The woman wanted to rent space in his own house. How in the hell was he supposed to stay away from her if she was under the same roof?
“I need space to fling some paint at a canvas, and the cottage is a little small and a lot clean.”
He envisioned her wielding a brush in one hand, another clamped in her teeth as music blared and turpentine and oil paints splattered everywhere. It was a guaranteed disaster.
He should say no. It was the only answer that made any sense.
“Uh. Yeah. Shouldn’t be a problem,” he lied. It was a big problem. A huge one. The last thing he needed was Remi under his roof. Distracting him. Annoying him. Worrying him.
“Really?” Her voice rose like it always did when she was excited. “Brick, you are my hero. My own personal hero. Thank you! Let me know when I can come over and look at the space and we can talk rent.”
“I don’t want your money, Remi,” he said.
“Money or something else. We’ll work out a trade that doesn’t piss you off,” she promised sunnily.
He looked at his watch. “Fine. Meet me over there in an hour.”
5
“The room isn’t for rent,” Brick said. “The room isn’t for rent. The room isn’t for rent.”
He was a big man who preferred to move slowly, methodically through a task. But with only a few minutes before a visit from a woman who had no problem snooping through other people’s things, he kicked the decluttering into high gear.
He wasn’t a messy person by anyone’s standards. He also didn’t feel like being anything close to vulnerable around Remi.
So his breakfast dishes went into the dishwasher, the stack of opened mail into the breadbox. The sweatpants that he kept next to the front door in case someone came knocking unexpectedly went into the coat closet. Last night’s pizza box fit under the sink. He buried the issue of GQ—the one from six months ago with the redhead on the cover who vaguely reminded him of Remi—under a couch cushion.
He flicked on the lights in the room in question and let out a breath. With windows on three sides, the natural light was good. There was an attached bathroom. Also good because it meant she wouldn’t have to traipse through his house while he was there trying to pretend she didn’t exist.
Magnus the cat wove his way between Brick’s feet.
“You already had breakfast,” he said sternly but still bent to pick up the sleek brown and black beggar. He was a skinny, picky pain in the ass that had appeared in Cleetus’s stall at the stables last winter with a chunk missing from one of his ears and an eye swollen shut.
Brick’s bleeding heart had taken the mangy beast home and nursed him back to health. It had cost him $400 in vet bills, five sets of his grandmother’s drapes, and half a dozen distinct claw marks skating down the back of the leather armchair in the den upstairs.
Eventually, they’d brokered a truce with Magnus going out at night to prowl and Brick providing enough scratching posts inside to prevent any further property destruction.
Glancing at his watch, he put the cat down on the counter. Remi was always late, which meant he had another ten minutes before she got here. He veered off into what his grandmother had called a mud room. He’d turned the space into a large pantry with open shelves, an upright freezer, and a second refrigerator.
Supplies on the island in the winter were at the mercy of the weather and deliveries. Islanders stocked their freezers and pantries with staples leading up to the long winter. Something Remi had probably given no thought to before jumping on a plane.
She’d live off candy marshmallow cereal if left to her own devices.
Just because he wanted to make sure she stayed fed didn’t mean he was overstepping his bounds, he decided.
Brick dumped a few pounds of chicken, ground beef, and vacuum-sealed bags of beef stew into a tote bag. Glancing up, he spotted the neat row of blue and yellow boxes on the shelf. Kraft macaroni and cheese. When they’d been alive, his grandparents kept it stocked just so they could make her some whenever she stopped by. He’d continued the tradition, even though she hadn’t set foot in the house since his grandmother’s funeral.
The doorbell rang, sending Magnus skittering for a place to hide. Brick also felt the urge to hide. But he was a very large, very strong man, he reminded himself. Hiding from a tiny redhead was not an option. Besides, she always found him. On a sigh, he grabbed two boxes of the pasta, stuffed them into the bag, and went to answer the door.
“Hi,” Remi said.
The sun was hitting her from the back, making her long hair shimmer fire and gold. She was wearing another hat—a bright green knit he recognized from her high school days—purple leggings and a pair of stylish-looking boots with fur sticking out of the top. Clutching a travel mug in her mittened hands, she managed to look both tired and irresistible.
“Hi,” he said after a long moment.
She’d painted her lips today. A kind of deep pinky red. He should probably stop staring at her mouth. And he should definitely not picture those red lips wrapping around his—
“Can I come in or are you just going to stand there glaring at me?”
He hadn’t realized he was glaring. When had he lost control of his face? Oh, right. The second he’d heard her name yesterday morning.
“Come in,” he said woodenly and stepped back farther than necessary to let her pass.
She entered and took a deep breath, then sighed it out. “It smells different in here, but it looks the same.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Did his house smell? Was it better or worse than how it smelled when his grandparents were alive?
Magnus dashed across the hall behind him.
“Was that a cat?” she asked.
“That’s Magnus. Pretend you didn’t see him. He thinks he’s invisible,” Brick said, finally finding his words.
Remi shrugged out of her parka, revealing a tight, white turtleneck that hugged full breasts. The woman was covered from neck to toes, and he was still uncomfortably turned on.
He would not get an erection talking to her, he decided. This was a test of his self-control. There was no reason why a casual conversation with a woman dressed for warmth should make his flag fly. He was a man. An adult. He could control his baser reactions, damn it.
She put her coffee down on the entryway table and then gripped his arm. He wasn’t expecting the contact and almost yanked it away until he realized she was using him for balance as she removed her boots. She was wearing fuzzy socks with red cherries on them. Socks were not erotic.
“So the room—” he began.
“Lead the way,” she said, looking up at him with a soft smile. Her hair fell away from her shoulder like a curtain, and his hand itched to stroke through it, fist in it. It distracted him from telling her he’d decided not to give her space in his house.
Socks and hair were not erotic, he reminded himself. Stay focused.
“Okay, I’ll lead the way,” she said, stepping around him when he made no move.
He followed her down the hallway. Which turned out to be a mistake. Her tight little ass in those damn purple pants hypnotized him with its sway. His dick stirred behind his fly, further distracting him from his purpose as she poked her head into each room as she went.