by Julia London
He suddenly noticed a woman rise up out of the pool. She was wearing oversized sunglasses, a two-piece bathing suit that wasn’t exactly a bikini, but was definitely sexy. Jesus, it wasn’t Zach’s wife, was it? Harry’s belly did a funny little flip—the last thing he wanted was to get involved in a domestic fight over this property. The woman paused on the pool step to wring water out of her strawberry-blonde hair, then stepped out of the pool, picked up a towel from a lounge chair, and wrapped it around her. She bent down to pick up what looked like an e-reader and a big bottle of water and started for the house.
Harry had met Zach’s wife only once, and he remembered her as tall and willowy with platinum hair. Zach’s wife did not have curves. This woman had nice, healthy curves that had not been whittled away by an overzealous diet. So who was she?
He was a little mesmerized, a little shocked, and a little stumped. He watched the woman walk right up to one of the sliding doors and open it, then walk into the house like she owned it.
She stepped inside, dropped her e-reader on the dining room table, and looked up, her gaze landing on Harry. It seemed like a very long moment passed before she made a sound that wasn’t as big as a scream, but not as small as a shriek, either. It was a squeal of surprise, and frankly, he yelped, too, startled by her squeal.
“You scared the hell out of me!” she cried accusingly. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?”
“Sara said she fired you!”
“Fired me? She can’t fire me.”
“Why not? Because of the restraining order?”
The restraining order? What the hell was she talking about? Was she some random crazy woman on the loose, or was she part of Sara’s posse? More importantly, did she not realize she was dripping all over expensive walnut wood floors that clearly did not belong to her? “Are you Sara’s sister?” he asked.
“No!” She took off her sunglasses and squinted pale-blue eyes at him. “Aren’t you the guy?”
“The guy? What guy? Who are you?” he demanded.
She snorted. “I think you should tell me who you are. If you’re not the caretaker, then who are you?”
“I’m a friend of Zach’s,” Harry said. “Harry Westbrook.”
“Harry Westbrook,” she repeated, as if trying to call that name up from her memory.
“Believe me, we don’t know each other. Your turn. Who are you?”
“I’m Lola Dunne, and I’m supposed to be here.”
Her tone implied that she thought he was the one doing the trespassing. “Well so am I, cupcake. My permission comes from Zach Miller, who happens to own this house.”
“Oh yeah? My permission comes from Sara Miller, who also happens to own this house.”
Harry suddenly realized what had happened. So did this Lola Dunne person, judging by the way her eyes widened with shock. For several moments, the two of them stared at each other. His thoughts were racing with lightning speed, and he quickly deduced that while he didn’t know what to do about this, he had no other place to go. “I was here first,” he said, voicing the first errant thought to make it to his mouth.
“Then apparently,” she said, folding her arms, “that was your leftover crap I threw into the spare bedroom?”
“You moved my things?” he said, incredulous. “What the hell gives you the right? Listen,” he said, pointing at her. “You can’t stay here.”
The woman settled her weight onto one hip. “You can’t stay here.”
“Like hell I can’t,” he said, and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ve been here a little more than three weeks. I have squatter’s rights. I’m going to just give Zach a call and see what he says.”
“Go ahead. I’ve been here over a week. I’ll just give Sara a call, too. I am sure she’ll be delighted to know what Zach is up to.” She grabbed her phone from the dining room table.
They stood there, both wielding a phone.
Harry was suddenly reminded of Zach’s warning: “This is on the down-low,” he’d said. “You can’t imagine the shit show if Sara finds out. There’s an injunction against both of us from using this house until the court decides who gets it.”
Jesus, what the hell was he going to do? Harry warily eyed his adversary. He noticed she had not dialed her phone, either, and was glaring at him just as warily.
She threw down the first gauntlet. “I’m not leaving.”
Harry didn’t say anything.
“I sublet my apartment for the summer because Sara said I could stay here.”
“Yeah, well, I sold my apartment, and I’ve got stuff in the works here. So I’m sure as hell not leaving.”
Her lovely blue eyes narrowed on him. “We can’t both stay here,” she said, unnecessarily. “I don’t even know you.”
“I don’t know you, either, but I’m definitely not leaving.”
“You can’t intimidate me! I’m not leaving!”
“How am I intimidating you?” Harry exclaimed. “I’m just stating the facts, lady. I’ve been here longer than you, and when I arrived, you most definitely were not swimming in my pool. I have permission to be here, I am working here, and I’m not going anywhere. If that intimidates you, that’s your problem.”
“My problem is you,” she said, folding her arms. “Because I have permission to be here, I am likewise not going anywhere, and I get the master bedroom.”
Harry laughed darkly. “Oh, I don’t think so. I’ve already taken the master.”
“And I’ve already moved you out,” she said pertly. “I moved all your caretaker-looking things to the mother-in-law suite.”
“My caretaker-looking things?” he repeated, indignant.
“How was I supposed to know? I assumed all those boots and flannel shirts belonged to the caretaker that Sara fired! Anyway, I’m all moved in now, all my clothes are in the closet, and my shoes—”
“Okay,” he said, throwing up a hand in surrender. He was not going to argue about a bedroom in the middle of this fiasco. “But I’m not going to put up with that kind of a mess,” he added, nodding toward the kitchen.
