I’d never been normal. I’d always been kind of a freak.

And anyway, Vance was hot. I often forgot how hot he was, what with us arguing most of the time. He was just as beautiful lying in bed reading as he was kicking bad guy ass. Being reminded of that fact without him moving inside me or in a heated discussion with me made me feel… unsure.

We’d not had many quiet, normal, mellow times, hardly any. I found I couldn’t handle it.

“I can’t handle this,” I told Vance, letting Boo go. Boo hustled to the end of the bed, plopped down on his side and gave me a glare.

“What?” Vance asked.

“This,” I threw my arm out. Boo had given up the glare and started cleaning his face with his paw likely washing away cucumber melon lotion residue.

“You’re gonna have to explain, Princess.”

“I can’t explain.” And I couldn’t, at least not without sounding like a fool.

See, I’d never thought I’d have this in my life. I always thought I’d be alone. I was happy with that. I liked being alone, as long as Nick was next door and Boo felt talkative (which was all the time).

What if this worked for us? I got used to taking bubble baths in Vance’s cabin. Boo lying on the end of his bed like he’d lived there his whole kitty life. Vance crashing at my place and using my shower and making us dinner.

What if I eventually had clothes here, doubled up on the toiletries, litter box and kitty bowls so I didn’t have to cart them back and forth?

What if Vance’s jeans hung in my closet and I had to shift my nightgowns so he could have space for his t-shirts?

What if I got used to that, what if I liked it then it was all swept away?

My cute pug was chewing on my fingers, baby-dog teething.

Did pugs go bad?

I started to breathe heavily and I realized I was close to hyperventilating.

Shit!

“For f**k’s sake,” Vance muttered. He’d been staring at me the whole time I was processing and obviously lost patience.

He put down his book and hauled me across the bed and into his arms, right on top of him.

Even though this was a loving gesture and the words he next spoke were in a tone that was both sweet and tender, a tone I’d never heard him use before and I liked it a lot, the actual words were not loving, sweet or tender.

“Girl, it’s a good thing you’re so f**kin’ beautiful or you’d be a serious pain in the ass.”

I rested my forearms on his chest and my head snapped up to look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m thinkin’ you didn’t get it. When you still your body, you also got to still your mind.”

“What if you can’t?”

“You can.”

“What if you can’t?”

“You can.”

I made a “huh” noise in the back of my throat.

Vance burst out laughing.

Well then.

Whatever.

I slid off him but he kept an arm around my waist, holding me to his side. I held my body tense, deciding to hold a grudge even as I rested my cheek on his shoulder.

He picked up his book and continued reading.

I decided tomorrow I was going to break up with him and I started to enumerate the reasons for doing so in my mind. He was too good-looking. I’d have to keep my head crackin’ mamma jamma skills honed to beat off all the bitches who wanted a piece of him. He was too arrogant, lying there, not paying any attention to my negative-body-language grudge (regardless of my cheek on his shoulder and my arm which had snaked around his waist) and reading like he didn’t have a care in the world. He told me what to do all the time, in macho-speak no less, and in front of other people.

While I was mentally enumerating, his fingers pulled up my nightie, his hand slid inside my panties over the cheek of my ass, to come to rest flat against my hip.

That felt nice.

As in way nice.

So nice, my body relaxed, giving up the grudge.

Okay, then I’d break up with him the day after tomorrow.

Or maybe sometime next week.

When I made that decision, I fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Home

“Meeeeooow!”

My eyes opened and I saw smooth brown skin.

My head turned and I realized I was partially on my side, partially on Vance. I was pressed up against Vance’s side and back, he was on his stomach. My cheek had been resting on his shoulder, my arms cocked, one hand against his side, the other flat on his back. My h*ps and legs were in full contact, my top leg thrown over his thigh.

Major cuddle action.

Um.

Serious yikes.

Boo was standing on my shoulder staring down at me, each of his kitty paws pressing into me like they weighed a ton even though Boo himself weighed less than twelve pounds.

He was confused at his unprecedented new location and thinking he was four hours ahead, perhaps in Boston (even though it was doubtful he knew Boston existed), rather than outside Golden and in the same time zone as always. Therefore he’d decided he wanted an early breakfast.

“Meeeeeeeooooooooow!”

Jeez.

I moved away from Vance trying to do it gently so as not to wake him if Boo hadn’t already.

“Hush, Boo,” I whispered, my voice sounding hoarse with sleep. I was a heavy sleeper. I knew it was early and I was not happy to have my sleep and my warm cuddle interrupted.

Vance moved, coming up on his forearms and looking toward me. “I got him,” Vance’s voice was sleepy too, husky-sleepy, sexy-husky-sleepy.

“That’s okay,” I said.

Then I stopped talking, stopped breathing and my belly fluttered in deep Grade Eight followed by a roller-coaster plummet when I looked at him.

His voice wasn’t the only thing that was sexy-husky-sleepy. His eyes were soft, warm and unguarded and he was looking at me with that “mine” possessive look but also that other look too, the one I could never figure out but I knew I remembered. This time, early in the morning, dawn not even a promise, the room dim and Vance unguarded, the look was magnified.

And I finally remembered where I’d seen that look before.

No one had ever looked at me that way.

No, I’d seen someone else looking at someone else that way.

Nick used to look at Auntie Reba that way.

Like she was breath.

Like she was necessity.

Like she was life.

That was the way Vance was looking at me.

Right then, in the dim room, his eyes half-sleepy and half-full… of me.

Oh… my… God.

“I got him,” Vance repeated not realizing I’d frozen. He leaned toward me, touched his lips to mine and got out of bed. He pulled on his jeans, did up all the buttons but two, rifled through my bag until he found Boo’s food and he walked out of the bedroom, Boo prancing in his wake, tail straight up.