The Expert's Guide to Driving a Man Wild (21 page)

Miranda gave her an odd look. “Clearly you have never been camping with one of these boys. I have, and I can assure you that lounging in bed is the last thing that Colt will have on his mind. He’ll have you up at the butt-crack of dawn to go fishing or build a fire or something.”

“I can be pretty convincing,” Beth Ann said cheerfully, undeterred at the thought.

“What about your clients?” Brenna asked. “Can you leave without getting them all pissed off at you?”

“I’m stacking them and getting cuts in ahead of time,” she told Brenna. “So I’m super busy this week and next week, but it’ll be worth it.” Beth Ann gave Brenna an amused look. “Since when did wild and careless Brenna start caring about business responsibilities?”

“Since I started sleeping with Grant,” Brenna told her wryly. “Trust me, I’m as disturbed by it as you are. It’s a good thing the man eats a fierce pussy, or he wouldn’t be worth it.”

Both Miranda and Beth Ann groaned as if in pain. Miranda pretended to scrub her eyes with her hands. “And there’s yet another visual I’ll never be able to shake. Thanks for that.”

Brenna giggled. “You’re so welcome.”

 • • • 

“You sure you can’t stay for longer?” Grant pushed his mother’s designer carry-on into the trunk of his Audi. “I’m sure there’s room at the Peppermint House if you wanted to stay another week or two. And it’s good to have family around.”

“You’re sweet, Grant,” Justine said, patting his cheek as only a mother could do to her grown son. “But Reggie wants to meet some friends for deep-sea fishing, and then we’re heading to Florida to shop for beach houses.”

Oh, to have such problems
, Brenna thought wryly as she stepped forward to wave good-bye to Grant’s parents. They were nice people—really nice—but they lived such a different lifestyle that she couldn’t quite grasp it at times. Why did you need more than one house for only two people? It was bizarre to her, but she supposed that was what you did with your money when you had a lot of it. You bought stupid shit.

Which, of course, made her uncomfortable to think about. She watched Grant head into the main lodge to retrieve one last bag, thinking about all that money and how much pointless crap Justine and Reggie probably owned.

But Reggie and Justine were so very nice, and normal-seeming. Justine moved to hug Brenna and, to her surprise, she was immediately hugged by Reggie as well. “We’re so happy that Grant has you in his life,” Reggie told her, patting her on the back. “You’re good for him.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, pulling away from the hug.

“I’m glad you worked out whatever it was,” Justine told her with a beaming smile. “We like to see you two together.”

“Thank you,” she repeated again, because what could she really say?
Your son won’t like me once he finds out the real me, so don’t get too attached.
But all she said was, “I think he’s pretty great, too.”

Brenna turned to hug Elise, who was standing next to the car. But the quiet woman lifted a hand and grinned, seeming more at ease than when she’d first arrived. “You don’t have to hug me. I’m staying.”

“You are?” She couldn’t hide her pleasure at that. She liked Elise.

“There’s still the photo shoot to do, of course,” Elise told her. “And I’m working on, um, a few other projects in the meantime. I can fly back whenever.”

“Oh right. Beth Ann mentioned the pin-up photos.”

“Yes!” Elise’s face lit up with enthusiasm, light sparkling in her eyes. “They’ll be a lot of fun.”

“It’ll be good to have you around,” Brenna told her. “We can have a girls’ night out this weekend. Or next weekend. Or every weekend.”

Elise chuckled, the sound soft and shy. “How about we start with this weekend.”

“Works for me.” Brenna raised a fist for a fist bump.

After an awkward, almost-too-long moment, Elise fist bumped her back.
Getting somewhere, at least.

Grant emerged from the lodge with the last suitcase, and his parents practically beamed with pride at the sight of him. Brenna had to agree that he was gorgeous. Silky brown hair fixed perfectly, wire-rimmed glasses perched on a perfect nose over sculpted cheekbones, and clothes that would make a model in
GQ
weep with envy. He always looked so perfect and put together, just like his parents.

His rich, rich parents with lots of stuff. Her stomach churned.

But the way that Justine and Reggie watched him? Their eyes were full of pleasure at the sight of their son, and happiness at
his
happiness. And Brenna realized with a sinking feeling that he would never understand where she’d come from.