“What mess?”
“Are you kidding me right now? That mess,” he said, pointing to the kitchen.
She looked, too, as if she hadn’t seen the dishes piled there.
“Please clean that up,” he snapped. He snatched up his bags and started down the hall to the mother-in-law suite. He swore he heard her mutter something unflattering under her breath and he halted, jerking back around to look at her.
She was still standing there, dripping all over the floors. And then she had the audacity to smile at him as if she’d won an arm wrestling contest.
Harry stomped onward.
In the smaller master, he threw his bags on the bed, sat on the end of it, and dragged his fingers through his hair. This was a disaster. Ridiculous! There had to be a way out of it. He needed some time to think about what to do with her, and decided that thinking would best be done in the pool, with a beer. Or five.
All he had to do was find his “caretaker-looking” things and his swim trunks. Jesus.
Six
Through the window of the master bedroom, Lola watched Zach’s friend dive into the pool, then come up, breaking the surface like a dolphin and shaking his head to sling the water out of his hair.
Good God, but that man was good-looking. Intimidatingly handsome. He was all muscled shoulders and arms, and hello, those legs. Lola felt a little warm. Warm as in acutely aware of her shortcomings compared to a man like him, and yet still turned on beyond what was even reasonable. She moved away from the window and marched to the bathroom.
“Okay,” she said to her reflection in the mirror. She noticed the new freckles, thanks to her forgetting to apply sunscreen; the frizzy hair, thanks to forgetting to apply product; the swimming suit top that should have been retired five years ago. “This can’t happen. This cannot happen.” How was she supposed to write a book with a guy like that hanging around? She w
as having a hard enough time as it was. Funny, but the words did not magically flow from her fingertips in her little patch of paradise as she had expected them to. She’d stared at a blank page all afternoon. Speaking of which—she just realized she’d left her laptop on the dining room table, along with a notebook full of her ideas. She’d chosen the table over the office because of the spectacular lake view and the fact that the doors actually slid open so that it was like she was sitting outside when she wasn’t. Ingenious.
First things first, she had to change and do something about her hair. She looked around at the clothes strewn all over the master bedroom—jeans and skirts, T-shirts and linen sweaters. She suddenly remembered the neat stack of clothing she’d moved. Boxer shorts folded into squares. T-shirts folded in the way clothing stores stacked them for display. Two pairs of cargo pants, identical. Honestly? She thought someone had either forgotten their purchases from one of the trendy little stores on Main Street, or the caretaker’s mother had brought his laundry to him. Who folded their clothes like that?
Lola tiptoed back to the window, and peeked out. He was floating on his back now. On the side of the pool, there were two beer bottles. That explained all the beer in the fridge in the garage, which she had assumed had been left after a party.
Nope, this was not going to work. She was going to have to think of something to get him out of here. Contagious disease? No. She didn’t really want him to associate ick with her. Structural damage to the house? That one had potential.
She headed to the bath to think about it.
She lingered in the ginormous tub, floating amid a million bubbles, stewing about this sudden derailment of what was going to be a perfect summer and finding no immediate solution. Eventually, Lola had to get out of the tub—she was hungry as she was wont to be, and she was shriveling up. She’d had leftover lasagna for lunch. Maybe she should have saved that. She began a mental catalog of items in the Sub-Zero fridge. She had the ingredients for moussaka with the leftover eggplant she’d bought at the farmer’s market yesterday. She had some red wine. She had ingredients for a salad.
Lola used some of the lotion she’d bought at the little perfumery, donned her bathrobe, and padded out to the closet to have a look at her things. She was generally a yoga pants and T-shirt kind of girl, but today she looked at the few dresses she’d brought. She chose a vintage red one that cinched at her waist and had a little chain of white strawberries marching across the hem. She conditioned her shoulder-length hair and combed it out. And, for the first time in days, she dabbed on a little blush and mascara.
As Lola came out of the master bedroom, she heard a lot of banging around in the kitchen. She rounded the corner and saw Handsome Harry hard at work, his arms in the sink up to his elbows. He’d pulled his hair into a little tail at his nape and he wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he’d wrapped a towel around his waist and over his swim trunks.
Lola had to take a moment—he had the body of an athlete. Hard and firm and sexy, and geez, she sort of wished he’d put on a shirt.
Now, he was shoving dishes into the dishwasher, where he’d managed to arrange the bowls she’d used to cook in a tight line on the bottom rack. She was lucky to get three bowls in the bottom rack—he’d put in six with room to spare.
“Umm . . . what are you doing?” she asked.
His head came up and his gaze flicked over her, lingering for a split second on the strawberries. “I am cleaning up this mess,” he said crisply. “I’m a little curious—how did you get tomato sauce on the cabinet doors?” He pointed to a spray of it across one of the upper cabinet doors.
Like she was supposed to remember how that had happened. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll clean it up.”
