The Best Next Thing ((Un)Professionally Yours 1)

Her head was bowed, her focus on the magnificent, heavy duty searchlight in her hands—no pussy phone flashlight for her—and she didn’t immediately notice him.

“Where were you?” Okay, so maybe his question sounded more than a little accusatory, and her head snapped up in surprise.

“Mr. Hollingsworth, are you alright?”

“Of course, I’m alright,” he snapped, then felt like an arsehole. “Sorry, just on edge. I wasn’t sure where you were.”

“I had to switch on the generator. It doesn’t automatically kick in when the power goes out.”

Of course! The generator. Miles had forgotten about the expensive generator. He’d had it installed a couple of years ago because the series of regulated, rolling blackouts, implemented by the national power company, had become all too commonplace.

“I’m sorry, I should have anticipated a power failure and left a flashlight in your room.”

“I had my phone,” Miles said, then grimaced before admitting, “it died. What the bloody hell is that?”

The question confused Charity, and she stared at him in puzzlement. He appeared uncharacteristically frazzled. His hair was standing up in tufts, he must have slept in his clothes because they were wrinkled and in disarray. His eyes looked wild and, if it didn’t seem so implausible, Charity would think he had been slightly freaked out by the dark.

Now—after that sharp question—he was glaring at the back door almost resentfully and stalked toward it. She bent to right the upended bar stool that had probably been the source of the noise she had heard earlier, before following him cautiously, uncertain of his unpredictable mood.

He stopped at the door and put his ear to the wood.

“Do you hear that?”

Charity tilted her head, trying to hear what he was hearing.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure what—”

“There!”

She shut her mouth at his interruption and then frowned, listening more closely. She moved nearer to the door, now able to hear the strange moaning noises he was referring to.

“That’s odd, right?” he asked, his penetrating gaze bore into her eyes.

“It’s unusual,” she acknowledged, and crept even closer until she was standing almost right beside him. She was acutely aware of—and very uncomfortable with—his proximity and was about to take a side step to allow for more space between them, when the moaning started up again. Louder and more insistent this time.

Miles—Mr. Hollingsworth—reached for the lock, and Charity’s breath snagged.

“No, wait,” she whispered. “You don’t know what’s out there.”

“Only one way to find out,” he stated, looking grim.

“What if it’s a wild animal? Amos spotted a troop of baboons in the area not too long ago. Trust me, you don’t want to mess with baboons, we had a nasty encounter with one that broke into the kitchen last winter. It was aggressive and terrifying. Even animal control had trouble subduing him.”

Her words made him pause and consider. “Would a baboon be dumb enough to be out in this weather?”

“They could be seeking shelter.”

A frown settled between his straight, dark brows, and he grunted and shook his head. He extended his hand toward the lock again.

“Surely a baboon would be noisier and more insistent than this?” His words were followed by a gigantic, reverberating rumble that made them both jump.

“Fuck me!” Mi—Mr. Hollingsworth; she wished he had never invited her to call him by his first name—swore vehemently. “Where the hell did that come from? There wasn’t any lightning was there?”

“We were must have been too distracted to notice it.”

“Stay behind me, Mrs. Cole,” he advised, once again diverting his grim focus to the door.

Stay behind him? That was priceless since—given his current state—she could kick whatever was outside’s butt a lot more efficiently than he probably could. She was reassured by the knowledge that she was—temporarily at least—physically stronger than him.