Ready to Run (I Do, I Don't 1)

Her mind veered toward Luke Elliott and his big hands and rough voice, and…

Nope. Not happening.

She swung up into a seated position. “You want a drink? I picked up some wi

ne when I was running errands.”

“Absolutely,” he said, standing and offering her a hand. “Don’t suppose you picked up any Saint André?”

“Yeah, that’s a no on the über-fancy cheese,” she said, heading out of the bedroom. “How do you feel about Alouette in a plastic tub? Garlic-and-herb flavor.”

“Did you get an English cucumber? I could slice it up, make low-calorie chips?” he asked, detouring into her bathroom.

“You’re eating the cheese on a cracker like a human being,” she called back. “Your baker would want it that way!”

“Gluten makes me puffy,” he called, before shutting the bathroom door.

Jordan rolled her eyes and wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if he planned to use the claw-foot tub he was so in love with before he headed back to the city tomorrow evening.

She hadn’t had a chance to buy decent sheets, much less figure out a sound system, so she settled for playing Lady Antebellum on her iPhone with the volume cranked up as she pulled a bottle of chardonnay out of the fridge.

She was still digging through the various bags from the day’s shopping haul, looking for the corkscrew, when there was a knock at the front door.

“Simon, can you get that?” she called.

Nothing.

As she headed toward the front door, she heard the sound of running water and realized that the weirdo really was taking a bath.

Joke was on him. The new towels were still in the dryer.

Apparently forty-eight hours of being back in a small town had completely undone eight years of living in New York City, because she opened the front door without seeing who it was first.

A mistake.

Not because she didn’t want to see him—he was the entire reason she was here in the first place. No, it was a mistake because she would have preferred a moment to compose herself, to prepare herself for the jolt of his…

Glare.

“Hey!” she said, smiling up into the scowling face of Luke Elliott.

He was wearing the only thing she’d ever seen him in—jeans and a blue LHFD T-shirt and scuffed work boots, backward blue cap. A far cry from what the guys in her usual orbit wore, but…appealing. Very, very appealing.

She couldn’t have designed a more perfect contestant for Jilted. At least, that was what she told herself was the motivation behind her appreciation.

Luke lifted one hand to the doorjamb, gave her a once-over, eyes lingering on the shoes, almost resentfully, before he met her gaze. “So it’s true. You’ve moved in.”

She crossed her arms and prepared for battle. “Yep, and I’ve got your ex to thank for it. Stacey’s a doll, by the way; you totally screwed up by leaving her.”

His face revealed nothing, but, then, she hadn’t really expected it to.

“I was just opening a bottle of chardonnay,” she said. “You want a glass?”

There was a loud thump upstairs, and Luke’s eyes flicked toward the doorway, eyebrows raised when he glanced back at her.

“That would be Simon,” she said. “He’s…You know, you don’t even want to know.”

“You guys a thing?” he asked.