which I found old-fashioned and sweet—in his hidden away cabin.
Did I somehow have a fetish for the sort of man who isolated himself in the forest? Did this mean I was doomed to end up on Forensic Files?
Maybe I should be looking for a plunger or long-handled brush I could use as a weapon if necessary, instead of trying to figure out if coming back out braless was sending too strong a message.
Please fuck me—if you aren’t a serial killer.
Though that really wasn’t the kind of question it was easy to segue into before fucking. And I’d never be able to live with myself if I found out after.
But it’d be easier to die with a few orgasms under my belt. It had been so long I expected cobwebs to grow over my girly rhododendron any day now.
It was always the quiet ones and Murphy definitely qualified. But I was reasonably sure he wasn’t homicidal. The only reason my brain had gone there was because I liked two guys who lived tucked away from society. They weren’t the only people who preferred such a lifestyle, but it did seem odd that I’d happened to start talking to a guy with the same setup as Murphy.
Either I had a dangerous fixation on rustic types without even realizing it or something was…suspicious.
A cabin.
Murphy.
Could it be?
Could it not be?
When I’d first entered the bathroom, I’d been dazed and happy that I was actually in private with Murphy. In his inner sanctum so to speak. Then I’d realized I was far too revved up to just work on a database with him, and if it wasn’t right to screw someone before a first date, it definitely wasn’t right to screw them before dinner.
Maybe? I didn’t have a handbook for this sort of thing. Nor did I know when I’d gone from liking Murphy from afar to wanting to get naked with him, but I supposed once you started embracing your needs, they stood up and shouted for relief.
Or maybe that was the battery pack on my vibrator.
I glanced at my phone again. When my email had chimed, I’d finished up and washed my hands, then discovered Cabin Fortress had abruptly ended his message.
As if he’d been in a hurry.
Like he might be if he’d been interrupted by a dinner guest.
I narrowed my eyes at the mirror as emotions warred inside me. Elation and anger, worry and joy, relief and confusion. Beneath all of them was the feeling of being a total idiot.
Not the first time I’d felt that way recently, and I didn’t like it one bit.
I needed to find out the truth.
Before I lost my nerve, I hurried to open the bathroom door and rushed out, looking right and left. That the place was a big open concept helped. You didn’t really need a tour when everything was wide open.
I hurried through the kitchen and into the living room, my ears pricked for any sound. Murphy and Latte would be back any minute.
And look at that, there was his desk. Three monitors. Big fancy setup. Was that where he sat every night when he talked to me?
If. Still a big if. There was no proof yet. Just my interest in both men. Just the fact that both lived in cabins. Both did stuff with computers.
Could I already feel so comfortable with Murphy because down deep, I already felt like I knew him?
Or that could be my conscience trying to explain away why I wanted to have sex with a man I barely knew. I wasn’t one to care about conventions much—obviously, judging from my baby proclivities—but this was sudden even for me.
Or was it?
Bypassing the view out the gorgeous floor to ceiling windows, I zeroed in on my target. His desk was unreasonably tidy. Figured. If I’d had to guess if Murphy was a Felix or Oscar from The Odd Couple, I would’ve gone with Felix. Everything had a place, rather than my organized chaos.
I sat in his big chair and swiveled between the screens, finding the monitors turned off. Once I turned them on, t
hey were all locked down with passwords. Naturally. He wouldn’t take any chances.
So, I’d just open the drawers.
Guilt niggled at me, but not much. I’d become Officer Vee. It wasn’t snooping if you had probable cause.
Time to serve the warrant.
The first drawer was so tidy I had to roll my eyes. Not in disgust. Sheer jealousy. Could I hire him to help me get my life in order? It was probably hopeless.
Perhaps I wouldn’t find anything lying around. It wasn’t as if I even knew what I was looking for. A notepad with Vee and Cabin Fortress doodled in a heart? Not likely.
I went through two more drawers and nada. Nothing. Just paperwork that was too dry for me to sort through and tidy stacks of office supplies. He had enough black pens to survive a few shortages and the same number of reams of paper.
