She felt alone now. Was she always going to be that kid other people had to look out for? A burden. An afterthought.
Seth and Logan had practically run out the door this morning as though they couldn’t stand being there with all the tension between them.
Jerks. If they’d stayed, they would have gotten her world-class frittatas. She’d offered to make breakfast, but they had both turned a little green and went running out the door. Seth had a housekeeper in New York and when she’d known Logan, they had been at a resort. Neither man knew she could cook, and it looked like it might stay that way. She’d cooked her own breakfast, read the manual for the single-cup coffeemaker, had some awesome coffee, cleaned up, and then decided to bake some cookies because she was bored out of her mind. She had a horrible sweet tooth and baking soothed both her need for sweets and her nerves. She liked the kitchen. It was big and had every type of tool she could possibly want. Whoever Seth had hired to fill the place had known what she was doing.
After clearing up all of Seth’s e-mail and requesting some changes to the quarterly reports, she’d stuck her head in the fridge, found a whole chicken and dressed it with garlic and basil and stuffed it in a Crock-Pot for dinner. It was an old trick she’d learned in college. If she could get a chicken in early enough, it would be tender and perfect by the time dinner came around. There were potatoes in the pantry, and at three o’clock she’d peeled them and cut them and put them in the pot. She’d found fresh asparagus and steamed it with some garlic and citrus and made homemade biscuits, cut with a juice glass because the only thing she couldn’t find was a biscuit cutter. She’d grown up in LA, but their longtime cook had been born in New Orleans. Georgia had spent long hours of her life with Rene in the kitchens learning how to make roux and properly shuck oysters.
She’d spent the day wandering around because no one had come home and no one had called her to ask her to meet them. It was like they had forgotten she existed. At least in New York she had a job to do. She had a purpose. Here all she had was her e-reader. She’d restarted J.R. Ward’s books, organized her makeup, hung up her clothes, and wondered what the hell she was really doing here.
She wondered if they would even try her meal. Logan probably wouldn’t. He’d made it plain that she wasn’t good for much, and she’d probably reinforced the idea because she could be nasty when she felt threatened.
She’d gotten dressed in her nicest jeans with the most bling on the butt, her Elie Tahari blouse and new Gucci boots, and placed her brown sugar blondie cookies in a basket and headed out to meet the neighbors.
She stopped, staring at the cabin next door. She didn’t have long before dinner was done, but she didn’t know when Seth and Logan would be back. She didn’t even know if they would be back. Maybe they would have dinner somewhere else and she would be alone tonight.
What was she doing? She didn’t live here. Seth lived here apparently. Logan definitely lived here. She was just passing through. So why did she have the most insane urge to make a good impression?
Because these people mattered to Seth and Logan. Because even if they didn’t really care about her, she cared about them.
She looked back at the door. She should go inside and hide. She didn’t belong here.
What was that? A footprint?
It was there on the side of the deck, a thick muddy print. She moved across the deck and stared down at it. It wasn’t Seth’s. He’d been wearing size thirteen Louis Vuitton loafers. These were much smaller. Maybe a men’s nine. Logan was a ridiculously overgrown fifteen. No way it matched him. The print was round and curved in the middle before coming back out and rounding at the back. Sneaker. There was a second print, but it was only of the toe and pointed right under the big window that graced the living area. Someone had gone up on their toes, right foot dangling off the deck, as they tried to look into the cabin.
Maybe it was a worker. Seth had mentioned that the place had just been finished.
Yeah, that had to be it.
Except it felt wrong. She shouldn’t follow her instincts. Did she even have instincts? Usually her instincts were about men and sex, and they were almost always wrong. But it wouldn’t hurt anything to look around. The tracks came from the yard, and apparently the ground was soft enough that the imprint was still there. Had it rained in the last couple of days?
The tracks ran off to the west. It couldn’t hurt to follow them. They likely led to the driveway. Except they didn’t. She could see clearly where the tracks led back to the river. Someone had walked up to the cabin from the river.
“Hey, baby.” Seth walked around the house. She hadn’t heard the car pull up.
This morning she’d discovered that he’d had an Escalade purchased and waiting for him in the drive. The keys had been on the bar. She’d walked him out to the car because she’d kind of been hoping he’d take her with him, but all that had happened was he’d found a nasty note about the vehicle’s fuel efficiency taped to the windshield. She’d been offended, but he’d just smiled and folded the note up and shoved it in his pocket like it had been a love letter.
Logan’s truck was parked in the garage. He’d gotten a ride in from Seth. Apparently he would be coming home in a county vehicle.
“Hi.” She felt so damn awkward. What the hell did a girl say to a man who was her boss and had also made some sort of plans for them to become boyfriend and girlfriend in the future? She kind of wished he’d given her an exact date. She nodded toward the comfy-looking cottage next door. “I’m going over to say hi to the neighbors. I baked some cookies for them. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
He practically leapt onto the deck. “No. Oh, Georgia, honey, that’s not a good idea.” He tugged the basket out of her hands. “That’s Nell and Henry’s place. They are total vegans. They don’t eat cookies. I’ll just set these aside for me and Logan. Now, how about you get ready and we’ll head into town and have dinner and drinks.”
“I made dinner.”
She flushed with embarrassment as he obviously tried to figure out how to get out of eating at home. She could see the way his brain was trying to find any possible out.
“You did? Well, that’s really great. Uhm. I thought we would go into town.”
She heard the crunch of gravel this time and didn’t wait around to hear all the reasons Seth didn’t even want to try her food.
Logan parked his massive SUV. It was another Escalade, but it had county colors on it and was emblazoned with the words Bliss County Sheriff’s Department and had a set of lights on the top. “Dude, is this your doing? Because this ride is so fucking boss.”
Seth walked out behind her. He’d stashed her cookies somewhere because his hands were empty. “I thought the county could use an upgrade. I bought four and donated them to Nate. He was pretty happy with me. I might be able to avoid a ticket for a week or two. I’ve heard the dude is crabby.”
The two met in the middle and slapped hands and then did that guy thing where they halfway hugged and then proceeded to beat the hell out of each other’s backs. She stood in the background, completely ignored.
They started talking about everything that had happened during the day as they walked back toward the house. The tension from the night before seemed to have passed, and it was easy to see that they had been friends for a long time. Seth reached out for her hand, but he let her go without a protest when she stepped back.