Page 52 of Something Like Shelter

I shut that thought down before it could get any further.

This was Owen’s guest room.

I was his client.

And tonight was dinner.

That was all.

I made my way to the glider, sitting down, and rocking and singing to the overtired Adelaide until she was dead weight in my hands.

I waited a few more minutes, glancing out the window to where I spotted a birdhouse in the tree, a mama bird coming over to feed her grumpy-faced babies.

Tuna’s nails clicked down the hall then came into the room, tail wagging, and sprawling down beside the glider.

On the floor below, I could hear Owen moving around in the kitchen.

I could sit here just like this a thousand days and never get sick of it.

I looked around the room again, suddenly aware of how domestic this all felt.

A home with a place for people to stay. A crib with a baby. A dog asleep in the hallway. Dinner cooking downstairs. Coffee waiting in the kitchen.

It was alarming how quickly my mind wanted to turn a handful of small, perfectly innocent details into something much larger.

I had spent months building a life around the idea that I didn’t need anyone. And I didn’t. But sitting in another man’s house, listening to him cook for me, my daughter asleep in my arms, all I could think about was how easy it could be to belong there.

That was the part that scared me.

Not wanting Owen.

Wanting this.

Wanting the life I had told myself I didn’t need.

And that was terrifying.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Owen

Something about that dress lit a fuse in my brain. Especially when she wore it while wandering around my home, warming up every room she was in, looking a little too much like she belonged there.

As I sliced the mini potatoes in the kitchen, my mind couldn’t help but imagine her coming back down from putting the baby down for a nap, leaning on the counter beside me as I prepped food.

Then maybe I’d wipe my hands on the towel sitting on the countertop and reach for her, hop her up on the island, pull up her skirt and down her panties, and have myself a little appetizer before dinner.

Alone in the kitchen, I sighed and forced those thoughts away.

Maybe inviting her had been a mistake. Getting all domestic with her when I was already dealing with some complicated feelings toward her. Those had only been amplified by the library dinner with the touches, the dancing, the intimacy we were supposed to be faking, but felt a little too real for me.

Having her here, cooking for her, sharing a meal for her, that was only going to increase an intimacy that shouldn’t be there. It was inappropriate to get involved with a client. Factor in that Willa was an exhausted new, single mom juggling everything on her own and didn’t need me chasing after her. Especially after what had to be a bad breakup, if Adelaide’s father wasn’t even in the picture to be there for her.

I tossed the potatoes in oil and spices and set them in the oven before prepping the asparagus.

When she still hadn’t come back down for her coffee, I decided to bring a cup up to her in case the baby was fighting going to sleep.

When I made it upstairs, I found Adelaide fast asleep in the crib with Tuna stretched out in front of it, protecting her.