I liked a man who was prepared, except when he was thwarting me from proving my case.
If there was any case to prove. Just because my nose was wiggling like a damn bunny’s didn’t mean much.
The back door slammed and I jerked to my feet. Belatedly, I realized that when he stepped inside, he could see me quite clearly.
Where I’d been rifling through his desk.
Maybe I was the budding serial killer. Or a fraud alert waiting to happen.
We stared at each other across the space without saying a word. I was barely even breathing. Then Latte let out a yelp and Murphy set him down, only for the dog to beeline straight for me on his wobbly little legs.
I scooped him up and buried my face in his damp fur, buying myself another moment.
Until Murphy spoke.
“You figured it out.”
I went still. My breath stuttered to a halt. But I lifted my head and met his eyes squarely. “Figured what out?”
Finally, he looked away. “You were digging through my desk.”
“Maybe I needed a pen. Or a condom. So you could lay me down by the fireplace and trace my body with your tongue. You know, give or take a verb and adjective or two.”
I waited for him to duck his head or to look chagrined or something. The kind of cowardly thing most men I’d been acquainted with would’ve done after being nailed to the wall.
Not Murphy. He was the exception to every rule.
He just met my gaze head on. “I still want that. I want it even more now.”
“Oh, really? Oh, really?”
Yeah, my comebacks needed some work. But who could blame me? I was clutching the dog and trying to stay standing on watery knees while my pulse thundered out of control.
Murphy’s head was basically just a giant pulsing tomato at this point, throbbing in time with my heartbeat.
“Yes, really.” He set down Latte’s leash and stepped farther into the room, until I threw out a hand to ward him off.
He stopped immediately, but Latte decided to try to scramble up my arm. I tucked him firmly against my side and sucked in a breath. “Did you have fun with this?”
“Fun with what, exactly?” His voice was so even that it seriously pissed me off. “If you mean talking to you every night, absolutely. Speaking to you was the best part of my day. But if you are referring to—”
“Conning me? Lying to me? Making me fa—” I cut myself off and shook my head. I couldn’t scream with the puppy in my arms, and I couldn’t put him down or else I was going to scream.
Right now, Latte was a safety measure for Murphy. I hoped he realized that.
Murphy raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. And I definitely wasn’t conning you.”
When I let out a screech that made Latte turn panicked eyes my way and start to pump his legs, Murphy moved forward again.
“Give me the dog, Veronica.”
Back to Veronica. I hated how much I loved when he called me my full name. But he’d called me Vee at the café. Something I’d only just now realized.
His two roles blurring.
Two personalities, halves of the same whole. Which one was the truth?
Or were both of them really Murphy?
Stubbornly, I held onto Latte, shifting him onto my chest. He snuggled right in, clearly not holding my histrionics against me. “No. He’s mine.”
For a second, I thought Murphy was going to laugh. The bastard. But he sobered and held out a hand, saying nothing.
I glanced at the lamp on his desk and pictured him sitting there, talking to me all night while I felt guilty for wanting both Fortress and Murphy at the same time. While I was certain I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Miami of actually dating Murphy.
And while I’d been tormented, he’d held all the cards.
“If I give you this dog, I’m probably going to throw this lamp at your head. Tomorrow, I’ll feel bad I did it. Tonight? It will feel like sweet justice.”
“Okay. Still give me the dog. Please.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I just threatened you with bodily harm and you’re more worried about the dog—which I would never, ever hurt, by the way—than your own physical safety.”
This was why I knew this man would make a good father. He was so utterly calm and reasonable.
I wanted to kick his ass. Couldn’t he at least get pissed back at me so my anger didn’t flame out before it barely got started?
“I know you wouldn’t hurt Latte. I also know you wouldn’t want to scare him. He’s just a baby, Vee.”
I let out a broken laugh. “One minute I’m Veronica. One minute I’m Vee. Which am I to you? Or am I just a big joke, the laughingstock of the town you couldn’t resist toying with for sport?” Even as I asked the question, I knew it wasn’t true.
