Down Shift (3 page)

“Good one.” He seems unfazed by my comment as he waltzes past me in all his masculine glory and heads into the bedroom to the right of the bathroom. “But I'm not just here for the weekend. And I'm not going anywhere.”

“Yes, you are!” I follow him the few steps into the bedroom and
whoa
, I'm greeted with a full male backside as he bends over to rifle through a duffel bag at the foot of the bed.

“Get your eyeful now, Socks,” he says with a glance over his shoulder as he steps into a pair of boxer briefs and pulls them up. “Because after I call Smitty, I'm sure you're the one who'll find out you've overstayed the welcome.”

He walks past me again, but this time I'm standing in the doorway. His body brushes ever so slightly against mine on the way out. I'm greeted with the scent of soap and masculinity fresh from the shower. I'm so busy admiring his ass, when I shouldn't be, as he moves down the hallway that it takes a moment for his comment to break through his enticing scent clouding my brain.

“Over my dead body!” I shout, rushing after him, clutching the towel tighter around me.

“That would be a helluva waste with that body,” he murmurs from ahead of me. At least I think that's what he says, but I can't be certain and I sure as hell know he can't be speaking about me.

“What did you say?”

“I said you sure are messy.”

“No, I'm not.” He flicks on the hallway light just as the words leave my mouth. The path of my clothes is visible in all its cluttered glory. I cringe—not because of the
destruction, but because he thinks he's right. When really he has no fricking clue of what's behind my messy trail. “Look, you don't get to come into my house—”

“It's Smitty's house,” he corrects as he holds up one finger and the face of his cell phone out with the other hand.

“No, mine—”

“Zander.” The phone crackles to life and a voice full of warmth comes through the speaker.

So he has a name.

“Hey, Smitty.”

I open my mouth to speak but shut it instantly when Zander levels me with a look.

“Did you find the key all right? Get in okay?”

“Yeah. Right where you said it'd be. But man, that deck is a death trap waiting to happen.” He laughs again. This time it's softer, flooded with the same warmth in Smitty's voice.

“I told you, you'd have to earn your keep.”

“I will. I'm good for it.”

A sudden heavy silence settles on the line. One I don't quite understand, but it's obvious at the same time.

“I know you are,” Smitty finally says quietly. “Just as my word to you is good. I promised you I wouldn't tell them you were there—”

“There's a problem,” Zander interrupts, unexpectedly changing the subject. And I can't quite put my finger on it, but whatever Smitty was talking about, Zander obviously doesn't want to. I can see it in the sudden darkening of his eyes and the tense set of his shoulders.

“What's up?”

“There's a woman here. At the house.”

“Did you already forget what to do with one?” He laughs. “I thought you were long past the birds and the bees speech, Zee.”

A genuine smile glances across Zander's lips, and his eyes flash up to meet mine. “I assure you I know what to do with one. But, uh . . . that's not what I'm talking about. There's a woman here. Her name's . . . ?” His eyes prompt me to respond.

All of a sudden I can't find my voice and when I do, I'm shy. Hating that giving him my name is almost an invitation for him to get to know me, when I want nothing more of this strange, obviously charismatic man than to see him walk out of the house and not come back.

I clear my throat. “Getty.”

“Getty?” He gives me a curious glance as if he's questioning if I know my own name. I nod slowly to him because he's right—it still sounds a little foreign to me too.

New person. New name. New life.

“Smitty, her name's Getty. She says Darcy—”

“Oh shit.” Smitty laughs into the line.

“Yeah. Oh shit.” Zander's not amused.

“Hmm,” he muses, “Darce went on a girls' trip up to the mountains. No service. She'll be home midweek. . . . I'll have to ask her about it then.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Not in the least. There's two beds. One bath. You're a big boy. Figure it out,” he says with another chuckle before the line goes dead.

“Goddammit. Smitty?” Zander swears again as he drops the phone onto the countertop with a thud. He braces both hands on the counter, head angled down looking at his phone while I look at him across the dimly lit room. Waiting. Wondering. Pushing aside the tickle of unease on the back of my neck as I hold tighter to the towel.

My gaze flickers around the room frantically. My instinct is to try to find the smallest corner to fade into. Figure out where the fallout of his temper will have the least impact.

After a moment, he lifts his head up and smirks. The tightness in my chest, the fear that crept in out of conditioning, slowly eases as I exhale.

