by Jill Shalvis
Elle rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”
“Hey, you know I run on caffeine, sarcasm, and inappropriate thoughts at all times.”
“I didn’t give up sex,” Spence said. Okay, yes, his latest project required his 24–7 attention and he hadn’t had time to connect with anyone. But quick hookups weren’t really his thing anyway. What was his thing at the moment was creating a system for getting meds to people via drones, in far-flung areas where they were nearly nonexistent. Meds and also medical care through camera-equipped drones, allowing doctors to remotely diagnose and monitor patients.
He’d had problems. Accommodating for the atmosphere and varying weather patterns, for one. The security, for another—making sure pirates couldn’t intercept and steal the meds and equipment was a high-stakes priority. And then there was the ratio of the changing weight of the cargo to getting enough battery charge to make the long flights, not to mention limited battery life and the struggle to stay connected no matter the conditions. But he was getting close, very close. All he needed was time, uninterrupted time, a rare commodity. He moved toward the door. “I’m going after my phone.”
“The one you just killed dead?” Elle asked.
“I’ll bring it back to life.”
“You’re a genius, Spence, not a miracle maker.”
When he kept going, he heard Elle mutter “great” to Joe. “Now I’ve issued some sort of challenge to his manhood and he has to prove me wrong.”
The truth was, Spence could rebuild his phone in his damn sleep. What he wished he could do in his sleep was get this project up and running. Maybe a part of his problem was that it happened to be for Clarissa’s One-World charity and he’d promised her.
And Spence no longer broke promises.
He took the stairs because he hated the elevator, and when he stepped out into the courtyard, he stilled for a beat. He’d grown up hard and fast and without a home. This building had changed all that for him, and normally the sight of the fountain, the cobblestones, the building itself with its amazing old corbel brick architecture, all worked together to lighten his day.
But when he hadn’t been looking, Christmas had taken over the place. There were garlands of evergreen entwined with twinkling white lights in every doorway and window frame. On top of that, all the potted trees that lined the walkways had been done up like Christmas trees.
This being winter in San Francisco, specifically the district of Cow Hollow, the foggy afternoon air burned his lungs like ice. He grabbed his phone from the coin-filled fountain, dried it off on his pants, and shoved it into one of his pockets to restore later.
“Spence!” Willa called out from the pet shop that opened into the courtyard. She ran a pet day care out of her shop and sometimes when Spence needed to think, he often did so while walking her clients for her.
She gestured to the large dog snoozing in the sunspot with a cat on either side of him. “Got time to help me out?” she asked.
“Sure.” The dog was a regular client named Daisy Duke, and she came out of a dead sleep at Spence’s voice, leaping over the cats in sheer joy as she headed right for him. When she got to him, she jumped up and down in place, attempting to lick his face. Spence calmed her down somewhat, hooked her up to the leash, and hit the courtyard with her, heading toward the wrought-iron gates so he could walk her to doggy Disneyland—the park.
But Daisy Duke wasn’t a walker. She was a runner. More accurately, she was a 125-pound bunny, bounding with enthusiastic energy, tugging at the leash.
“Hold your horses, Daze,” he said. “Save it for the park.” He muscled her to his side, his mind miles away on his drone problems. Lost in thought, he wasn’t exactly on his game when a black cat appeared out of nowhere.
With an excited bark, Daisy Duke broke free to charge after it, heading back toward the fountain and the woman now standing there, suitcase at her side, arm primed to throw a coin into the water.
The cat managed to dodge the woman, but Daisy Duke wasn’t nearly as dexterous. Barreling forward at warp speed, she clearly saw the problem at the last minute because she let out a bark of surprise. She was probably mostly Irish setter, but Spence was pretty sure she was also part Wookiee. She was huge and uncoordinated, and a few crayons short of a full box. She did drop her head and try to stop, but her forward momentum was too much. Her back end slid out from beneath her and she flipped onto her back, plowing headlong into the woman and toppling her over.
Right into the water.
Jesus. “Stay,” Spence said to Daisy and lurched forward as the woman pushed up to her hands and knees in the water, coughing and sputtering. “Are you okay?”
Gesturing that she didn’t need his assistance, she swiped a hand down her face, muttering what sounded like “I should’ve gone to Toronto.”
She was completely drenched thanks to him, and yet she wasn’t yelling. She got serious points for that, he thought. And because she was wearing one of those flowy dresses that gave a man thoughts about what might or might not be under said dress, along with a denim jacket and boots—all of which were now clinging to her and fighting her efforts—he stepped into the fountain to help her.
“The water’s . . . warm,” she said in surprise. “It’s freezing out. How is the water warm?”
He looked down at the water. Green. He could feel coins beneath the soles of his shoes. “That can’t be good.”
She choked and he did a mental grimace. He deserved the tears. Hell, he deserved fury. But when she lifted her face, he realized she was laughing?
She’d found humor in this shitty situation.
