“Maya, come out please. Come on, Bébé.”
Oh God.
He was using French on her? And wasn’t Bébé baby? Was he trying to kill her right now? Her insides went all gooey and now that she thought about it, that word struck a memory.
Had he called her that before?
No, that was silly.
She was unable to resist going to him, though. He was like the Pied Piper, calling her.
Maya opened the door, but kept her gaze on her feet. She owed him an apology. “I’m so sorry I poisoned you. And that I ran away after.”
Seemed a bit of a habit of hers. And she shouldn’t have left him with the mess to clean up.
He sighed. “Maya, you didn’t poison me. Come on, Spitfire. Stop looking so dejected. Come into the living room. I ordered pizza.”
“I’m surprised you can eat after I destroyed your taste buds.”
“Will take more than a bit of chili to do that,” he reassured her. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and it took everything in her to resist melting into him. Why was he so huggable? It should be against the law to look that good and feel that amazing.
Really. He should leave something for the rest of them.
“Look, Maya.”
Look at what?
“Look at the fireplace.”
Huh? She glanced over at the fireplace. She’d only tried lighting it once. It had filled with smoke and scared the bejesus out of her. She knew that likely meant she needed her chimney cleaned, but there never seemed to be the money for that.
But sitting on the rug in front of the fireplace was . . .
“Tank,” she whispered.
Big B was with him, laying between him and the rest of the room.
Tears filled her eyes and she nearly let out a sob.
“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Matthieu whispered. “He did it himself. Walked out of the room with Big B and lay down there. I notice you haven’t got any firewood anywhere. You should probably get that now for when it gets colder.”
He led her to the sofa as he spoke. There was a pizza box sitting on the coffee table. Dougie was sniffing at it from where he sat by the coffee table.
Dougie loved anything with cheese.
“Oh, I never use the fireplace.”
He paused. “You never use the fireplace? Do you have central heat?”
“No, I don’t. I tried to light it once and the room started to fill with smoke. But it’s all right, I have heaters.” Central heat would be amazing but she didn’t have the money to put that in.
“It filled with smoke?” He sounded choked up. Was that the chili affecting him? Oh God. She hoped she hadn’t permanently damaged his vocal chords.
“Are you all right? You sound all funny.”
“Probably because that fireplace is a hazard. It could set the whole house on fire!”