“Well, shit. I guess we've been told,” he says as he breezes past me down the hallway.

It takes me a moment to regain my bearings and realize I'm not back there and this stranger isn't Ethan, before I turn on my heel and rush once again down the hall after him.

“Whoa. Wait!”

“What for?” Zander turns back around like he has not a care in the world. Like he's not in his underwear with one foot currently trapped in the leg of my skirt, and I'm not in a towel with knee-high socks on.

“You're not staying here.”

He chuckles. “Yes, actually, I am.”

“No, you're not. There's a hotel down the road on the boardwalk. A bed-and-breakfast too.”

“You heard the man. There are two beds. One bath. Pretty straightforward.”

Oh my God. The man is infuriating. And pigheaded. “You're not hearing me.”

“No, I'm hearing you all right. I'm just choosing not to listen.” He works his tongue in his cheek and lifts his eyebrows in a nonverbal challenge. “Besides, I promised Smitty I'd fix the place up and as of recently, I'm a man of my word. So I'm going to do just that.”

Something about the way he says the last statement tells me there is more behind it than he's letting on, but I'm tired from my shift and can't find the effort to care.

“You can do your repairs but stay at the hotel,” I instruct in my sternest voice as he turns around and heads toward the back of the house. “A win-win for both of us.” I attempt to infuse enthusiasm in my voice.

“Did you take the big bedroom?”

“What?” My head is spinning. Did he not hear a word I just said? He is
not
staying here. He can't. This is my space. Well, technically Darcy and Smitty's space, but it's been mine for almost three months. The first place I've had as my own, ever, and it's working—I have no other option but for it to work—so there is no way this is going to happen.

“I asked if this is your shit in the big bedroom in back?” he asks over his shoulder as he goes to turn the knob on the door.

“Did you touch it?” My defiance comes back immediately. My scattered thoughts are now focused. After being trivialized for so long, my privacy is so very important to me. Did he go in, rifle through my stuff? See my work, the bleed of my emotion onto canvas, and judge it?

“No.” His answer is resolute. I'm right behind him, so when he turns around and sees what I can assume is the panic on my face, he angles his head and stares for a moment longer. “I opened the door, figured the stuff was Darcy's from the last time they were here. Didn't want to touch anything I wasn't supposed to, so I dropped my shit in there.” He points to the only other bedroom in the house, right next to mine.

He's too close for comfort, so when he steps back to turn to face me, I retreat too. The space between us is clogged with his . . . his . . . everything about him, and I find it hard not to react.

“Wait. Stop.” I hold my hands up, shake my head. “Just give me a minute here.”
Give me space.

“Take all the time you want in the world, Socks,” he says, eyes full of a strange mix of humor and sincerity. And yet he doesn't step back, doesn't shift out of the way, so it's the wall behind me and him directly in front of me.

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” He doesn't move, just continues to look at me with a face that's the portrait of innocence, and yet a hunch tells me he's anything but.

“Personal space, here,” I say sternly, motioning with my one free hand for him to back up some.

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He takes a small step back and fights the half-cocked grin on his lips. “But you're going to have to get used to us sharing it, since it looks like we're going to be shacking up together for the next couple of days until Darcy gets back and tells Smitty that your time's up.”

That grin comes at me full force once he knows his comment has hit its mark with my sputtering lack of response.

“You're frustrating and irritating and . . .”
And handsome and too close and too many things I don't want to cloud my space when men are the last thing on my current agenda.

“And you're still standing here naked in a towel. And socks. I've had a long few weeks. I'm tired. It's late.” He
looks at his watch and then back to me. “Why don't we go to bed and we can figure out the rest in the morning?”

“It's not that easy,” I argue.

“Yeah, actually it is. You lie on your bed, close your eyes, and drift off to sleep. The only decision you need to make is back, stomach, or side. See? Easy.”

I hate that he's turned on the boyish charm, because it's much more endearing for some reason than the naked-man-in-the-bathroom thing. “How do I know that you're not—”

“I assure you I'm a lot of things, but a creep or a murderer or a rapist isn't one of them,” he states, stealing the thoughts from my head.

“Like you'd tell me if you were.”

He laughs. “If I were one, I already had plenty of opportunities.” He shrugs. “Besides, Smitty vouched for me. You heard him. Shut off your mind. Go get some sleep. We'll talk in the morning.”

