The Three-Week Arrangement (Chase Brothers) Page 6

  Ethan glared. Liam had taken a third of the cake. Their mother sorely needed a new hiding spot for her desserts.

  ”I figured you’d date someone again eventually,” Liam said between huge bites. “But I have no idea what a woman like her wants with you. And from the look of things, you don’t know, either.”

  Ethan stood there, watching his brother eat cake, and wondered for the umpteenth time what he was getting himself into.

  Not because Liam wasn’t sure what was going on between Ethan and Rue.

  But because Ethan wasn’t, either.

  Chapter Five

  Rue loved the second Thursday of the month. She had a standing date with a friend—not at a bar or a club, but working together for an utterly adorable, thoroughly worthy cause helping local shelter animals find homes. This one didn’t quite take her to the ends of the earth, but while it didn’t feed her need to wander, it made her heart burst with joy.

  Those Thursdays were the absolute best.

  Except when her friend cancelled on her.

  Rue stared at her phone. There was no way she could handle her part alone, which meant she needed a plan B. And she knew the perfect man for the job. If this gig didn’t make Ethan relax, he was beyond help.

  Inspired, she shot him a text.

  Meet me at the coffee shop by your apartment building in thirty.

  And then she waited, fully expecting him to deny her. He hadn’t seemed comfortable in his own apartment the day before, but as far as she was concerned, that was more reason for him to get out of there. Whether the tension had been naturally his or a product of having her there, she didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. He needed a distraction.

  She glanced at the time. It was after Fusion’s regular hours, although it was possible he was working late. She hoped not. She hoped he’d be free and willing to admit to it, but she wasn’t so sure she’d get her wish.

  Five minutes later, his response surprised her.

  Okay.

  Short and no indication it was sweet, but at least he didn’t argue. And, in fact, when he arrived, he was early. She glanced up from her path on the sidewalk to see him standing, leaning against the bricks, and her heart did a half dozen back flips. He had a thing for jeans, and jeans had a definite thing for him. The denim was faded and well-worn in all the right places, the effect at once rugged and soft. He had the body of a man who knew the value of physical work, with muscles firmly in place although his stance against the wall was casual with one foot kicked in front of the other. When he glanced up and saw her, the smile that followed nearly melted her into the hot sidewalk.

  He’s taken. He’s soo taken.

  The warning did little to rein in the blatant attraction rampaging through her. She’d seen the man in his underwear, and he was definitely rampage-worthy.

  And taken.

  Still, he tossed an easy smile her way. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.” She would have said more, but when he pushed away from the wall and enveloped her in all of his green-eyed warmth, she lost her breath. And her sanity, because he could be the most available guy in the world and he’d still be off limits…at least to her. She had every intention of leaving the city for parts unknown. She might be stuck as a photographer’s assistant for now, but she had the talent and the drive to do more. Much more. Her dream of traveling the world professionally was so close to coming true that she could practically touch it. She was one of three finalists in a chase to join a world-renowned conservation photographer in the Galapagos Islands. If she won the paid internship, that flight in three weeks would take her a few hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador, where she’d be surrounded by the vast Pacific Ocean.

  Definitely not the time to get involved with anyone, let alone a man who was still in love with his dead wife. Ethan Chase was not fling material.

  Even if he was so physically fling material.

  Despite her misgivings and a sea of waving red flags, she remained utterly, ridiculously drawn to the man. She often worked with male models and thought herself impervious to the effects of a hard body and seriously good looks, but Ethan upped the ante in ways she couldn’t begin to comprehend. Either he didn’t know he was stupidly hot, or he didn’t think anything of it, but either way, the effect was mesmerizing. All of his intensity seemed to settle in one place, and at that moment, the focus of that attention was her.

  “I would have gotten you a drink,” he said, tilting his head toward the coffee shop, “but I didn’t know how picky you were about your iced coffee.”

  “You knew I liked iced coffee?”