He felt something shift in his chest at that, a zing of attraction maybe, which he hadn’t seen coming. In fact, he actually wasn’t seeing too much at all, since he was now nearly as wet as she, including his glasses. He took them off to wipe the lenses on his equally wet shirt and eye contact was made.
She had big green eyes. Big, green, smiling eyes. “I’m a mess,” she said.
That wasn’t what he was thinking. Her clothes were plastered to her body. Her very nice, curvy body. He forced his gaze back to her face, then stepped out of the fountain and turned back for her, offering a hand.
She took it but still fumbled because her dress had shrink-wrapped itself to her legs, making moving all but impossible. They struggled a moment, hands grappling for purchase on each other until finally he just wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her out, then set her down on the cobblestoned ground.
“Wuff!” Daisy had flopped around on her back for a few seconds, trying to right herself. Eventually she’d given up and stayed down, tail wagging like crazy, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth.
That is, until she eyed something in one of the big potted trees lining the courtyard, now decorated to within an inch of their lives with lights and ornaments.
The black cat.
“Stay,” Spence warned the dog and turned back to the woman.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice matching her husky laugh. “Appreciate the help . . .” She paused, clearly waiting for him to fill in his name.
“Spence,” he said, purposely skipping his last name. Anonymity was hard to come by lately, but he’d made a habit of keeping up the effort.
“Well,” she said. “Thanks for the help, Spence.” And then she . . . turned to walk away.
“Wait—” He’d gotten her soaked and he felt terrible about that. He wanted to make sure she was okay, that he got her dry and warm. “You didn’t tell me your name.”
She looked back, seeming oddly reluctant. “Colbie,” she said. “My name is Colbie.”
“Colbie, I can’t let you just walk away. You’ve got to be freezing cold. At the very least I owe you dry clothes and a warm drink.”
“No, really. It’s okay.” She started to wring out her long, dark hair and paused. “You might want to stand back. My hair needs its own zip code when it’s wet.”
This made him smile.
“Oh, I’
m not kidding,” she said.
Out of all the women Spence had known in his life, he couldn’t think of a single one who’d be taking this so well, and shit, he realized she was absently rubbing her elbow. Gently, he pushed up the sleeve of her denim jacket and found an abrasion along with an already blooming bruise.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
Maybe, but her skin was broken and he had no idea what was in that water. “We need to clean that cut and ice your elbow. And I want to pay for your clothes to be cleaned or replaced—”
“Wuff!”
He shot the impatient Daisy a long look that promised no cookies today just as Elle came out of the elevator into the courtyard, striding toward them with a concerned look on her face. “Hi,” she said to Colbie. “I’m Elle Wheaten, the building manager. What happened? Are you okay?”
“She took a header into the water,” Spence said. “Daisy’s fault.”
They all looked at Daisy, who was sitting there smiling wide, not a concern in this world.
“I’m taking Colbie upstairs,” he said. “To clean out her cut and get her some dry clothes.”
Elle turned to him in shock.
Spence understood the surprise. He usually avoided dealing with people, especially people he didn’t know. And then there was the fact that his penthouse apartment was an inner sanctum that he didn’t let just anyone into. “The gym,” he clarified, which was on the top floor next to his apartment. It had its own entrance, separate from his living quarters and office.
“I’ll take her,” Elle offered, doing as she always did, which was keeping herself between Spence and the rest of the world.
“Really,” Colbie said, her voice firm if not a little shaky. “Not necessary. I’m fine.”
Spence didn’t claim to know all that much about women, but even he knew that fine didn’t mean fine. The scale went great, good, okay, not okay, I hate you, fine. And as a bonus, she was beginning to tremble from the cold as she gripped her suitcase and tried to walk off—not that her dress was having it.
Colbie stopped fighting it, sighed, and tilted her head back. “Really? Are we serious with today?”
Both Spence and Elle glanced up at the sky. Nothing but clouds. He looked over at Elle, who was brows up, giving him a slow shake of her head. And while it was true that Elle was one of his best friends and he trusted her with his life, he didn’t agree with her silent opinion to just let the woman go.
He couldn’t. There was just something about the very wet, cute-yet-sexy Colbie No-Last-Name that appealed to him in a way that nothing else had in a long time. So when she tripped over her dress yet again and swore with a low, muttered “Son of a beach!” he grabbed for her, keeping her upright.
“Please,” he said as her clothes began to soak his. “Please let me help you.”
At his other side, Elle’s mouth fell open. She wasn’t used to hearing the word please from him. Ignoring her, he kept his gaze on Colbie.
Wary, she rolled her eyes, but gave a slight nod. She’d let him help her out but she wasn’t happy about it.
Fair enough.
Chapter 2
#H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks
Colbie kept a grip of Spence’s forearms and it wasn’t because she hadn’t touched a man in so long she’d forgotten how much she’d missed the tactile feel of hard, sinewy muscle beneath her fingers. Nope, she kept a grip on him because her damn dress was holding her prisoner, making it nearly impossible to move with an ounce of grace.