And with a flash of a smile and a nod of his head, he enters the bedroom next to mine and shuts the door with a resounding thud. I'm left staring at the faded wood door with unspoken words on my tongue and confusion cluttering my mind.

“Well then . . . there's that.” It's all I can say as I slip into my own bedroom and stand there in the darkness, hunger forgotten, shower no longer a priority, and attempt to process the last twenty minutes.

I reach back and twist the handle on the door and test that it's actually locked, but as I sit back on the bed, I wonder if the lock is as shoddy as so many other things in this house. Besides, lock or not, if he wanted to open the door and get to me, one swift kick of his foot against the handle would grant him access.

The notion settles about the same time I hear his door open. I suck in my breath, my own thoughts and jaded reality melding a bit too much for my own liking, but when I hear his steps head down the hall toward the kitchen, I relax some.

Should I push the dresser in front of the door, just in
case? I've slept with enough fear in my lifetime; this is one place I don't want to have to do that.

Just as I'm about to move to the dresser and test its weight, there's a knock on my door. I jump out of my skin and feel stupid immediately. It's not like I didn't know he was here or anything.

“Just in case you're still scared of me and need some protection,” he says with a chuckle through the door, which leaves me more confused until I see a glint off the moonlight as something slides beneath it. “Night,
Socks
.”

I wait to hear his door shut again before I move toward mine and switch on the light. Fighting the laugh that falls from my mouth is futile when I look down to see the mini-blind wand on the floor.

Smart-ass.

Unsure what to do and feeling completely unsettled, I leave the wand where it is, throw on some pajamas, and slide into the bed.

But sleep doesn't come regardless of how tired I am. My mind goes a million miles an hour as I think about what just happened.

The bathroom standoff. The naked dance. The ludicrousness of having to defend myself with a mini-blind wand. All of it.

And yet none of it matters, because he's still here and I'm still left trying to figure out how I'm going to make him leave.

The funny thing is, I should have been petrified, especially on the heels of my freak-out tonight at the bar. And I was at first. My heart was pounding and adrenaline was racing, but not once did I run away and cower like I used to. There's something to be said for that.

Baby steps.

At least I just proved to myself that I'm making some.

T
he sound of a hammer jars me awake.

The sky's just turning light, and I want to snuggle back under the covers and sleep a little longer. But when I rub my feet together, there are socks on them, and I
never
sleep with socks on my feet.

Night, Socks.

The words tumble through my sleep-drugged mind and last night rushes back in full comedic color.

I must be dreaming. I'll just go back to sleep, chase away the nightmare. Prove it didn't happen.

Just as I snuggle deeper into my covers, the damn hammer starts again. Shocks my mind awake. Tells me Zander really is in the bedroom beside me. And that my damn neighbor, Nick, must be working on his house and has absolutely zero sympathy for the fact that I worked the closing shift last night.

Go away, Nick,
I yell at him in my mind. Groaning out loud. But what if Zander's not a morning person either? What if Nick keeps hammering and the noise drives him insane and pushes him toward the hotel in town?

Optimistic at the prospect, I slide out of bed, grab my fluffy purple robe, and wrap it tightly around myself. Already missing the warmth of the bed, I step over the wand
and open my bedroom door so I can check if Zander's door is still shut. It is.

Keep hammering away, Nick.

I tread lightly down the hall, brush my teeth as quietly as possible, and then head toward the front of the house just as the bang, bang, bang starts again. I know my intentions are bitchy and Zander's probably a nice guy, but I really need to keep this place all to myself. Need to continue figuring things out on my own. I have to heal my body, mind, and heart so I can figure out what's next for me.

Intending to sit on the front patio and let the steady pounding wake me fully, I pull open the door and am startled to see Zander with hammer in hand making the noise himself.

Are you kidding me?

Instantly discouraged, I know I should retreat. Go take advantage of the shower while he's out here and think of a new game plan.

Yet I don't move.
Can't.
Even though it's the last thing I want to be caught doing, I'm transfixed watching him: the sinews in his forearms as he swings the hammer, his hair falling over his brow as he leans forward, the drip of sweat that falls off the edge of his nose, and the bunch of his muscles beneath his T-shirt. The ones my mind can still picture bared like they were last night.

