Flirting With Disaster (Camelot 3)

“Yeah, smart-ass, I know. But when we finally get there and somebody’s stolen all of them when they moved out, you’re going to be the one thanking me. ‘Oh, Katie,’ you’ll say. ‘What would I ever do without you?’ ”

He ducked his head to kiss her smiling lips. “Oh, K-katie,” he said. “What would I ever do without you?”

“Lucky for you, you don’t have to find out.”

He walked with her down to the truck, where he raised the gate again and found a safe spot for the box. “I think you m-might have a slightly distorted view of how ghetto this apartment is going to be.”

“You said it was ‘kind of run-down.’ ”

“Yeah, but I was thinking of it in comparison to my house in San Jose. It’s actually more of a c-condo than an apartment.” A two-thousand-square-foot condo in a nice, safe neighborhood within walking distance of the private college where Katie would be taking classes while he got the L.A. office of Camelot Security off the ground.

Two years. That was the plan. Sean had agreed to launch Camelot’s new L.A. branch while Katie finished her bachelor’s in psychology, and then they would move back home so she could go to grad school at OSU. She wanted to be a therapist. She’d been practicing on him, much to his dismay.

It was one thing to try to confront the legacy of his past and another thing altogether to live with a woman who came after him with theories from all the psych books she’d started devouring. Last week, she’d analyzed his dreams. This week, she was fascinated with a book a

bout maternal abandonment. Needless to say, Sean displayed all the classic symptoms of an abandoned child.

He displayed all the classic symptoms of everything.

“You know, the more I hear about this apartment,” she said, “the more I think it was a really bad idea to let you surprise me with where we’re going to live.”

She’d been so busy with summer classes and helping Caleb expand the downtown office, he’d flown out to L.A. to scout apartments on his own, hoping to make at least this one thing easier for her. Katie had a tendency to think she could and should do everything herself. The better Sean got to know the Clarks, the more obvious it became that it ran in the family.

“You’ll like it,” he promised.

She put her arms around him. “I would like a cardboard box if you were living in it. But I didn’t want you to spend too much money.”

Katie never wanted him to spend too much money. Ever since he’d sold his house and his share of the company and rolled the profits into an investment in half of Camelot Security, she’d been convinced he was a pauper. He’d tried to explain to her that he had some money in the bank, a too-generous IRA, and a savings account to boot, but she now divided the world into “people with private jets” and “everybody else.” In Katie’s book, everybody else didn’t waste money on movers. Everybody else packed their own boxes and rented a U-Haul.

He didn’t mind the work, so he played along. But his indulgence of Katie didn’t extend to finding a truly run-down place for them to live in. He was taking her away from her home, even if only temporarily, and he sure as hell intended to make sure she was safe and comfortable and happy in the substitute he’d found them in Los Angeles.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll make sure I have enough m-money left over so you can open your therapist’s office after graduation.”

“I want it to be a really nice office.”

“I’ve got some extra ssaved up for swanky leather furniture for the waiting room.”

“Thank you.” She kissed his cheek and made a face. “Yuck. No offense, but you’re kind of gross.”

“Yeah, I need to shower. When’s everybody getting here?”

“Little more than half an hour.”

He smeared his sweaty, grimy arm all over hers. “You’re not so clean yourself. Want to shower with me?”

Katie laughed and squirmed away from him, wiping her arm on her shirt. “Not a chance. Caleb’s here, and Ellen’s supposed to be back from the grocery store with Henry any second. I’ll bathe alone, thank you. I don’t want a three-year-old to find us getting it on in the bathroom.”

“I didn’t say anything about g-getting it on.”

“I know your ways, Owens. Now hurry it up. I’m going to get the steaks marinating while you make yourself decent.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A reverberating smack pulled his attention away from the sight of her swaying backside as she walked toward the house. Caleb sat in the driver’s seat of Sean’s SUV three feet away, his arm out the window and his palm against the door where he’d hit it to get Sean’s attention. “Quit smiling at my sister like an idiot and tell me where you want the truck.”

“I n-need you to turn around and come in the other way,” he said. “I’ll roll the hitch over, and you can b-back onto it.”

It took them twenty minutes to get the truck latched shut, the hitch attached, and the SUV backed onto the trailer. By the time Sean made it out of the shower, dressed, and stepped into the backyard, the lawn was full of people.