As if she had any ounces of grace even on good days, of which this wasn’t one. In fact, it was a rough day. She’d even venture to say it’d been a rough year, but that wasn’t strictly true. The fact that she could suddenly pay her bills without using credit cards and racking up more on her mounting debt had truly changed her life in that she no longer was constantly stressed about money. But as hard as it was for her to believe, money hadn’t solved all her problems.
Later. She’d obsess later. For now she stared up at the man who was tall, leanly muscled, and sturdy as a tree, or so it seemed, given that he was holding the both of them upright.
His hair was every shade of brown under the sun, on the wrong side of needing a cut, and seemed to have a mind of its own. His eyes behind the glasses were a warm whiskey brown, eyes that were somehow amused and kind and enigmatic all at the same time. Fascinating, she thought, and fought the urge to find a pen from in her purse and make a note. But if she could have done so without looking silly, she’d totally have done it and written tall, dark, and yummy stranger with an overly exuberant dog the size of a VW Bug.
Said dog was panting with happiness at Spence, who shook his head at her as he picked up her leash. “Next time, it’s the glue factory for you.”
The dog’s expression went sheepish and contrite, and Colbie felt her amusement fade. She knew from raising siblings with their far too many pets to count that the bad behavior never came from the animals but their owners. She tried very hard not to let her admittedly crazy personal life dictate her feelings but she had a thing, a big thing, against people who didn’t take responsibility for their actions. Like her father. Nothing had ever been his fault either. He’d always been the victim.
“Don’t you worry,” she told Daisy. “It wasn’t your fault.” Then she hiked her wet dress up to her thighs and again tried to walk away.
“I’d really feel better if you let us help you,” the woman named Elle said to her back.
She was probably worried that Colbie was a lawsuit walking. Elle herself was dressed to rule the world in a badass, gorgeous black and white suit dress with heels to die for. She’d said she was the building’s manager, and given the easy affection between her and Spence, and the shorthand way they had of communicating, there was at least some sort of relationship between them. Maybe they were a couple and Elle was feeling threatened.
Except . . . no one looking at Colbie now or even before she’d gone for a swim would consider her a threat standing next to Elle.
Maybe . . . maybe Spence was a serial killer and Elle was worried that she’d have yet another body to dispose of. Okay, yeah, so now she was letting her inner writer take over. But at least she still had an inner writer somewhere deep, deep, deep down . . .
Still, serial killer or no, she needed to let someone from home know where she was, and that’s when it hit her. Her phone. With sudden panic, she fished through the pockets of her drenched denim jacket and . . . yep . . . pulled out her equally drenched cell phone, still turned off from her flight. She went to turn it on but Spence put his hand over hers. “Wait. Let me dry it out for you first or you’ll fry it.”
Thinking of all the information in it, information that linked her to her pen name and a huge career she still hadn’t gotten comfortable with—so much that she’d literally run away from it—she hugged the phone to her chest. “I’ve got it.”
Spence and Elle glanced at each other again with unspoken questions that Colbie didn’t intend to answer. She thought of the e-mails she’d left, none telling anyone exactly where she was, just that she needed to be alone and unplugged for a few weeks.
Getting out of New York had been huge for her, and nothing short of miraculous. For five straight years she’d worked twelve to fourteen hours a day without a single break—longer if on deadline—trying to keep everyone in her life happy and taken care of. She’d begun to dream about her prepublished days when she’d been a writer by night, an eager waitress by day, soaking up everything around her like a sponge, shamelessly eavesdropping on customers, studying people, making up stories about them in her head.
She’d lost that joy and in doing so lost her ability to write at all. If she wanted to save her burgeoning career, she needed this break, needed the time away to refill her well or she’d be back to waitressing. There was nothing wrong with that but she was hoping instead to find her love of writing.
Then she’d go home in time for Christmas, at which point she’d plaster a smile on her fa
ce and get on with the insanity of her life.
“Here. You’re cold.” Spence handed Daisy’s leash to Elle and shrugged out of his own jacket and wrapped it around Colbie’s shoulders, careful not to actually touch her as his fingers drew it closed in front of her. It was blessedly warm from his body heat and she had to fight not to inhale his scent, which was some glorious guy smell.
Now that the shock of the trip and her unexpected dip into the fountain was wearing off, she realized Spence was right—she was seriously cold. Trembling with it, including chattering teeth.
She’d been in the city for all of an hour. She hadn’t even found a place to stay yet. She couldn’t imagine how many texts and voice mails were waiting for her from her mom, her brothers, her two staff members, Janeen and Tracy, and her agent, Jackson—not that she could get to them anyway with her phone possibly destroyed.
Which, actually, had its upside . . .
“I’ve got hot tea,” Elle said.
The thought of hot tea appealed to Colbie on every single level and she bit her lower lip in indecision.
“She’s got a million different kinds too,” Spence said, watching her with a hint of humor, like he knew she was arguing with herself. “She specializes in flowery and fruity shit.”
Elle sighed.
Colbie laughed but . . . “I don’t know you,” she blurted out.
