Sleeping Arrangements (Silhouette Desire) (11 page)

Instinct had him tempering his knock to a quiet tap on the door, which swung in an inch, not having been fully closed.

“Addy?”

There was no answer to his quiet call. Worried now—what if she’d really hurt herself or fallen and knocked herself out—Spencer debated for a split second before pushing the door open another six inches and sticking his head in for a cautious look around.

Discarded boots leaned drunkenly against each other in a spreading pool of water in the middle of the floor. That
seemed to be the only concession to comfort Addy had managed to make before collapsing in exhaustion on top of her bed, fully clothed and draped diagonally over the quilt.

He called her name again, but she didn’t stir. Shaking his head, Spencer backed out of the room and walked down the hall to the linen closet. He returned a minute later with an ancient and kitten-soft chenille blanket. Draping it lightly over her sleeping form, he found himself staring at her face—the little of it that was visible beneath the dark, curling hair she’d released from the ponytail and that now spilled around her in masses of ringlets. Her normal dusky gold color seemed almost whitely pale and there were lines of stress on her face, as if even in sleep she was unable to relax fully.

Moving into a new home. Getting married. Being pulled over by the police. A champion snowball fight followed by what would probably turn out to be a sprained ankle. She had in fact had quite a day.

He tucked the blanket in lightly around her shoulders then stepped to the windows and closed the curtains to dim the light in the room. At the door, he paused for a moment, wondering if there was anything else he could do for her before deciding no. His eyes on her sleeping form, he closed the door softly.

As he strode off down the hall, it occurred to him that what he’d just done could be interpreted as a romantic gesture. The thought halted him midstep for a brief moment.

“Nah.” His muttered denial was less than reassuring. He shook his head and continued on his way.

He just wasn’t the romantic-gesture type.

T
wenty-four hours later, Addy crawled between her sheets and back into bed, where it seemed she’d spent most of her weekend. She was cursing the name of Spencer Reed all the way.

Damn the man and his little romantic gestures.

If she weren’t careful, she’d find herself starting to soften a little bit each time he did something sweet until she lost all grip of cold, hard reason and jumped on the man, preferably knocking him to the ground, where she could do with him exactly as she pleased.

She’d come very close to doing just that with him tonight, and there were still one hundred seventy-nine days to go.

When she’d woken up in a dark room the night before, it had taken her a minute to orient herself. The quiet ache of her ankle was what triggered her memory. She’d groaned aloud and fumbled at the nightstand, fairly sure that she’d seen a lamp on it the day before. The first thing that caught her eye
once she’d switched on the light was the neatly rolled Ace bandage at the lamp’s base.

She didn’t need to be a genius to figure out who’d left that there. Which also explained the warm blanket she found herself curled up in but didn’t remember crawling under when she’d lain down.

She’d been tempted to ignore the bandage but knew that she’d only hear Spencer’s voice in her head, nagging her, if she had. The tenderness in her ankle as she’d wrapped the stretchy fabric in crisscross fashion around her foot and a little way up her leg had her reluctantly conceding the need to thank him for the supplies.

Limping her way downstairs and bracing her weight on railings and banisters where she could, she’d wondered how long it would be before she was able to enter a room or turn a corner in this house without wondering if she’d find Spencer waiting for her.

Probably never, she’d thought with grim humor and made a mental resolution to go out and buy a calendar so she could X off in bright red marker the days left in this odd arrangement.

In the kitchen, she’d headed for the refrigerator, hoping against hope that she might unearth some form of caffeinated cola beverage. Taped to a brand-spanking-new two-liter bottle of Diet Coke, she’d found a note covered with Spencer’s now-familiar scrawl.

Since there’d been no one to see her, she’d let herself grin. And didn’t ask why she pulled off the note and tucked it in
her pocket instead of tossing it in the garbage. She’d held the precious bottle of Diet Coke in one hand as she’d hopped over to the counter and rummaged through cupboards in search of a drinking glass. Finally opening the right door, she’d immediately burst into laughter.

“I’m not kidding. Drink some tea,” said the note propped up against the glasses. It went into the same pocket as its brother. Then she’d snagged herself a glass and sighed with pleasure at the hiss of escaping carbonation as she twisted the cap off the soda.

Cold beverage in one hand, bag of ice and bag of chips in the other, she’d thought about settling in for the rest of the evening with her sister’s copy of
Pride and Prejudice.
A quick glance at the steep stairs back up to her room and the multiple spillable items in her hands had had her reconsidering.

Then she’d had a remarkably pleasant idea.