But she needed to tell him anyhow. Because leading these nice people on wasn’t fair. She liked all of them. They’d made her feel welcome and accepted from day one.

It was only right that she got all of her dirty laundry out in the open.

 • • • 

Something woke Grant from a sound sleep the next morning. He continued to lay in bed, still in a half doze, wondering what it could have been that woke him. The cabin was silent, the only sound the chirp of birds in the early morning light.

A finger poked him in the stomach again, then lightly tickled his sides. “Wake up, Grant.”

Brenna. Delicious, warm, curvy Brenna. He dragged her closer, nuzzling her neck in a sleepy embrace. “It’s early.”

“I can’t sleep.”

He cracked an eye open, surprised at the tension in her voice. “What’s wrong?”

Her troubled face gazed back at him, her purple and brown hair tousled. There were shadows under her eyes. She chewed on her lip, but was silent.

He was instantly awake, the need to soothe and protect her rising in him. To keep her safe from everything that upset her. Grant leaned up on one elbow and rubbed her shoulder. “What’s wrong, love?”

A tear trickled out of her eye, falling onto the pillow. “We need to talk.”

A horrible ache started in his gut. He forced himself to remain calm. “Talk about what?”

“About me. With you.”

Immediately, Grant knew. He’d fucked this up again. He’d shown Brenna his vulnerable side the other day, in the shower. He thought things had been okay, but she was skittish when it came to commitment, and he’d been a dumbass and confessed his love to her. Still, when she hadn’t panicked, he thought things were okay with them. That she was okay with him being in love with her as long as she could still say that she was in a no-strings-attached relationship. And he hadn’t pressured her to say it back. He knew it was just a matter of time before she felt the same way.

Or so he’d thought.

But seeing her so distraught now? It tore at his heart. He wanted to make things better for her. Hell, he wanted to silence her with a kiss and make her forget whatever was worrying her. Anything to stop her tears.

“Brenna.” He forced her name out of his throat and gently brushed away her tears. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. I’m not trying to pressure you at all. How I feel about you doesn’t mean that you have to reciprocate. I know you don’t feel the same way about me, and it’s all right.”

She stared at him, confused, and then burst into a few watery sounds that he couldn’t quite tell if they were giggles or choked tears. “Oh Grant. Would you shut up for a moment? I said it’s me, not you.”

His heart stopped for a moment. “Then we’re okay?”

“We’re not okay,” she said, and tears slid down her face again. “There’s something wrong with
me
.”

And just like that, his heart began to trip again, rapidly. Relief mixed with unease. She was talking and he still didn’t know what to think. “What do you mean there’s something wrong with you? What’s wrong?”

“I . . .” Her throat flexed, as if she couldn’t say the words. “It’s hard to explain.”

Oh God. She was dying. He’d finally found the perfect woman for him—a woman who infuriated him as much as she made him happy. A woman as abandoned and easygoing in bed as she was out of it. A woman who made him feel like the king of the world instead of a worthless sack of shit that wasn’t enough for her.

And she was dying. Had to be. That horrible ache returned to his stomach. He was going to lose Brenna as soon as he’d found out his feelings for her. Damn, fate was cruel. “Oh Brenna. Just tell me.”
Tell me fast, so we can rip the Band-Aid off the wound and enjoy the rest of the time we have together.

She looked so distraught that it broke his heart. But she tugged at his hand. “I have to show you something.”

Shit, shit, shit.

As she sat up in bed, he realized she was wearing her pajamas. His pajamas, actually—flannel plaid pants that were double-knotted at her slender waist and his favorite Tulane T-shirt. But it wasn’t like Brenna to sleep clothed. She liked to sleep naked and be curled around him. Which meant that she’d already gotten out of bed once, likely to prepare whatever it was that she wanted to show him.

That sick feeling in the hollow of his stomach felt like a black hole.

But she tugged at his hand insistently and, heart aching, he crawled out of their warm bed and followed her. He should have put on a pair of pants or boxers or something, but he needed to find out what was causing that look of anguish on her face first.