I'm pissed all over again. At him especially. About all those things inside me the sight of him hot and sweaty is stirring awake. At least last night there was humor and frustration. This morning is just a straight-up punch of—unwelcome—lust.

He definitely needs to go. To the hotel. To any of the other islands here off the coast of Washington State. Out to sea for all I care. Anywhere but here.

I take a step back into the house to provide some distance from his definitive virility and formulate a new plan to get him to leave. Hog all the hot water. Be a slob. Flush the toilet every time he's in the shower. Burn some awful-smelling incense. I don't know for certain, but the one thing I do know is that the longer I stand here and stare at him, the harder convincing myself to do something is going to be.

“Goddammit!” Zander swears, and drops the hammer with a clatter. The sudden noise has me stepping back into the doorway. He sucks on his thumb, swears again, and shakes his hand. “You just going to stand there and stare?”

The bite to his voice sounds very different from last night and for a moment I'm frozen in indecision. Then I swallow over the lump lodged in my throat, which used to be my norm, and tell myself that's the old me. Time to buck up and remember why I'm here and why I need him gone.

“Yep. Sure am.” It's all I say, all I can think to say, but at least this time I have clothes on when I face him down.

Luckily he does too. What's unlucky for me is how perfectly they hug his biceps. And his pecs.

“You've lived here how long?”

I startle at the question. “Three months–ish.”

“And you never bothered to fix this step here?” I stare at him. Big, blank doe eyes are my only answer, because I knew it was there and hadn't gotten around to it yet. Fixing myself is a big enough chore in itself. “Didn't think so,” he responds when I don't answer. “And you still think you deserve to stay here over me?”

Everything within me bristles at his comment. My need to stand up for myself versus my need to not feel stupid are warring against each other, so instead of saying anything, I just shake my head and step back into the house without another word.

Ignoring Smitty's explanation last night, I immediately fire off a text to Darcy, which helps me to feel like I'm being proactive. I know he said she's not getting any service, but since I just walked away without a word from Zander when I should have stood up for myself, I figured I needed to do something to make me feel a little more in control of this out-of-control situation.

Needing time to think, I head to the one place in the house where I can block out the sound of the hammer and Zander's annoying presence: the shower. I take my time, purposely letting all the hot water run empty before I get out. The sweat ring on Zander's shirt says he went out for a run. A run means he'll want a shower. And oopsie, this
house has such a small hot-water heater that maybe he should go to the hotel down the street, where they have a
massive
abundance of it.

But he's not waiting to take one when I leave the bathroom. In fact the hammer continues for a while, making it nearly impossible to ignore him. Or forget him. So in another attempt to shut him out, I close myself off in my room and take my time getting ready. I experiment with my makeup, as I find myself doing lately. It's a newfound freedom being able to choose different eye shadows or shades of lipstick or to wear none at all when for so very long I had to abide by what I'd deemed the Stepford Wife daily makeup application.

My easel calls to me over the top of the vanity. Sketches in charcoal sit there waiting for me to paint them with bright and beautiful colors . . . although for some reason, I think they'd prefer to stay in their black-and-white state with smeared fingerprints and tarnished edges.

Kind of like me. Kind of like my face.

I stare at myself long and hard in the mirror, take stock of the reflection looking back at me: wide-set jaw, full lips, rosy cheeks, peaches and cream complexion, a dusting of freckles I've never cared for across the bridge of my nose, longish light brown hair. But the one thing that holds my attention rapt is my eyes; their deep chocolate brown hue looks much less haunted than when I drove onto the ferry, unsure of what awaited me on the island.

I shake my head, pull myself back from thoughts about my old life. The designer clothes, five-star restaurants, and mandatory social-status outings—the finest of all things in life. But hand in hand with that went the complete and utter loss of control over my choices, the pretenses I had to keep, and the lack of truly living my life.

But here . . . here there is water and fresh air and space to create. There are genuine smiles and I'm just the new girl, Getty Caster, not Gertrude Caster-Adams of the renowned Caster family with expectations to fulfill and a husband with a reputation to uphold.

Zander's voice swearing loudly through the open
windows (Mrs. Brown next door is not going to take too kindly to it) causes the ghosts to skitter back into hiding. With a sigh, I look down at my makeup towelette smeared with various browns and blues and reds and decide that my lip gloss and mascara will have to do just fine for today, because coffee is more important than cosmetics at this point in time.

