Harlequin Romance March 2021 Box Set Cara Colter (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📖

‘How about I answer your questions in reverse order?’ he said.

She sipped her beer, her eyes not leaving his.

He didn’t move to take the stool beside her, but remained leaning back against the kitchen bench, the breakfast bar between them. Cool, casual, unruffled—those were the things he needed to be.

‘First up—yes, I am going to invite you in.’

A current of electricity surged through him when her lips twitched.

‘Thank you. I’m honoured.’

‘I didn’t mention the fact that I live in the same building as Frances because it slipped my mind. And it didn’t seem important. I moved back into the block eight months ago, but it’s only a temporary measure.’

She set her beer down carefully. ‘You didn’t tell me you live down here because you don’t trust me. That made sense when you thought I’d been mean to someone you loved, but it’s still the case now…’ She stared at him. ‘I suppose that means your natural default position is suspicious?’

He straightened. ‘No, it’s not. I…’

The denial petered out and he forced himself back into an attitude of casual slouchiness. The little dog trotted over to sit at his feet, staring up at him. He welcomed the change of focus.

‘You thirsty, little guy?’

He set a bowl of water down for the dog, but Barney rolled onto his back instead, begging for a tummy rub. With a low laugh, Owen obliged before forcing himself upright again.

‘It never used to be my default position,’ he made himself say. Before Fiona it hadn’t been. But now…

‘So I shouldn’t take it personally?’

‘You shouldn’t take it personally,’ he agreed.

They stared at each other, neither moving, and in that stillness something changed—stirred and unfurled, charging the air. A fist reached into his chest and gently but inexorably squeezed the breath from his body. Panic fluttered at the edges of his consciousness and he had to wrench his gaze away before he did something stupid. Like walk across and kiss her.

What the hell…?

His heart pounded and Callie’s dazed expression, the way her fingers tightened about her beer, the way her jaw tightened, told him she’d recognised what he hadn’t been able to disguise—that he found her attractive…that he wanted her.

She took a long pull on her drink, looking everywhere but at him. Had he made her feel uncomfortable? Or—worse—unsafe?

He didn’t want her feeling unsafe around him.

‘Sometimes you remind me of Frances.’ The words dropped into the silence that surrounded them. ‘And it catches me off guard.’

It was the truth, but it wasn’t what that moment had been about. Still, it would provide him with some kind of excuse, at least. And hopefully help her feel at ease again.

She froze—head tilted back, bottle of beer to her lips. Nothing moved except her eyes as they returned to his. Eventually she lowered the bottle, but she didn’t speak.

‘It’s in the way you raise your eyebrows. Especially when you quirk just one of them.’ He huffed out a laugh. ‘Exactly like you’re doing now.’

She lifted a hand to her eyebrow, as if committing the mannerism to memory.

‘You have a rather precise way of moving your hands… And your chin,’ he added with a frown, the resemblance only striking him now, ‘is the same shape as Frances’s.’

‘It’s the same shape as my mother’s too.’

She traced it with her fingers and he tried not to imagine following the action with his own hand, then tilting it so he could lower his mouth over hers and—

He pushed away from the bench. At her questioning glance he gestured across the room. ‘The sofa’s more comfortable.’ He needed to sit.

His sofa was a deep, L-shaped affair, but before he could plant himself in the far corner the little dog had beaten him to it.

‘That’s a little bold, Barney,’ she scolded, scooting across to lift him onto her lap. ‘Owen might not want you sitting on his sofa.’

Owen took the seat furthest away, aware now of her fragrance. She smelled like spring flowers. Or maybe that was because his courtyard was filled with a profusion of the spring blooms his mother had planted.

‘I don’t mind him being on the sofa.’

She glanced around and huffed out a sigh. ‘But he’s not yours, is he?’

It was more of a statement than a question, and things inside him pulled tight. He was a dog person. What was it about his apartment that gave her the idea he wasn’t?

‘No dog bed or food bowls or dog toys,’ she continued, and his shoulders loosened. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know who he belongs to, by any chance?’

He shook his head. ‘What made you think I would?’

She told him how she and Barney had become acquainted.

‘He must be local,’ he agreed, curbing the temptation to reach over and fondle the dog’s ears. It would bring him too close to Callie. ‘He looks well cared for.’

She nodded.

‘Right.’ He stood. ‘Lost dogs are usually found within the first hour of going missing. I suggest we walk the nearby streets to see if anyone is searching for him.’

‘Excellent plan!’

They returned to his apartment an hour and a half later, none the wiser and with Barney still trotting obediently on the length of cord Owen had dug out of the bottom of a drawer. They flopped down onto his sofa, nursing bottles of water.

‘He can stay with me until I find his owner.’ Callie glanced at Barney and then at Owen. ‘I get the feeling you’re a dog person too?’ He nodded, and her eyes lit up. ‘You work from home, right?’

‘What makes you say that?’

These days he volunteered as little information about himself as possible. He’d been too trusting, too open, with Fiona, and it wasn’t a mistake he meant to repeat.

‘Your office is huge. So I just thought…’ She shrugged. ‘I figured it meant you worked from home sometimes.’

‘Sometimes I do.’

He refused to meet her eyes. He had to go into the office occasionally. When he had meetings with clients, or his team of programmers, but it was rare.