Page 30 of The Matchmaker's Cottage

Bracing her arms on either side of the tub, she stood up slowly, careful not to apply any pressure to her bad leg. It took a bit of maneuvering, but eventually she managed to get herself up in a tentative one-legged balance, body tense as she tried not to slip in the now-cool water. Hazarding a quick glance, she looked through the door, which remained slightly ajar to ensure that her privacy (and dignity) remained intact. The room appeared empty, at least from her vantage point, and really, despite the awkwardness, Ethan wasn’t exactly the Peeping Tom type and would never try to do anything without her explicit consent.

As kids growing up together, the two had seen each other in various states of undress throughout the course of theirlives—some circumstances more awkward than others, she thought with chagrin—although overall she couldn’t exactly pinpoint a shyness with Ethan, at least not prior to their falling-out. She distinctly remembered there being a time when the awareness of each other’s gender impeded their freedom to dress and undress in front of each other—for the pool, summers at the lake, quick outfit changes after school—but even then, a quick command to turn around, which was always faithfully obeyed, seemed to do the trick, and life moved on.

Now, however, the divide between them was too great. The thought of Ethan—thisEthan, this virtual stranger—seeing her in any state of undress made her feel too exposed, toovulnerable.

Gooseflesh rose on her skin as she debated her next steps. Balancing on one leg worked decently enough for standing still, but she couldn’t exactly use that leg to vault herself out of the tub without landing ungracefully and likely painfully on the other one and resulting in an even worse predicament than she’d been in before.

She considered sitting on the edge of the tub to turn herself around and get herself out, but she had it on good authority (her own) that the extremely narrow, slippery edge wouldn’t allow her to actually sit long enough to turn without some dramatic tumble backward into the water or onto the tiles. Standing there a few moments longer, practically hearing Ethan’s historically minimal stores of patience waning in the other room, she heaved a sigh and dipped to the side to grab the towel before hastily wrapping it around herself.

“Okay!” she called out after the briefest of hesitations.

“Okay…what?” he replied, an uncharacteristic reticence in his own voice.

“I need help. You can come in.” She cinched the towel tighteracross her chest and waited, feeling the goose bumps prickling her arms and legs from the chill in the air—and maybe something more.

Something like…anticipation.

Stop, she admonished, stomach pitting with the direction her thoughts took.

She barely had time to formulate those thoughts before he was there in her small bathroom with her.

He had clearly showered. His hair was damp and darker than usual, combed back, giving him a more distinguished look that shouldn’t have suited him, but did. She wondered if this was his work look, when he wasn’t travel-rumpled and arriving at her bed-and-breakfast after not seeing her for close to a decade.

The Ethan she had known had had much shorter hair that always seemed to be in need of styling. There had been very little refinement to him back then. Boundless, enthusiastic, mischievous, vain—yes, all those things. But polished, refined,professional? Definitely not.

Not that he looked professional at the moment, per se. Despite his hair, he was wearing a crew neck sweater and a pair of pants that looked like the rich cousin of sweatpants—thin, casual material, tapered at the bottom, but clearly from one of the expensive exercise apparel stores and not an off-brand retailer.

She was so focused on breaking down his appearance that she barely noticed when he made it to her side, his gaze zeroed in on her leg, exposed beneath the fraying hem of her towel. Her feet were visible under the soapy water, just barely, and he whistled low.

“That shit looks swollen,” he murmured, peering closer.

“Okay, yes, I’ll wrap it again. Can you please just help me out?” She held out her hand for him to assist her, though she wasn’t positive how she expected him to do it.

Even with his support, it would be difficult to put weight on her bad leg to step out of the tub. She wasn’t sure it would hold her at this point, exacerbated by the few minutes she’d spent without it elevated. It throbbed beneath the murky depths of the water, and she knew that Ethan was probably right about how swollen it was.

Her hand remained suspended in midair as Ethan reached out to her and tugged her toward him, hoisting her up into his arms.

His hands linked right where the backs of her thighs met her bottom, and she let out a yelp of surprise as he lifted her. She had a split second to decide whether she would grab his shoulders or grab her towel, which had started to tug low at the chest, and in that millisecond she somehow had the wherewithal to do both, hands going in opposite directions.

“Bend your knees,” he grunted, and she obeyed quickly, allowing him to turn them both and smoothly get her out of the tub without any issues or bumps.

“Thank yo—” she started to say when she realized he wasn’t putting her down and instead bridal carried her for the second time that day—straight to her bedroom. “Ethan!”

He barely acknowledged her protests as he efficiently took her across the room to her bed. He appeared to be considering depositing her directly onto it, when he paused, before shifting her so that her legs tilted downward.

“Okay, good leg first,” he murmured, lips near her collarbone, and she felt a flush rise over her body at the feel of himpressed against her, nothing separating them besides his nouveau riche athleisure wear and her twelve-year-old towel. She bit her lip—hard—as her body slid down his until the top of her head was under his chin and the toes of her good leg reached the ground and she was able to fully support her weight on it. He held her close, breath warm as it skimmed her forehead and then, as he looked down at her, her eyelids and her nose. If she used her imagination, she could almost swear she felt it on her lips, a tickle as delicate as a butterfly’s wing.

But it was exactly that—her imagination.

What she didn’t imagine, however, was the extra squeeze he gave her before he released her and stepped back.

“I’m going to go drain the water. Can you manage to get yourself ready, including a new towel and ice, and finally,finally, for the love of God,pleasecome up for dinner? I might actually eat your towel at this point, I’m so hungry.”

At his words, she held the towel wrapped around her even tighter, and his eyes widened at her interpretation of his words.

“I didn’t mean— The ankle towel, I was talking about. The— In the bath.” He waved his hands in front of his face, then again in front of hers, slightly more chaotically. “Never mind.Never mind. Are you going to be okay?”

She nodded, her voice completely lost to her at this point, a surge of emotions roiling through her body—and hunger as well, though perhaps not the kind he had mentioned.