His sharp and definitely not-happy gaze met hers. Mr. Mysterious was insulted. “Do you really think your brother would put me in your house if I were an ax murderer?” he asked.
“No.” One thing for certain—Wyatt trusted this guy implicitly or he wouldn’t be in her house. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was a little rude.”
“You could just trust I’m a good guy.”
Nope. Been there, done that, still had the scorch marks on her heart, thank you very much. But she could at least be nice. “I’m not all that good at trust,” she admitted.
“I’ve noticed.”
She needed to not care what he thought of her. She had no idea why she did. She wanted to let it go and not speak again, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “You’re looking for something.”
“Aren’t we all?”
Okay, that was it. She would ask him another question never.
“Let’s make one more pass,” he said.
She eyed the time. “I can’t. I’ve got other prior commitments today.”
He didn’t react to that, not outwardly, anyway. He was consistent on that but inconsistent everywhere else; focused and intense one minute, grinning and flirty the next. Zoe didn’t trust inconsistent. It equated to dishonesty for her.
When they arrived back in Sunshine and landed, she went about her postflight checklist. After finishing the tie-down, she turned and nearly plowed right into Parker. “Oh,” she said in surprise. “Sorry.” Normally clients exited the plane right away and never looked back, either not paying attention or not caring that her job wasn’t over.
But Parker hadn’t gone anywhere; he stood there in his sexy mirrored sunglasses looking cool, calm, and utterly badass.
“What can I do to help you?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’ve got this.”
He raised a brow.
“Really. I’m good.”
Parker looked at her for a long moment. Then he nodded and walked away, heading inside.
By the time she finished up and poked her head into the second hangar to check on the Cessna Caravan and then made her way back to the terminal, it was empty.
“How was the flight?” Joe asked, coming from the hallway that led to the lounge and bathroom.
“Fine,” she said, distracted, turning to look in the back, where there were a few tables and a small deli run by Thea, Joe’s sister.
That area was empty as well.
“Who you looking for?” Joe asked.
“Nobody.”
“You’re a shitty liar,” Joe said. “And he left.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“No, but you wanted to. Who is this guy to you, anyway?”
“Renovation money.”
“Okay.” Joe paused, searching her expression for she had no idea what. “He went back up with Devon. Paid a pretty penny for it, too.”
This didn’t surprise her, and she started to head back to the mechanical hangar.
“So about Friday night,” Joe said. “You never said yes.”
“Joe—”
“Just one night,” he said, sounding unaccustomedly desperate.
She blew out a sigh.
“Unless of course I can talk you into more.” He waggled a brow.
“Don’t push your luck,” she said. “Fine. Dinner on Friday. And nothing more.”
“Sure, we’ll start with that,” he agreed readily.
Start and end because she wasn’t looking for a one-night stand with Joe. She wasn’t looking for anything with anybody.
Liar, a small voice in her head said. You’d be more excited if it were Parker . . .
Shaking that off, she gave herself a lecture. She had a long day ahead of her and she didn’t have time to daydream about Parker.
So of course she spent the rest of her day doing exactly that.
Six
The next afternoon, Parker sat up and got licked from chin to forehead for his efforts. “Thanks, dude.”
He and Oreo were both on the floor in the shower of the second upstairs bathroom, where Parker was working on fixing the faulty drain. Just like he’d fixed the leak in the kitchen sink the night before. Of course he’d had to wait until the stubborn-as-all-hell Zoe had gone to bed to do so.
He pulled half a loofah from the drain, shook his head, and started the water. Drained perfectly now. “Done,” he told the dog. Now he and Zoe could each have their own bathroom.
Not that he particularly needed any privacy. He just felt a little bad for his prickly landlord, who clearly had no idea how to accept help.
“She’s stubborn as hell,” Wyatt told him when Parker called to check in. “Always has been.”
No shit, Parker thought.
“Something she’ll never tell you,” Wyatt said, “is that she’s got some debt. Getting a pilot’s license costs a lot of money and she’s got loans to pay off. Now that I’m doing okay, I’ve tried to pay them off for her but she refuses to let me.”
Sounded like Zoe.
“I’ve also tried to help her out with the house,” Wyatt said. “But she always says she’s got it and kicks me out.”
“She told me the same,” Parker said. “So I waited until she was gone to fix a few things.”
Wyatt laughed. “Better sleep with one eye open. You’re going to piss her off when she finds out.”
“Maybe she won’t realize it’s me . . .”
“She’s ornery, but she’s not stupid,” Wyatt said. “In fact, she’s smarter than all of us put together.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve already got the pissing-her-off part down. I seem to manage that without even trying.”
“If that were true, you’d be dead and buried already and no one would ever find your body,” Wyatt said.
Parker laughed.
“Hey, I’m not kidding. She’s something fierce when her feathers are ruffled, though to be fair to her, she’s always had to be.”
“Why?” Parker asked. He knew about their parents. They were foreign diplomats who spent most of their time in third-world countries. Growing up, Wyatt and his sisters had done the same.
“She’ll murder me in my sleep for telling you this,” Wyatt said, “but since you’re living under her nose it might help you understand her. Our parents are great at their jobs but pretty shitty parents. They put it all on Zoe to watch out for us. Or not.”
“She’s only a year older than you.”
“Eleven months,” Wyatt said. “But I was clueless back then. She was the only grown-up. Like the time we were supposed to meet up with our parents in Budapest from our various boarding schools, but they got delayed. Zoe was maybe . . . twelve? And there we were, stuck in a strange country where we didn’t speak the language and Americans weren’t looked on all that fondly to say the least, and she still managed to feed us and keep us safe for the three days it took our parents to get to us.”
Parker was impressed. “She’s tough.”
“More than you know. I don’t know how many times she held it together under grim circumstances,” Wyatt said. “But I do know I’d be dead a few times over without her.”