Fifteen minutes later, she had ensconced herself in the library with her soda and snacks within arm’s reach on a small table, her foot propped up on an old embroidered footstool and a bag of ice draped over her ankle. A fire had crackled in the first throes of its attack on the new wood that had been laid in the grate, needing only the touch of a match to set it aflame. And propped on her lap, an easy find in the alphabetically organized shelves, had been an old hardcover copy of Jane Austen’s novel, the pages yellowing at the edges but otherwise in perfect condition.

She’d had a lovely evening, caught up in the machinations of Elizabeth Bennet’s sisters in their determination to get married, and Elizabeth’s determination to save her family members from embarrassing themselves in public. Addy thought Elizabeth quite right to insist on her pride, although she knew for herself that she wouldn’t have been able to remain so restrained in response to Mr. Darcy’s sharp barbs or Mr. Collins’s moronic ramblings. She also thought Mr. Darcy was a bit of a schmuck for his prejudice against Elizabeth’s family and their lack of titled ancestry.

When she’d found herself nodding off halfway through the book and the fire burning low in the grate, she’d disposed of the empty glass and the empty bag of chips in the kitchen, dumped the melted ice down the drain and limped slowly up the stairs to bed.

She’d fallen asleep, having successfully avoided all thoughts of Spencer Reed and the uproar her marriage to him was sure to cause at the family dinner on the following evening. Waking up once during the night to the sounds of her housemate coming home, she’d glanced at her glowing alarm clock and seen that it was three in the morning. For a brief moment, she’d wondered if he was as uncomfortable now in this house as she was.

If that was the case, then she regretted the arrangement. She might occasionally want to bop him over the head with something heavy, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to be unhappy. Before she started to worry about why his happiness should mean much of anything to her, Addy had reminded herself sternly that if Reed was unhappy, he might back out of their agreement and she’d lose the chance to live in this house, to own her home.

That was the only reason she worried about him. Strictly a business concern.

When she woke again, it was daylight, several hours after dawn on her first full day of being Mrs. Spencer Reed. Not that she planned on introducing herself to anyone that way, since she’d be returning to Ms. Tyler as her legal name in half a year. She managed to get herself out of bed and through a shower without too many wobbles, trying to keep quiet out of courtesy for Spencer’s late night.

Only after she fumbled her way through getting a pot of coffee brewing—it seemed the least she could do—and no grumpy, sleepy man stumbled downstairs and into the kitchen in pursuit of Colombia’s best, did she finally admit to herself the obvious.

Spencer had either come home only briefly the night be
fore and then left immediately to spend the rest of the night somewhere else, or he’d gotten up very early this morning, after only a handful of hours of sleep, in order to leave the house before she awoke.

Not that either of those scenarios bothered Addy. Honestly, for all she knew, he had a girlfriend—ten of them, even—and he’d decided to sleep at her house. Or maybe he was simply trying to follow the rules she’d laid down the morning before. After all, she had requested that they try to stay out of each other’s way as much as possible.

“Oh, come on,” she scoffed aloud as she poured herself a mug of coffee, unwilling to abandon the entire pot to a slow death on the warmer. Besides, she didn’t want him to show up later and think she’d been making coffee just for him. “I didn’t mean we couldn’t say hello in passing. We can be
civil
to each other.”

At loose ends for the day, but convinced by each throbbing step that she was better off sticking close to home, Addy spent the day hopping cautiously around the house. She explored rooms, examined lighting and plumbing fixtures, made eyeball measures of the size of each room and felt tentative plans begin to coalesce in her mind.

By midafternoon, she was a little dusty and a little excited. And a lot irritated.

“Damn it, where is that stupid man?”

She wobbled on one foot—the other ankle too sore after the walking she’d done for her to put even the lightest pressure on it—staring up at the ceiling at the end of the hall. The knob in the center of one side of a cutout rectangle lying flush with the ceiling beckoned to her. She was positive that it led to an attic, only she couldn’t reach the knob and was afraid to try and balance on a chair to get to it.

What she needed was a helpful housemate to pull the door and its accompanying ladder or stairs down so that she could get up there and take a look around.

She looked at her watch. Four o’clock in the afternoon.
Where the hell was he? They needed to leave for her mother’s house in less than an hour. She glared at the trapdoor one last time and hopped back toward her room. Surely she had his cell phone number scribbled down on a piece of paper.

When the front door slammed, she pulled her head out of the cardboard box in which she’d been sure she’d stuck her files about everything Reed-and house-related. She hurried into the hall, determined to yell at him for something. As it turned out, the brief glimpse she caught of him after he bounded up the stairs and before he shut the door to his bedroom had her tongue tripping over her teeth.