Besides, I don't want Zander thinking I'm making any efforts for him. I won't hesitate to do my makeup for work or because I want to, but never again because I have to for a man.

Going through my morning routine, I pretend like the house is still mine, still void of the distinct scent of masculinity, and still drenched in the solitude I came here to find. And when I walk out into the family room, all three of the things I've tried to ignore slap me squarely in the face when I come upon Zander making himself at home. He's sitting on the couch, feet on the coffee table, and scowling at the television.

I notice it's a race of some sort. I intend not to give it or him more than two seconds of my attention. And of course that's impossible to do when I notice the huge gash on the side of Zander's leg, running from his ankle to about halfway to his knee. It's bruised and bloody and I immediately cringe at how bad that had to have hurt.

“What happened to your leg?” There's concern in my voice along with a healthy dose of curiosity.

“Someone has lived here for three months and has yet to fix the step or caution it off so that others might not put their full weight on it and fall straight through to the ground.” He works his tongue in his cheek, but his eyes never wander from the television in front of him.

Oh shit.

“I'm sorry.” The words are off my tongue immediately—instant reflex—before I shake my head and bite back the gushing apologies that automatically cue in my mind out of habit. “I didn't know. . . . I didn't expect you. Are you okay? Do you need a doctor to look at it?” I move into the room toward him, truly apologetic, but at the same time knowing I can't fix it now.

When he finally angles his gaze my way, the stare he gives me stops me dead in my tracks. “Don't.” It's a warning, loud and clear, and one I don't need to hear twice.

We stare at each other, his oppressive mood filling the space between us in such contrast with the playful guy I met and actually kind of liked last night, regardless of how infuriating he was.

“It was an honest mistake. If I had known you were coming or going to get up that early, I would have . . .” My words fade off when his attention turns back to the television as clouds of smoke fill the upper right-hand turn of a track. Metal and tires fly as several cars connect with the concrete wall and one another.

He leans toward the television, jaw slack and eyes widening as if he were there, going through it himself, driving the car. “Unbelievable.” He says it like a swearword before he picks up the remote and turns it off. “The man can do no fucking wrong.”

Guess he really likes racing.

“Was that your driver?” I ask, hoping to break the tension.

His laugh fills the room. It's full and rich but with a tinge of contempt that has me taking a step back, leery of everything about his demeanor.

I feel stupid. Did I phrase it the wrong way? “I meant to say, is that the driver you usually follow?”

He coughs out an amused sound but says nothing further. There's something about his reaction that makes me feel like I'm being mocked. And then it clicks for me.

“Is that how you know Smitty? Doesn't he race or something?”

“Something like that,” he murmurs, eyes back, fixated on the TV screen as if he's still watching the race unfold in his mind.

“Something like that?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Well, isn't he Mr. Talkative?
“What's his—”

“No, Getty. We're not going to do this right now.” He carelessly tosses the remote on the table with a clatter as he removes his feet from it, face wincing in pain. “We're
not going to do the get-to-know-you crap, because let's face it, you're going to be leaving in a few days. Then we're never going to see each other again, so why waste our breath bullshitting each other? Neither of us is going to say anything more than what we want the other to hear anyway. From what I gather, we're both here so we can't lie to ourselves anymore, so let's just save the pretenses. Deal?”

He rises to his feet, bringing our bodies near each other but everything else about us a million miles apart. I force a swallow down my throat because I hate so many things about the truth in his words. Despising that he's hammered the nail on the head about my reasons for being here when he's known me less than twenty-four hours. And hating that maybe I was secretly liking and loathing his company simultaneously. That maybe a part of me liked hearing another voice, enjoyed the laughter in his eyes last night, and the way he looked at me like I was more than just an object.

Does that even make sense? God, I'm so confusing.
You either do or you don't, Getty.
Kind of hard to desire both solitude and some company.

While I'm at it, I might as well hold a whole conversation in my head while he stares me down to make sure I understand where he's coming from. And I do. I definitely do.

I nod my head as I wait for the words to come. And with the words come the anger that he's an asshole and I shouldn't want to like him, because who is
that
honest when you've just met someone? I've had enough assholes for a lifetime—forgetting one more shouldn't be a problem for me.

“Deal.” I purse my lips, shake my head, and turn on my heel without another word. Because he's right—I don't want to waste any more of my breath on him. I've already wasted enough that he's made my head spin.