“I had no idea,” he said starkly.
She looked up at him, surprised. “None?”
He shook his head
slowly.
For some reason, his admission deflated her. Was she so substandard as a female that a man like Rill couldn’t sense her desire, no matter how hard she tried to mask it? Was she so “not his type” that Rill never had even considered her as an attractive woman who admired him . . . wanted him?
His expression had grown grim. Damn. Why had she spoken when all had been going so well between them?
“What’s wrong?” Katie asked slowly.
He shook his head and turned, letting the warm water rinse the soap off his body.
“Don’t tell me you drove across the country like this because you have some kind of a crush on me.”
His words seemed to echo around in her skull like her brain had suddenly vacated it and left an empty, hollow space.
“Crush? Why do you say crush? What? I’m incapable of any meaningful feeling? The extent of my emotional range is a crush?”
“I didn’t mean that,” Rill replied, but Katie didn’t like the way he averted his gaze.
“Well, what it is that you’re saying, exactly? Because I’m pretty sick of being cast as the perpetual teenager in a fucking John Hughes film!”
He turned to her, obviously shocked by her explosion of anger.
“I only meant that I suspected there was some other reason for your impulsivity in driving all the way here from California. That’s all. I knew you weren’t telling me the whole story.” Something seemed to occur to him and he straightened. “Jaysus. Don’t tell me you drove all the way out here because you planned on this happening.” He waved significantly between their naked bodies.
Katie’s scalp and spine tingled with fury.
“I told you why I drove here: because you’re my friend, and I love you, and I couldn’t stand the thought of you here all alone, destroying yourself.”
He nodded his head slowly. “And you thought offering me your body might be a way to jump-start me out of my funk, is that it?”
Anger sent her blood to a low boil. “I didn’t come here with the intent of seducing you. But what if I had? Are you upset about the idea of my intentions, or are you more upset that us getting together possibly could be the thing to kick some common sense into that thick head of yours?”
For a moment they faced off while the steam rose around them. A shadow of uncertainty flickered across his face. He swallowed thickly, and Katie wondered if he was about to apologize. The man certainly knew how to shove his foot in his mouth. She wasn’t to find out Rill’s intentions, however, because at that moment a man shouted from the kitchen.
“Rill? Katie?”
Her eyes sprang wide.
Rill’s expression flattened with shock.
“It’s Everett,” Katie hissed incredulously.
Five minutes later, Katie came downstairs from the dormer bedroom to greet her brother. She felt somewhat more composed for his unexpected presence than she had standing nude and furious in the shower with Rill. Rill had whispered to her to wait in the bathroom while he went out to meet Everett.
She’d taken one look at Rill’s initial shocked, and then, grim expression as they stood there in the shower and knew they wouldn’t be greeting her brother arm in arm.
She followed the sound of low male voices onto the front porch. The air felt crisp and cool on cheeks that were still warm from steam and phenomenal sex. Everett turned at the sound of the screen door squeaking open. Her brother grinned at her, white teeth flashing in the dim light.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded as she returned Everett’s hug.
“I could ask the same of you,” Everett replied. The hall light illuminated his handsome, classically cut jaw and smiling mouth as he stepped away from their hug. He wore jeans and a white button-down shirt. Golden-brown whiskers darkened his jaw. He’d pulled a gray newsboy hat down low over his brow, shadowing his upper face. Everett loved hats, and had a vast collection of them. Most people assumed it was an affectation, but Katie knew he wore them to hide what was perhaps his most famous feature—his tousled blond hair. He wore it relatively short, but in the front, around his face, it was so light that it caused double takes from a hundred feet away.
Not that Everett needed any help in the garnering-attention department, Katie thought grumpily. She and Everett had always been very close. She knew that most of the women alive on the planet would sacrifice their firstborn to be near Everett Hughes.