Could never be true about Murphy. After talking to him these past weeks as Cabin Fortress, I was even more sure of that. He couldn’t have faked everything.
Maybe he hadn’t faked any of it, except the part about us not being that familiar to each other. If we hadn’t been before, we sure were now.
“No.” His voice was almost violently steady. “You aren’t a joke. The farthest thing from it.” He took an unsteady breath and tipped back his head before meeting my gaze squarely once again. “You asked if you’re Veronica or Vee to me? You’re both. You’re beautiful and impetuous and strong and brave and smart. You’re going to be a wonderful mother someday, and any man would be lucky enough to—"
“Wait. You want to have a baby with me? That was true too?”
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. “It took me a few days to get there, but yeah, I guess I do.”
I sank to his chair, clutching the puppy carefully to my chest while I tried to make sense of what I was hearing.
“You barely know me.”
“Maybe that was true a couple of weeks ago, but it’s not true any longer. Everything we talked about was all true. I didn’t lie about any of it, just hid a few details that would allow you to identify me.”
“But why didn’t you want me to know it was you? And how the hell were you going to knock me up if I never saw you in person? Newsflash, online ejaculation doesn’t count.”
“Thank God, or you’d have been pregnant a few times over by now.”
I blinked. And blinked again. “You’re saying you…while we…on the computer…while I was…what?”
“No, but it was a close thing.”
“I aroused you that much?”
He never looked away. “Oh, girl, you have no idea.”
Slowly, I stood and walked over to the couch to set Latte on the thick blanket tucked there. He stared up at me, his little tail wagging, while I spoke softly to him and urged him to lay down. Once he complied, still watching me, I pivoted toward Murphy.
“Do you realize what I’ve gone through these past weeks? First, I put up that crazy post in the wrong place. I didn’t know who would respond. Meanwhile, there’s this guy who comes in the café who never speaks to me no matter how I try to flirt.”
His brow furrowed. “When did you try to flirt?”<
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I buried my face in my hands and laughed. I wasn’t near to tears, thank God. Because beneath the now fading feelings of hurt and confusion was a thick layer of relief.
My two men were one. I didn’t have to choose. Amen to that.
“You never spoke to me, but you talked so easily to Sage. Yet you were online trying to get me naked every night.”
Not able to have this conversation in front of a child—who just happened to have fur—I rushed into the kitchen, as far away from Latte in the cabin as I could get.
“I was not trying to get you naked,” he shot back as he followed me, his tone rife with indignance. “But if I had been, so what? Wasn’t that what you wanted from this whole thing in the first place?”
I stopped near the counter and whirled around to shove him. I had to get my aggression out or that lamp was going to be in peril anyway. “I don’t know what I want anymore. Yes, at first, I wanted a freaking baby.”
“But now you don’t?”
God, did I hear disappointment in his voice?
This man. I didn’t know what I was going to do with him.
Okay, that was a lie. I had a pretty good idea. But he was gonna grovel first, dammit.
“Of course I do. But I was hoping to meet a decent guy. And I didn’t.”
He reeled back as if I’d sucker-punched him. “You didn’t?”
“No. I met two of them. Goddammit. And I wanted both, and I didn’t know how to choose, and I thought that made me some kind of horny ho, when in truth you were driving me crazy—”
“Shut up. Just shut up and listen to me. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how.”
“What? Why? Why couldn’t you just open your mouth and come clean?”
“Because I’m me and you’re you.”
“What?” I shoved him again, half for the pleasure of feeling my hands against his firm pecs. So firm. Jesus. “Talk sense.”
“Here’s some sense.” He gripped me by the shoulders and lifted me up on the counter so we were eye level. “You’re my dream girl. You’re everything. And I couldn’t find the words to tell you. So, shut up already.”
Our chests were so close, but our faces were even closer. He was out of breath, and so was I. But that didn’t stop me from cocking my head. “Why don’t you make me?”
