“No, you’re not.” She wanted the princess moment, where the crowd stills and the handsome prince finally realizes the one he’s wanted is standing in the spotlight. “You’re a brilliant, passionate young lady.”
The teenage glare almost sent Emma dashing for the door, but she kept on. “One day, boys will realize that, and then you’ll have to beat them off with a stick.” Or a certain uncle will chase them with an ax.
“How do I get him to figure it out now? Before it’s too late?”
Emma frowned. She could tell the girl to move on to a local boy who was closer in age. But that was the surest way to get her to dig her heels in. “Well, he likes coffee, seems to have an opinion on water temperature, and you know a lot about coffee. Why don’t you talk about that?”
“Just walk up to him, say, ‘Boy those dark Sumatra blends sure are potent.’”
Emma laughed. “Something like that. Make a joke about Starbucks.”
At that Skylar pulled a face. “It tastes like burnt paper.”
“There you go. Ask him about Italy, how they celebrate Christmas. Boys love to talk about themselves.”
Gruff men on the other hand…
The girl rocked back and forth, tapping a finger on the desk. “That…that’s not a bad idea.”
Emma stood up. “I’m talented at mediocre ideas and so-so plans.” She reached for the doorknob when the girl launched herself around Emma and hugged her tight.
“Thank you, for, uh…” Self-consciousness took over and Skylar dropped her arms. She twiddled with her blonde hair, slapping it against her collar bone. “I’m just glad you’re here. He’d only make it worse.”
A pain struck through Emma at how easily she dismissed her uncle. “He’s trying his best.”
“Wow, if that’s true, it’s really sad.”
“I can tell when I’m bested by a quicker wit.” She raised her hands in surrender and opened the door. It rattled into a quiet, empty hallway. He was probably still outside chopping down half the forest. Emma slipped out and Skylar followed.
She expected the girl to slam her door and lock it, but she shoved her head out through the gap. “You’re good to talk to. I’m happy your car got busted.”
Emma appreciated the thought, though the reminder of how stranded she was stuck deep. As Skylar closed the door and the music dipped, Emma floated in the quiet of the house. She still needed her toothbrush from the bathroom. Shaking off the foolish thought that anyone here would even miss her, she reached for the doorknob.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE COLD FINALLY bit through his stubborn armor. Nick shivered against the wind and realized he wasn’t going to be able to ignore it anymore. With one final swing, he embedded the ax into the stump and wandered back inside. When the heat struck his fingers, they ached like he’d reached into a fire. Grunting at himself for not putting on gloves, Nick ignored the mess of dirty plates on the table and pots in the sink to trudge up the steps.
Skylar let out a dramatic wail and slammed her door. Nick waited on the second step, wondering if she’d run after him in a screaming fury. After thirty seconds, he risked it. No one was in the hallway.
Whew.
He didn’t like to think of himself as a coward, but he did not have the energy to go another round with a lovesick teenager.What does she even know about love? She’s fourteen. She’d been brushing plastic pony’s hair a few years ago. Now she wants to throw herself off of a cliff because she can’t date a boy? When did I get so damn old?
The door to his bedroom had been left open just a sliver. Was that an invitation? To talk or…
Turning his back, Nick stumbled into the bathroom. He gripped onto the medicine cabinet and glared at the bloodshot eyes of a man who hadn’t had a drop of alcohol. “You are a coward,” he said and the cabinet started to vibrate. It bounced against the wall from Skylar’s music cranked to eleven. The tiny bottles of mouthwash and aftershave jostled on their shelves.
He should tell her to turn it down before she went deaf, but she’d just have some smart-ass remark that cut him to the core. No one told him that one day the cute kid who was easily bamboozled by adult logic would learn to twist a sentence into a scalpel. Nick rifled through the medicine cabinet looking for a razor blade that wasn’t covered in rust, but each throb of the angry-teenager beat thumped up his legs. Pain answered in kind. The aches in his arms from the ax, in his legs from walking twenty miles on linoleum, in his brain from doing battle with Skylar. And in his heart from the deepest wound of all.
The only answer was a hot bath. He flipped on the spigot, letting the porcelain tub fill as he shrugged off his shirt. Hm… He didn’t remember so much of his chest hair being blonde, or was it white?
Jesus, he was old. Too old for a teenager’s woes, too old to fight over a damn latte, and too old to be feeling foolish for a twenty-seven-year-old girl. He drew the tips of his fingers over the scar tissue. Men with shrapnel in their gut couldn’t get butterflies.
Stripping down, he kicked his jeans to the wall and tossed his socks on top. Steam percolated through the bathroom, beckoning him into the unknown. Nick swiped off the mirror and glared at the weary face in it. Gray hair in his scruff, grit to his skin, and wrinkles that became trenches the longer he stared. He looked ready to be put out to pasture.
Another twinge caught his back, and he abandoned his pity party. After testing with his toe, Nick slipped one foot into the water. The heat lapped up his calf without scalding it, so he added the second leg and slumped down. There was a washcloth somewhere and a bar of soap. He should be scrubbing, then getting to sleep to wake up and face another day of the same.
But as the heat soaked into his bones, his muscles began to unknot. Nick lay the base of his skull on the lip of the tub, and he stretched. A deep crack snapped his spine back into place, and he groaned. It was nearly orgasmic to be free of that pain.