He held her gaze as he picked up a wet rag, lifted his arm and connected with the cabinet at the very spot of the sauce, wiping it away without even looking.
Ooh, a little kitchen-shaming, huh? Lola walked up to him, and without looking, groped around for his hand until she found it, then took the rag and yanked it free. “I wasn’t exactly expecting company.”
“Neither was I.”
His eyes, Lola noticed, were the color of the silver leaf maples up and down Juneberry Road. Silvery green. “Will you please move?” she asked. “You are blocking my way to the dishwasher.”
He didn’t move. He stared down at her, his gaze zeroing in on her eyes. “I’m not into dirty kitchens,” he said.
“Great. I’ll make a note of that,” she said, and squeezed past him, her breast brushing against his chest, which, for the record, was as firm as it looked. She reached into the sink for a plate and stuffed it into the dishwasher.
Her roommate relinquished control and stepped away as she stuck another plate in the rack. “You can get more in if you have some order,” he pointed out.
“Thanks. I’ll be sure to add that notation under the one about how you like your kitchens.” She heard him mutter under his breath but ignored him and finished loading the dishwasher, shoving in utensils and dishes beside his neat stack. When she’d finished, she turned around—but he’d left the kitchen.
Well that was interesting. Lola had never known a man—or anyone, for that matter—to get their nose out of joint over loading the dishwasher, but she wasn’t going to spend any time thinking about him pouting on the other side of the house.
She went to the gourmet fridge with the wine cooler built into one panel—so fancy—and began to pull out the things she would need for her dish. A half hour later she had the moussaka in the oven, a healthy glass of wine at her elbow, and was tossing a salad when her surprise roommate reappeared in the living area. His hair was wet and tucked back behind his ears. He was wearing a clean T-shirt that fit tightly across his chest tucked into jeans that rode low on his hips. He walked up to the bar that separated the chef’s kitchen from the living area, braced his hands against it, and looked around at the mixing bowls and various accoutrement Lola had pulled from the cabinets.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Are you serious? Isn’t it obvious? I’m cooking my dinner. I made moussaka. It’s a Greek eggplant dish. With some mashed potatoes. Sort of a moussaka shepherd’s pie.”
He stared at her.
“It’s really good,” she assured him, taking his silent stare as doubt.
“Did it require using every pot and bowl in the kitchen to make?”
She snorted at his ignorance. “No. Not even half.” This happened to be one of the most well-stocked kitchens she’d ever seen. She’d have to make a double batch of moussaka to use every pot and bowl.
He sighed a little, bent his head, and rubbed his nape for a moment. When he lifted his head again, he tried to smile. Sort of like she imagined the runner-up in a beauty contest would try to smile. “It’s Lola, right?” he said amicably. “I once had a dog with the name.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Good for you.” She picked up a knife and moved to his left to chop chives on the cutting board.
“Look . . .” he said, trying that loser’s smile again. “I’m hoping we can talk about this.”
His hair was dark brown, like coffee. He hadn’t shaved; today’s whiskers shadowed his jaw. Of all the men to pop into her fantasy summer to ruin it, it would be a guy who looked as sexy as he did. Handsome Harry. Lola had to look away. She pretended to be looking for an ingredient in the little spice boxes from Williams-Sonoma. Kennedy would call this kismet. Kennedy was studying psychology and had a name for everything. She often liked to diagnose her siblings around the dinner table. You know what you are, Ty? You’re borderline ridiculous. Jesus, Casey, how many more brief psychotic breaks are you going to have tonight?
The thought of Kennedy diagnosing this guy made Lola suddenly giggle.
“Something funny?” he asked.
“What?” She glanced over her shoulder.
He was frowning. “I guess I don’t see what’s even remotely amusing about this. We have a disaster on our hands.”
He looked surprised. His gaze slid over her again, this time lingering a little too long on her chest. “It’s not funny to me,” he said flatly. “I have some very important work I’m doing here, and this is a complication I didn’t expect.”
“Oh, and I don’t have important work I’m doing here?”
He hesitated. “I didn’t say that,” he said carefully. “I obviously don’t know what you’re doing here. But I will point out again that I was here first, and I’m trying to achieve something.”
Now Handsome Harry was beginning to annoy her. Why did men always assume what they were doing was far more important than what a woman was doing? “So am I,” she said curtly. She put her wine glass down, threw the chives into her salad, and tossed again.
“Okay,” he said nodding. “Let’s talk about that. What are you doing at Lake Haven?”
“None of your beeswax,” Lola said instantly. She did not want to tell him she was writing a book, for fear she’d get the reaction she got from her brothers. A book? Followed by loud laughter. Not to mention she hadn’t been exactly hitting it out of the ballpark on the writing front.
Her response made Handsome Harry look a little too smug, as if he was congratulating himself on being right—his work was more important than hers. “You don’t want to talk? That’s cool. I don’t really care what you’re up to.”
“Ditto,” she said.
“Great,” he said, his gaze piercing hers. “Neither of us cares. Nevertheless, it’s pretty obvious we’re both a little stuck here. If Zach and/or Sara find out, we’re probably both out, agreed?”