  “Your refrigerator looked like the cold case at a Starbucks.”

  “Ah.” Unfamiliar warmth hit her in all the right places. Or the wrong ones, considering. “Thank you for meeting me.”

  “You said you needed a hand,” he replied, like that made things non-negotiable.

  She grinned through an unexpected pang. “I didn’t mean you didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

  His expression softened. “And I didn’t mean to make you think that was the only reason I came. I owe you a lot for putting up with my brothers, but I’m glad to be here.”

  “You’re glad?” The delicious warmth of bringing him any sort of pleasure had no place in the conversation, but there it was. She liked the feeling when she shouldn’t have, yet she couldn’t seem to shove it aside. “And here they had me thinking you didn’t like to go anywhere or do anything.”

  He winced. “I’m not as bad as they make me sound. I’m not a recluse. I go places. I do things. I just don’t date.”

  “Then your family is definitely too hard on you.” Even though she genuinely liked his family, she understood his frustration.

  “Yeah,” he said, “but they have good intentions. And it’s gotten worse since my brothers settled down. I don’t think anyone was surprised that Crosby met someone, but he was an utter work-a-holic. Still is, but, he’s definitely less about work than he used to be. And Sawyer—” Ethan rolled his eyes. “Sawyer’s idea of a commitment was seeing the same woman twice, and we’re not sure that ever happened before Kelsie. I think hell froze over is a fair assessment of that situation, but Sawyer adores her. We all do.”

  Somewhere deep inside, she felt a sad flutter. She didn’t want to settle down—and never had—but stepping into Ethan’s family for an afternoon had given her a glimpse into a world she hadn’t seen before. Growing up, her parents were too occupied by the wealth-and-society circuit to be the type of people one saw in Hallmark or Folgers commercials. Rue loved her brother, and in many ways he was her best friend. But while they maintained the long-standing traditions they’d begun years ago, they’d gone their separate ways as adults—he to Europe, and her to everywhere else. It wasn’t that she had anything against Europe, but she was drawn to the exotic. Still, their richly, hilariously combatant relationship was a mere tip of what she’d seen of the Chase family iceberg. A bit wistfully, she murmured, “I can see how they’d all want that for you.”

  “I had it.” With those words, he looked away, and Rue didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much to say, at least not until he met her eyes and changed the subject. “So why was I summoned?”

  “Ah.” Relief flooded her. Definitely a safer topic—one without land mines. “I have an ongoing project I’m working on, and it requires more than two hands. I usually have a friend help me out, but she had a thing come up, so…” She grinned.

  Some of the wariness faded from his eyes, replaced by curiosity. “I’m intrigued, and increasingly suspicious.”

  He was intriguing and increasingly hot, was what he was. “There’s an animal rescue I work with. They’re small and nonprofit and have a budget of about zero, so to help them out, I go in and take glamour shots of the animals. Every time the new pictures are posted, there’s a big surge in…adoptions…”

  She stilled. All of the color had drained from Ethan’s face. The man redefined white as a sheet.

  �
��What did I say?” she asked.

  “I thought you were a catalog photographer. And a travel ninja or adrenaline junkie or something.”

  “Actually, I’m the assistant to a catalog photographer.” As much as she wished she could walk away from that particular gig, a smile toyed at her lips. “It’s not my dream job. The world is a big place, and I want to see it all. I want to photograph it all. I want to tell stories through pictures. Do you have any idea how many people are born in this city and never leave it?”

  He still stared. She kind of wished he would blink. The city rushed by them in its usual frenzy, but she had a feeling he didn’t see any of it. A passerby jostled his shoulder, and still he stared blankly at her.

  “Well, I don’t know, either, but I’m pretty sure there are a lot of them,” she continued. “Too many people have too narrow a world view, and I want to change that. At any rate, it’s hard to find any kind of fulfillment out of adjusting lighting so a guy can take a picture of a sofa, so I found it elsewhere. And these animals are so cute and they love the attention, and helping them find their forever homes is pretty much the best thing I’ve ever done with my life.” She’d even considered making a calendar with the shelter animals as a fundraiser for the Von Adler charity. If Mimi Von Adler approved, the platform would be huge. The funds might go to the Von Adler Rainforest Initiative, but the exposure for the city’s unwanted animals would make an immediate impact right there at home.

