Hell, she needed a damn suit of armor, but the sweats would do.
She stuck her head out the bedroom door and checked to see if the coast was clear. It was. She ran/hobbled down the hall, tugging on the skirt as she did, all the way back to the bedroom she’d deserted.
No sweats.
In fact, the bed had been made, and any sign of her brief stay erased. Odd how such a small thing could defeat her, but she was considering crawling back into the bed when a heavenly scent wafted up the stairs and into her nose.
Bacon.
Coffee.
Her stomach rumbled.
Fine. She’d go—what did she care? She took the stairs in the muted light of the early morning, gripping onto the handrail for all she was worth in Lariana’s heels, hoping she didn’t make an ass of herself and fall and break her ankle.
She couldn’t afford such a thing, not when she planned to use her already-loaded Visa to get on a plane today headed for—
Where?
Aruba sounded good. “Or any island where there’s no snow,” she muttered. “And no mysterious hotties—”
Dante appeared at the base of the stairs in his usual way—without a sound, making her heart kick up into her throat. “Do you have to do that?” she asked, a hand to her chest.
“Do what?”
“Appear out of the woodwork! Walk without a peep! Show up out of midair!”
In the light of day, he still looked very much like a thug. He had a gray sweatshirt on over loose jeans riding so low on his hips she had no idea what held them up. Once again he wore a knit cap with the hood of his sweatshirt over the top of it, both nearly covering his eyes. His jaw was lean and square and smoothly shaven except for a goatee. His eyes were as dark as his hair, with no visible pupils. And he didn’t smile. “Should I wear a bell?”
She paused, having no idea if he was kidding, until she caught the slight quirk of his mouth. “So you do have a sense of humor. Shelly mentioned it but I didn’t believe her.”
“Why?”#p#分页标题#e#
“Well, you’re not exactly a barrel of laughs.”
“No—I mean, why would Shelly mention me having a sense of humor?”
Because she wants to jump your bones. “Maybe because she thinks about you.”
“Thinks of me?”
Were all men so innately dense? “You know, thinks of you.”
At that he smiled, and Breanne blinked. Well, look at that . . . quite a transformation from scary punk to hunk, with those dark, dark eyes, tough body, and rugged face. She supposed if she’d been into the whole urban thing, she could see what about him might draw a woman.
If she hadn’t given up men.
She really needed to remember that. Maybe she ought to have it tattooed to the inside of her eyelids. But Shelly hadn’t given up men, and Breanne had decided to be a better person. Here came good deed number one. “At the risk of sounding like we’re in high school, do you think about Shelly as well?”
He didn’t answer.
“Okay, let’s try this,” she said, determined. “She’s the sweetest, kindest thing I’ve ever met and she has a crush on you, and if you’re at all interested, you’d better be good to her.”
He just stood there, maybe breathing, maybe not. “Hello, anyone home?”
“I don’t answer trick questions.”
“Trick questions?”
“Like when a woman asks ‘does that skirt make my butt look big?’”
She clamped a hand on her butt and tried to crane her neck to see it. “I knew it! It’s Lariana’s, and—”
“It was a rhetorical question,” he said, his lips twitching as if he were biting back another smile.
“Rhetorical question?” She stopped trying to see her own behind and looked at him, exasperated. “You know, for a man who seems to enjoy perpetuating a ghetto image, you sure don’t talk like a thug.”
He merely shrugged and began walking away.
“Right,” she muttered. “Mind my own business. Got it.” She pulled her cell phone out of her bag. Time to work on her own life. “Uh, Dante?”
He glanced back. “What, are we late for history class?”
“Ha, ha. Do you know if there’s anywhere I can get reception on this thing?”
“Out the double French doors from the library. There’s a deck there, facing west. It’s the only place in the house where cell phones sometimes work.”
Sometimes? “Point me in the right direction.” She wanted to get her messages, mostly because she wanted to know if Dean had been hit by a bus—the only explanation she’d accept with grace.
“Shelly made breakfast.”