She laughs and when I let go of her hand, she smooths a few loose tendrils of hair from her forehead and glances around. Jack darts away and this time he comes back with one of his balls. I pick it up and toss it down the hall and he runs after it.
She’s clearly impressed with the mansion, judging by her expression. “This place is huge,” she says, and takes in the wide front entrance and long curved staircase with the dark wood handrail.
I put my finger to my lips. “Don’t talk too loud, or your voice will echo off the walls.”
She grins. “Will not. You’re making that up.” She whacks me in the stomach. I let loose an exaggerated oomph, and the sound does echo in the hallway. Her eyes go wide.
“Told you. Come on, I’ll give you a tour.”
“Wait, I can’t look around. I’m…” She glances down at her coveralls. “dirty.”
I expect another whack, when I say, “I think there’s a hose out back.”
She purses her lips, but there’s a quirk of humor in the corners. “Not funny.”
“A little funny?”
“No.”
“Okay, how about a real shower?”
She crinkles her nose. “You don’t think Tyler will mind if I use his shower?”
“Of course not. Besides for now it’s my house and I’m allowed to have friends over.”
“We’re friends now, are we?”
“I mean after I rear-ended you, how could we not be? In fact, we might actually be engaged.”
She nibbles her lips, like she’s trying to keep herself from laughing at the sexual comment. “I don’t have any clean clothes to change into.”
“As they say in Jamaica, we don’t have a problem, we have a situation, and that can be fixed by me lending you some of mine. We can toss yours into the washer.”
I take Captain Jack’s ball from his mouth and toss it down the hall again. He races after it.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Jamaica.” She breathes deeply and lets it
out slowly, her eyes dim, like she’s dreaming of a different place.
“You should go sometime.”
“It’s on my bucket list.”
“Yeah, I’d love to hear more about your bucket list, but first I need to feed Captain Jack here, and we need to shower.” She stiffens…I kind of do too as I imagine the two of us naked under the hot spray. “Separately, of course.”
She goes quiet for a moment like she’s thinking about that. “I guess I could shower here.”
“Hang on.” I run to the kitchen and fill Jack’s food and water bowl, and hurry back to find her kicking off her boots.
She looks uneasy about traipsing through the immaculate house—the housekeeper came this morning—and goes up on her tiptoes to follow me up the steps. I guide her into one of the big bedrooms. “This one has its own shower. You’ll find shampoo and conditioner and all the hair product you need. Hair dryers and curling irons, too. Tyler keeps the place stocked.”
“He has a lot of female visitors, does he?” she asks with a grin.
“He actually has five sisters, and they visit often.”
She takes in the feminine touches in the room. “I figured there was a woman behind this room.”
I laugh as I think about Tyler’s big family. I always wanted a lot of kids myself. Not that I give marriage a whole lot of consideration. My friends are all getting married, but I don’t see that in my near future, especially with the women I hang out with. But I have a big house in Seattle, much like Tyler does here, and I have to admit, at times it does get lonely. At least Tyler has his sisters who invade all the time, bringing their husbands and kids and filling the place with love and laughter. He jokes that he moved to a big house in the middle of nowhere to get away from them, and says he bought a mansion as an investment, but I know otherwise. He loves having his family around, and they’re all vacationing in the Caribbean together right now.