  Ethan was still unnaturally pale. He swallowed. Hard. “Yeah, it’s a good thing to help them.”

  She had a sudden feeling her no land mines assessment had been blown to pieces, but if he wasn’t going to elaborate, she definitely wasn’t going to ask. Her work was important to her, and she needed the help. “So are you in?”

  “I’m in.” He smiled, and it may have been a bit forced, but she’d take it.

  She hoisted her camera bag. “Good. It’s about four blocks away. Okay to hoof it?”

  “I think I can handle four blocks,” he said wryly. He had some of his color back, which made her feel better. Then he reached out and took her camera bag, which made her feel…odd. A polite gesture by any account, but the hint of a smile and intensity in his eyes set loose a rabble of butterflies she hadn’t felt since…ever. She relinquished the bag—the ease at which she was able to do so astounding her, because her camera was her baby—and settled into step next to him.

  “So you help rescue animals, both domestic and abroad, buy ugly pajamas, and want to see the world,” he said. “What else is simmering under that surface?”

  “Feel the need to brace yourself?” she teased.

  “I probably should,” he said under his breath.

  She elbowed him and took hopeless note of just how hard he was under that tee of his. Figured she’d notice that.

  ”To answer your question,” she said,” I also do beefcake calendars for other local charities and some businesses.”

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  She grinned. “Stupidly ripped men posing for hottie of the month?”

  He nodded. “Not exactly how I would have worded it, but yeah.”

  “You’d be amazed at how much money they pull in as fundraisers. In fact, you and your brothers should get in on it. Put out a calendar for Fusion. You could give it away to your customers, and your phone would ring off the hook with people hiring you just to get a copy.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said in a tone that suggested he absolutely would not.

  Ethan didn’t say much for the remainder of the walk, and Rue didn’t push it. He looked as if he had something on his mind, and she didn’t need to be in the middle of whatever it was. But more than that, she was excited over the job ahead. She loved her work with the shelter and wished she could do it more often, but she relied on the donated time of a pet groomer, who also had her hands full with the ragtag bunch of strays and abandoned pets that arrived in spades at the door of the no-kill shelter.

  Upon their arrival, Ethan held open the front door. “Hey, Abbie,” Rue said to the owner, now her friend.

  The woman looked up from the front desk with a ready smile, but her attention quickly slid past Rue and landed squarely on Ethan. “Abbie Marshall,” Abbie said. “And this is not Janie.”

  “Not last I checked,” Ethan said easily. “Ethan Chase, substitute photographer’s assistant.”

  “I need to switch jobs,” Abbie muttered. “Or at least go watch you do yours.”

  “Forget it,” Rue said with a laugh. “He’s taken, and not by me. The line forms to the left.”

  Ethan shot her a grateful, albeit surprised, look. She offered a soft smile in return. To Abbie, she asked, “Is Kate already here?” referring to the groomer.

  “Yep, she’s got a few ready for you. A couple of them are handfuls, giving Kate trouble, and someone dropped off a bunch of puppies a couple days ago.”

  “The difficult customers are always the best,” Rue said brightly. And she meant it. For some odd reason, not every animal enjoyed being bathed, de-matted, and groomed, and many of those were still pouting for the camera. Their expressions, more often than not, were hilarious, and they actually tended to be the first adopted.

  “I’m not sure I like where this is headed,” Ethan said under his breath.

  Rue didn’t say a word. She knew exactly where this was headed, and the thought of sensitive, sexy Ethan cradling a freshly washed and fluffed puppy had her panties in indecently crafted knots. “You’ll love it,” she said, speaking for the both of them.