Apparently at least part of his day had been spent at the gym, since he was stripping a sweaty shirt over his head as he reached the top of the stairs.

Oh, my. She’d been so focused yesterday that she’d walked right past the half-naked Spencer without a second glance. Who knew that his typical dress shirt and tie was covering up muscle like that? He rubbed the back of his neck with the T-shirt, his blond hair lying dark at the nape with sweat, and the movement of his arm as he lifted it threw the muscles of his back into sharp definition. Addy felt a purely feminine hum of pleasure start deep in her throat and knew that if there’d been another woman standing next to her, they would have turned to each other, grinned and had the same thought.

Yum.

She couldn’t rip her eyes away as he hooked his thumbs into the elastic waistband of his sweatpants and started to yank them off.

The sudden clap of his bedroom door closing, cutting off the increasingly lovely sight of Spencer stripping to the buff, made her jump.

She pulled her tongue back in her mouth and shook her head sharply.

“Get a grip, girl.”

So the man had a nice bod. So what? Just because it was the kind of body she liked best, not hulking, muscle-bound
weight lifter but the kind of long, precisely defined muscles that spoke of a healthy friendship with sport or the gym.
Like those volleyball players on the Oak Street beach in the summer, mmm…
She shook her head again. Enough. Just be glad he didn’t catch you staring at him.

But before she could turn and head back into her bedroom, his door opened. Spencer stuck his head around the edge, leading her to thoughts of what nakedness he was hiding behind it. She saw his grin as he eyed her head to toe.

“Better clean up, Mrs. Reed. We need to leave shortly if you want us to be on time for supper.”

With a wink, he closed the door, and seconds later she heard the sound of the shower.

Damn. Caught after all.

Back in her room, Addy caught sight of herself in the mirror and let out a small shriek. Streaks of dust were drawn on her denim shirt and the black yoga pants she’d spent the day in. She had made it into the basement on her inspection tour, part of which was still unfinished. A cobweb was strung delicately over part of her hair and since she’d gone barefoot, her bandage was smudged with dust.

She cleaned herself up and hobbled down to the front hall before Spencer showed up, minimizing the amount of help she’d have to accept from him. He looked unfairly attractive in deep-midnight jeans and a black crewneck sweater, blond hair and blue eyes gleaming brightly in contrast to the dark clothes.

Glancing down at her own nearly identical outfit, she frowned and muttered a curse.

“What did you say?” he asked, helping her into her winter coat.

She pulled her loose hair out from her collar, one hand braced against the little hall table. “Nothing.”

He slung her scarf over her head and tied it around her neck before pulling her knit cap down until it covered her ears. She refrained from mentioning that she’d been dressing herself since she was five.

“C’mon. Give.” He must have caught the look in her eye, because he simply handed her gloves over.

She tugged the Thinsulate-lined leather over her fingers and knew he wouldn’t give up. “I just said we look like one of those ridiculous couples who wear I’m With Her and I’m With Him T-shirts.”

His laugh rang out behind her as she turned to the door, and she felt him pat her on the head. Maybe if she pretended she was Elizabeth Bennet she could curb the instinct she felt to bite at his fingers.

“Don’t worry, Addy. I promise not to rush out and buy us matching T-shirts anytime soon.” His hand cupped her elbow carefully. “Let’s go and face the family horde.”

Afraid that if she spoke he’d hear the pain in her voice, she concentrated on trying to walk normally, but with caution, down the still-icy sidewalk.

“Salt,” was all she said.

“What?”

“Salt.” A quickly smothered inhale. “For the sidewalk.”

“I’ll take care of it tomorrow,” he promised.

In the car, they were both silent. At first, Addy kept her mouth shut because she was determined not to quiz him on where he’d spent the night and the better part of the day. But soon she became absorbed in thoughts of her mother and brother and sisters. Despite the worry she felt, she was grateful to realize that she had no doubt they would support her even in such a crazy turn of events as this. At heart, she knew she could go to them with anything, no matter how serious the trouble, and they would all be there for her, ready to step solidly behind her and back her up in any way she needed.

That didn’t stop her from picking incessantly at a tiny tear in her gloves in an effort to distract herself.

As they pulled to a halt on the street in front of her mother’s house, she counted the cars and realized that they were the last to arrive.

“Great. Nothing like getting it all over with at once.”

She didn’t think Spencer had heard her. At least, not until he pressed a quick, friendly kiss to her lips as he helped her out of the car.