that, the powder-blue carpet had a huge dark patch stretching all the way to the foot of the bed.
For a moment, Cora stood still as a tree, her heart pounding in her ears. The place was silent except for the drip, drip, drip of water sliding from her fingertips and her hair. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she cringed.
She looked like that freaky little girl from The Ring.
As she stepped onto the carpet, water pooled around her feet. A cute pink cardboard box sitting on the floor next to Liv’s chest of drawers was ruined. The cardboard had warped, softening and losing shape so that the box leaned precariously to one side. Biting down on her lip, Cora peeked inside and sighed with a heavy heart.
It contained a scrapbook that said “Happy 40th Wedding Anniversary” on the front with a picture of a man and woman who looked a lot like Liv. On top of ruining her friend’s carpet and her bathroom, she’d also ruined a handmade gift. Cora swallowed against the sadness tinged with green-eyed envy climbing up the back of her throat. It was clear her friend had put a lot of time and thought into it. And even more than that, it was clear she had the kind of family where such a thing would be appreciated. Where a gift of time was worth more than a swinging price tag containing as many zeros as possible.
Pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes, Cora let out a strangled noise of frustration. This was her life at the moment, one ridiculous problem after the next.
“You’d better tell me who the hell you are and what you’re doing in my sister’s house.” The angry voice was back, booming through the quiet room.
The man was barefoot and shirtless and bronzed, with water dotting his skin like glimmering freckles. His hair flopped over his forehead and he raked it back, biceps flexing with the movement. There were muscles…everywhere. Like his muscles had muscles in some kind of mind-bending hot guy trick. For a moment, Cora was convinced she’d actually drowned, and this was some weird earth-to-heaven transitory phase.
Sexy limbo.
Crap. This was Liv’s older brother? He looked pissed. Apparently, her day could get worse.
She pressed a hand to her chest in the hopes of slowing her thundering heart. Though only part of the accelerated beat was due to getting pummeled in the face with water. “Don’t you know it’s rude to sneak up on a person like that? What if I’d been holding a weapon? I could have hurt you.”
“Explain to me how you would have been holding a weapon while you were occupied with a flooding pipe?” He came closer. Now she could see his eyes were blue—a perfect sky-at-noon blue. Almost too vibrant to be real. “And what was your plan, anyway? To hold your hands over the pipe until the world ran out of water?”
Shame flushed through Cora’s face, heating her cheeks until she was certain she resembled a tomato. Okay, sure, she wasn’t the handiest person around. She didn’t know how to do things like fixing leaks or sanding wood or…hammering nails or whatever other handy things people did to their houses.
“I was taking a moment to think,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. A water droplet ran down her forehead, racing along the line of her nose and then clinging to the tip. But she refused to wipe it away, because on some silly level, that felt like showing weakness.
Yeah, like pretending not to be a drowned rat is going to make a difference.
Drip.
“How was that going for you, huh?” The man shoved his hands into his pockets, and the action drew Cora’s eyes down to where denim stretched across his crotch. Snapping her eyes back up to his, she caught the tail end of a fleeting smirk. If she’d thought her cheeks were hot before, they were twin blazing suns now.
Could you maybe not ogle his man bits for five seconds and figure out what’s going on here?
“It’s going…poorly,” she admitted.
“So, question number one is who are you?” He came closer still, sauntering toward her like some silver-screen cowboy but with the most delicious accent she’d ever heard. The vowels were broad and lazy, like a scorching summer day.
“Cora Cabot,” she replied, swallowing back the strange fluttering feeling wreaking havoc inside her. “I…I’m friends with Liv.”
Judging by the raised brow, Mr. Bronzed and Shirtless had not been expecting anyone at the