  They passed the grooming area, where Kate held an angrily mewling cat under a rinse, and entered the back room together. Ethan hesitated at the sight—which was indeed pathetic—but quickly caught up. As soon as the door swung open, the saddest dog she’d ever seen—and the shelter’s only permanent resident—padded her way over, head dipped in anticipation of the attention she knew would come.

  “What. Is. That?” Ethan asked.

  “This is Shaggy,” Rue said, her heart swelling with love.

  “That is not shaggy.” To his credit, Ethan seemed more curious than horrified, which only further endeared her to him. Most people who saw the mutt were horrified, a point that Rue now took personally. She could never give Shaggy a home, and that was probably her lone regret over her globe-trotting ways.

  Rue lightly scratched the leathery, bare skin on top of Shaggy’s head. The dog had an offbeat gait and a face only a mother could love, but Rue adored her. “She’s been badly burned, and her hair won’t grow through the scar tissue, but she’s as sweet as can be. I’d adopt her myself if I thought I could provide a lifelong home, but I’m not sticking around.”

  “Say it isn’t so,” Abbie said, coming through the door behind them. “Did you win the internship? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

  “It’s down to the wire,” Rue said. “But if I don’t win, I won’t let that stop me.”

  “I know.” Abbie shook her head. “I love that about you. And I hate that about you.” To Ethan she said, “Every time we post her pictures, we place the animals within days. She and Kate are miracle workers.”

  “Almost,” Rue said. “Shaggy is the lone holdout.”

  “I’d take her home myself,” Abbie said, “but my apartment has a strict no-pets policy and rent I can actually afford, so moving isn’t going to happen. Wouldn’t do us any good to both end up homeless.”

  “I know,” Rue said. “She’s loved here, and that’s what counts.” She glanced at Ethan, who wore a thoughtful frown. “Okay, substitute photographer’s assistant. These photos won’t take themselves.”

  He handed over her camera and watched, most likely waiting for her to tell him what to do, but the heat of his gaze on her had her almost dizzy. Her usually well-honed routine was a hot mess, but she managed to get a sheet draped and a reproduction Victorian padded bench in place. To Ethan, she said, “Can you get one of the cats? Kate can point you in the right dire
ction.”

  “Sure.” He disappeared down the hall, Shaggy staring woefully after him.

  “I know,” Rue told the dog. “I kind of want to follow him around myself.”

  Ethan returned a moment later, a sour-faced feline in hand. The cat had been gorgeously fluffed, although not flawlessly so. Several patches of hair were almost missing, probably where Kate had to cut out mats, but the cat still had a regal vibe going behind that foul expression.

  “You’re going to make this adoptable?” Ethan asked, looking at the cat, who greeted his attention with a baleful scowl. He didn’t seem deterred, though, and Rue loved that.

  “You just watch me,” she said. “Set her down on the bench.” Once placed, the cat stayed on her haunches, at least for the moment. “Perfect. Now grab that hat to your left and set it lightly on her head—the goal being that she’ll hold still for a few seconds before she tosses her head to get rid of it—and step back. Keep holding her, arms outstretched, until I say go, then try to get your hands out of the picture. She probably won’t stay there long, so move fast.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Are you serious about the hat? Is that a thing cats do?”

  She laughed. “The hat is adorable.” It was a sparkly turquoise number with a matching feather that stood out brilliantly against the white background and the white cat. In fact, the cat’s eyes and the hat were the only pops of color in the whole shot, which made it pretty freaking amazing. Rue lifted her camera and checked the lighting. “Perfect. Take a step back, and when you let go, I’ll start shooting.”

  Ethan did as she asked, and she managed a couple good shots before the cat excused herself with a dour backward glance, which Rue captured an instant before the hat hit the ground. “Grab her if you can,” she told Ethan as she scrolled back through the shots. “This is amazing. Look at this one.” As she spoke she walked over to Ethan, who had easily captured the cat, then held out the camera for his assessment.