She wasn’t like any other girl I’d ever met, which was both the problem and the allure. I didn’t know how to read her.

But damn, I wanted her something fierce.

I took an ice cold shower, hoping it would help.

It didn’t.

Six

Blair

I pushed the door open at the bottom of the stairs, thankful for the soft breeze that cooled my skin. Griffin had a way of making me feel hot and bothered just by standing next to me.

Was I imagining the flicker of interest in his eyes? The chemistry between us? The way it sometimes felt like he was fighting the urge to put his hands or his mouth on me? I sighed, dropping onto a wrought-iron bench on the sidewalk and slipping my sunglasses on. It had to be in my head.

If he wanted to kiss me, he would have done it a minute ago. Our lips had only been inches apart. But he hadn’t, and I’d felt stupid standing there waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen.

To distract myself, I looked at my phone and saw I had new messages from my mother demanding to know where on earth I’d run off to and when I was coming home, peppered with words like childish, tantrum, absurd, and unsafe. Too angry to write her back yet, I stuck my phone in my purse again and took some deep breaths.

Griffin came out a minute later. “Hey. Ready to go?”

“Yes.” I got up and followed him around the back of the garage to the alley, where a white pickup truck was parked. He opened the passenger door for me, closing it once I’d hopped in.

While he walked around to the driver’s side, I looked around the front and back seats. The truck was as nice as his apartment inside—the beige leather interior was perfectly clean, the dash was free of dust, and no trash littered the floor mats. It even smelled good.

So did the driver himself. I caught a whiff of cologne as Griffin slid behind the wheel, and I kind of wanted to bury my face in his neck. He looked so cute all cleaned up, with his damp hair, dark jeans, and fitted black T-shirt.

But he was frowning again as he checked his phone. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“My sister,” he said. “She said she couldn’t wait any longer at the shelter and she had to bring the kitten home. Which was against the rules, so she’s making me feel even shittier about it.”

“So can’t you pick it up from her house?”

“I can, but we’ll have to deal with my mother.”

“Is she that bad?”

“She’s just . . . intense.”

“I can handle it.”

He gave me a disbelieving side-eye.

“Listen, my major was French, but I should have a PhD in grace under pressure. I can handle anybody.”

He laughed a little. “You probably can. And I guess we can use the opportunity to ask her if she knows anyone renting a room in town.”

“That would be great.” I reached over and laid my hand on his forearm. It was warm beneath my palm. “Thank you.”

His eyes dropped to my fingers against his skin and stayed there so long I grew self-conscious and took my hand back. Maybe he didn’t like to be touched?

He started the truck without another word.

On the ten-minute drive to his mom’s house, he remained silent except when I asked him a question, but even then, his answers were short.

“Is that the lake over there?”

“Yes.”

“Is this where you went to elementary school?”

“Yes.”

“Why does it smell so good here?” I stuck my head out the open passenger window and inhaled.

“Lavender farm.”

“I didn’t know lavender grew in Michigan.”

“It does.”

“Why are you so tense?”

“I’m not.”

I stared at his handsome profile and sighed heavily.

The set of his jaw grew stubborn. “My mother thinks she knows better than I do how to run my life. It gets to me.”

“I understand. Believe me.”

He glanced at me. “Yeah, maybe you do.”

A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of a charming two-story Arts and Crafts-style home with a deep front porch and well-tended lawn. The house was painted a cornflower blue and all the trim was white. “Did you grow up here?” I asked as Griffin parked along the curb.

“Yes.”

“It’s so pretty!” I got out of the truck and looked around at the neighborhood. The houses were close together, and they had small front yards but big front porches, and groups of kids were out playing all along the block. Girls with sidewalk chalk and jump ropes, boys riding bikes, a game of basketball happening in someone’s driveway. It looked homey and safe, like everyone in the neighborhood was sort of like family. So different from the gated community full of McMansions where I’d grown up, with all the houses set far apart on a golf course.

“It wasn’t pretty where you grew up?” he asked.

“It was, but in a different way. I didn’t have friends right in my neighborhood. I never played hopscotch on the driveway or rode bikes to the ice cream store or had a lemonade stand with friends. I had no siblings either. I had to be the voices of all my Barbies—maybe that’s why I talk so much.”

Griffin laughed as I followed him up the brick walk. He waved to a group of young girls running through the sprinkler on the front lawn next door, and one of them waved back. “Hi, Uncle Griffin!”

“Hi, Mariah,” he called back. “Your dad home?”

She shook her head, her hair throwing water droplets. “He’s at work. Grandma is here.”

Griffin nodded. “That’s Cole’s daughter,” he said to me. “My goddaughter.”

“Adorable.” I smiled at her. “How old is she?”

“Eight. They moved in with his mom after Cole’s wife died.”

I gasped. “How did she die?”

“Giving birth to Mariah, actually.”

My heart ached for the handsome police officer I’d met last night, and for his cute young daughter. “God, that’s awful. He never remarried?”

Griffin shook his head. “Nope.”

We climbed the steps onto the front porch, and I noticed the pretty hanging baskets of flowers and white rocking chairs and the welcome mat that read Fáilte. Before we could even knock on the wooden screen door, someone pulled it open.

“Well, hi there, big brother.” A pretty woman with a long, caramel-colored braid over one shoulder and wide brown eyes grinned at us. She had the same dimple in her chin that Griffin did. “Glad you could make it.” She winked at me. “And this must be your bride.”

“Don’t start,” he warned her. “Blair, this is my sister, Cheyenne.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“You too.” She stood back, holding the door. “I was hoping to set eyes on the girl who made Griffin break his number one rule. Come on in. Mom’s in the den if you want to say hello.”

“Is it optional?” Griffin muttered.

Cheyenne laughed. “Probably not.”

Griffin looked at me. “One last warning. My mother can be overbearing. And dramatic. And she plays dumb even though she’s not.”