They descended down the ladder in silence, and he noticed his personal laptop had been fired up and was sitting on a video page. She tugged at his hand again, leading him toward the computer. Mystified, he sat down when she gestured for him to and tried to pull her into his lap.

But she resisted, her entire body tense. Instead, she leaned over him and clicked the mouse to start the video.

An ad played on screen, and Brenna’s body vibrated with tension beside him. He scanned the Internet page, wondering what she was going to show him. Some sort of video describing fatal diseases? A home movie of some kind? But the video page had been put up years ago and had thousands of hits. The header read “S1 EP 14—the Atlees,” but he didn’t know what that meant.

All he knew was that it was going to somehow destroy Brenna to show him, and in the process, it’d destroy him, too. He loved her. He loved her wild exuberance and hated her tears. He tried to pull her close again, but still she resisted.

Theme music began to play, tinny through the laptop speakers, and he heard Brenna’s breath intake sharply. Drawing his attention back to the screen, he watched the credits of one of those hour-long special reporting news shows roll past. A solemn news anchor in a gray suit sat on a stool next to a screen that read “Special Investigation: 2004.”

“
Thank you for joining us tonight
,” the man said in a deep voice, “
as we continue our series on a growing problem in America. Is this a disease? Something inherently wrong with certain people’s minds that causes them to react differently than you or I? Or something else that forces these people to act the way they do?
” He adjusted on his stool, gazing at the camera, and Grant thought his heart was going to burst from his chest in sheer anxiety.

What the fuck was it, already?
He couldn’t take much more of this. His mind was full of horrible images of Brenna suffering. Brenna stricken by disease.

“
This is an epidemic that is sweeping through many homes in the nation. As high as one in ten families can be affected. It destroys lives and everything it touches. We’re talking, of course, about . . . hoarding
.”

Huh?

Hoarding?

Brenna wasn’t dying? He wasn’t going to lose her like he lost Heather? Relief washed over him, so powerful that he couldn’t help himself.

He laughed.

Next to him, Brenna gave a horrified gasp and a choked sob. Before he could react, she reached out and slapped him in the face, then turned and ran for the front door.

“No, Brenna, wait—” Grant said, getting to his feet.
Damn it
, he didn’t have any pants on. She was
wearing
his pants.

“Fuck you, Grant. Just fuck you!” Brenna slammed the door to the cabin after her.

Hell, he had to follow her. Explain that he wasn’t laughing at
hoarding
—though it was absurd to think she was upset about it—but at his own wild relief that she wasn’t dying of some mysterious disease. He searched the room for a blanket, but found nothing. Cursing, he headed for the ladder, intending to head up to his loft and grab a pair of pants.

A high-pitched voice from the computer stopped him.

“
I don’t know when it started
,” Brenna’s voice said. It was high and girlish and held a troubled note. “
Our house has been like this for as long as I can remember. I grew up surrounded by bags and boxes full of stuff.
”

Grant turned back to the computer. There on the screen was a much younger Brenna. Her face was skinny and her hair was long and untamed, a lighter, almost golden brown compared to the much darker waves she wore today. She wore a dirty T-shirt and hugged her arms to her chest, as if acutely uncomfortable. There was a look of shame on her face that he didn’t recognize.

The Brenna he knew wasn’t like this.

“
Brenna Atlee
,” the reporter said, and Grant was startled to realize that he knew her under a different name, “
has lived under the shadow of hoarding all her life. Her mother, Agatha Atlee, is a hoarder. Her mother before her? A hoarder.”

Drawn back to the computer despite himself, Grant sat down in the chair. He knew he should have gone after Brenna, but the vulnerable, unhappy girl in the video had him riveted. He couldn’t pull himself away.

The camera cut to the front door of a small ranch-style house in a run-down neighborhood. Brenna stood on the porch, her hand on a beat-up doorknob. There were large chips of paint missing from the red door, and a nearby window showed broken mini-blinds. She looked as if she wanted to run away. He’d seen that look on Brenna’s face this morning. Then, with a nod, Brenna opened the door to the house.

Grant watched in horror as she pushed at the front door, shoving at it to get it to open enough to allow her in. She glanced back at the camera. “
Watch your step when you come in
,” she said, then began to step over piles of trash and boxes of junk to make her way into the house.