Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Fitz came back and dropped the car keys on the dresser. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”
With a distracted wave, Ren resumed her snooping. She found a nightstand drawer with a Bible and a Book of Mormon, a desk drawer with a small notepad and a Holiday Inn pen, a binder on the dresser with information about all kinds of things to do in Missoula, and a closet with enough pillows and blankets to make a bed fit for a queen.
Getting to work, Ren folded the thicker blanket on the floor for a mattress and then the second for a cover, dropping a couple pillows at the top and staring down in satisfaction. “Perfect,” she said just as the bathroom door opened and Fitz exited in a plume of steam.
“Don’t look,” he said immediately, but it was too late, because she’d already gotten an eyeful of bare, wet torso and the dark line of hair just above the towel he had clutched around his waist. Ren slapped a hand over her eyes. “I forgot my bag,” he explained.
The door closed again, and the thought of her perfect makeshift bed and the excitement of being in a hotel room for the first time were eclipsed by a rush of adrenaline so intense she practically stumbled into the desk chair, feeling hot and jittery and stunned. She’d seen men without shirts; during the harvest it got hot, and Steve and any other neighbors who showed up to help often took their shirts off at the end of the day or even while working, but they didn’t look anything like that. Like smooth, warm, sculpted skin. Both soft and hard. Her palms felt fevered just from thinking about touching him.
Wait. Why was she thinking about touching him?
Linda down at the library would save any book for Ren that happened to come across her desk, and many of those were romance, which Ren of course gobbled up voraciously. But last summer she’d registered while reading one that she’d only ever experienced those feelings as a reader: the heart racing, the prickles at the back of the neck, the feeling of being inarticulate in someone’s presence, the sensation of being engulfed in heat, heavy with it. And here she was in real life, reacting just like that after seeing Fitz in only a towel.
Ren had told him no hanky-panky. She was already a burden to him. The last thing he needed was one more female staring with moon eyes when he was just trying to get to Nashville for whatever it was he was doing there. So when he came out, blessedly dressed and avoiding eye contact, Ren ducked in right after him, leaving the water as cool as she could handle to flush away any ridiculous romantic notions.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
FITZ
The last thing Fitz needed at the end of this nightmare of a day was Ren singing her face off in the shower. Even if she was singing Dolly Parton—and even if she was actually doing a pretty good job of it—he’d been looking forward to ten blissful minutes of pretending he was alone in the room.
Though…if he’d taken her up on her offer to sleep in the car, he could’ve been alone right now. That was on him. She was little but scrappy, and probably would have been just fine sleeping in a Holiday Inn parking lot. Unfortunately, Fitz knew better than most what kind of human trash was out there. No matter how much she annoyed him, he wouldn’t have slept for a minute knowing she was out there alone.
And look. She’d made a bed for him out of extra blankets. She was trying to be useful. He could give partial credit for that.
Taking his bag to the makeshift bed, he pulled out his chargers and searched the walls, finally locating an outlet jammed behind a table leg, and plugged in his phone. He’d avoid his parents’ calls until the end of time but at least tried to check in with Mary every few days.
The line rang once, then again, before she picked up. “Hey, baby.”
At the sound of her soft, smoke-weathered voice, Fitz felt his muscles unwinding. He settled back on the makeshift bed. “Hi, Mare.”
“It’s late. You make it to Missoula all right?” she asked.
“Yeah. Easy drive.”
“Still gettin’ here this weekend?”
“That’s the plan.” He winced as Ren started belting “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” and the sound echoed around the bathroom and out to where he was sitting. Fitz raised his voice, suddenly desperate to get off the line. “Not much else to report, so I guess—”
“Who’s that?”
He squeezed his eyes closed. “Who’s what?”
Mary laughed, husky and thick. “I hear a girl singing in your room, child, don’t play the fool with me.”
“Must be the housekeeping in the hall.”
Her silence communicated the skepticism he could easily imagine on her face. But when she spoke, he heard only her smile: “Are you bringing someone when you visit?”