Page 32 of The Matchmaker's Cottage

Julia lay inher bed, staring up at her cracked, patched, and cracked again ceiling, a bag of ice resting loosely on her sore ankle.

After Maggie had returned and served her a quick dessert—some of the cherry pie that Julia had baked the other day, another two a.m. session that involved four pie crusts and multiple breathing exercises—she then shooed her off to her bedroom, Norman assisting her carefully down the stairs the same way he had helped her up them earlier that evening.

As she lay there, she considered how it wasn’t themostappropriate position for her to be in when a guest came to discuss something with her, but she supposed meeting in her bedroom trumped any semblance of propriety regardless. Still, should she get up? Make herself look busy?

Maybe she should be reading a book in the worn chair in the corner? Or going over yet more bills and paperwork at the small desk she kept in her room, a catchall for whatever spillover made its way from the large desk in the office?

Even the thought of getting up felt arduous. She found herself physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted after the day she’d had. The longest day in recent memory, following the longest week. The anticipation alone had been exhausting, and she felt like she needed a break from her own mind.

Unfortunately, she was stuck with it, in all its dysfunctional and defective glory.

Best I can do is kittens, said her brain, flooding her psyche with images of adorable fluffy little cats tumbling over one another in a symphony of cuteness.

She shifted slightly, and the ice pack flopped off her sore ankle, becoming even more ineffective than it already had been, just resting there without the pressure and the coldness working together to heal her body’s betrayal.

Doing an ungraceful sit-up, she was attempting to reposition it on her leg when Ethan chose that moment to appear in her doorframe.

It reminded her of his appearance earlier that evening, when she’d been struggling to adjust the ice over her bandaged ankle in the tub. This time he hadn’t announced himself, but at least she was in her bed. And wearing clothes.

He remained in casual dress, his hair still pushed away from his face, although long since dried, the burnished locks seeming to fall effortlessly into careless yet somehow perfectly styled layers. He even had the single boy-band bang sweeping over one brow. She spitefully wanted to feel it for evidence of hair spray, but managed to refrain.

Without saying anything, he entered the room and batted her hands away from her leg. Then he repositioned the ice pack securely, glancing around the room quickly before his eyes landed on a scarf she’d had hanging off the back of a chair. He used it to tie the ice pack around her ankle, finishing it with a knot that bordered on slightly too tight. When she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand.

“It needs to be tight,” he rumbled, his voice quiet but insistent. “Or else it’s useless.”

“It’s useless if it cuts off my circulation,” she retorted, though admittedly the ice and the pressure seemed to soothe the soreness almost immediately.

He rolled his eyes with a smirk. “Just leave it, you whiner. If that swelling doesn’t go down, someone might need to wheel you into town for X-rays.”

“Wheel me? You know we have a car, right?”

Shrugging, he sat at her feet on the opposite corner of the bed. “I don’t know anything.”

The words were said innocently enough, but she felt a weight to them, a wealth of meaning that could quickly take an awkward turn, so she changed the subject.

“Speaking of knowing nothing, care to tell me what to expect this week from our two celebrities?”

“Yeah.” Running his hand through his hair, he looked down awkwardly. “So, you know the story about them and what we want to do—”

“Right, isolate and shoot cupid arrows at their faces.”

“Aim lower. They need their faces. So when they arrive, just treat them how you would a typical guest. Give them some scones, show them around, and show them to their separate rooms.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to turn this into some sort of only-one-bed type of situation? I can call back all the guests we released for this week—you know, a the-inn-is-full kind of thing…?”

“Only one—” He snorted. “No. This all has to be aboveboard. We aren’t pimps, for Christ’s sake.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Give them each their own room,” he continued through clenched teeth. “The two nicest ones you have—”

“Are you trying to tell me you don’t think Cabin is one of my nicest rooms?”

“IfCabin—is that what you call it?Cabin?—is one of your nicest rooms—”

“Don’t you dare talk bad about Cabin, or else you can sleep with the horses.”

That gave him pause. “You have horses?”