Truth was she had seen those awful B movies when she was a kid about giant spiders, or those who killed with one bite…or covered the entire house just dying to get in to kill the humans…spiders rated up there with birds, and she didn’t really want to think about birds right now and freak poor Eli out more than he already was.
“Where do you think Kitty will do the best job?”
Eli jumped off his bunk while hugging Kitty to his chest. He looked behind the bunks and mimicked whatever Karen did. She searched around the curtains, noticed a few dead eight-legged prey, and quickly lowered the shades back to their original place.
She made a show of scratching her head and moving back to Eli’s side of the room.
“I think maybe it would be best to keep Kitty close to the stairs,” she told the toddler. The stairs were close to his bunk and her words brought a smile to his lips. “Cuz everyone knows that spiders love to climb stairs, but he can get ’em before they make it to the top.”
Eli shook his head as if Karen was the wisest person on the earth and looked around for the perfect spot to place Kitty.
Once he was happy with Kitty’s placement, he jumped back over to his bunk and removed several toys from his backpack. Noise from downstairs drifted up, but it sounded as if the majority of the family was outside.
Karen glanced over and found Zach standing on the top step watching the two of them.
Their eyes locked. Chills ran up her arms and her breath quickened.
The soft smile Zach bestowed threatened to break her. The want, which reached much further than desire, pulled at her with his eyes.
The magnetic pull of Zach threatened to undo her resolve of indifference. She forced her eyes away from his and focused on the pint-size occupant in the room.
From nowhere, moisture gathered behind her eyes. She sucked in her bottom lip and bit it gently to force the tears away. This week was going to be the hardest one of her life.
“Wow, Eli…great thinking putting that cat up here. I saw a spider running down the stairs on my way up. Must be halfway to Hilton by now.” Zach made his way into the loft space.
Eli forgot his other toys and ran over to where Uncle Zach stood and stared down the stairs. Then he picked up his chin and walked…hugging the wall, down to the main floor and out of sight.
“He really doesn’t like spiders.”
“That makes two of us,” Karen admitted.
She moved to her bunk and tried to put distance between her and Zach.
“You’re really good with kids.”
“Kids are great. Full of innocence and wonder at Eli’s age…discovery and questions when they’re older.”
From the corner of her eye, she noted Zach’s questioning gaze. Instead of leaving the quiet between them for long, she said, “Thanks for giving Nolan a job.”
“You already thanked me.”
She remembered the text. “Well, thanks again.”
The room grew quiet. Downstairs was void of noise, and outside she heard the sound of a quad, or maybe it was a motorcycle, turning over.
“We should probably go outside…join everyone.” Yet her legs stuck in place and her eyes found his again. She drank him in with one long gulp and then forced herself around him and down the stairs.
Note to self. Don’t stay in room alone with Zach for more than two sentences.
This was going to be a very long week.
Zach watched her run away.
First he’d found her pining over Eli like a woman with a ticking biological clock without a mate, and second he’d seen the vulnerability in her eyes when she noticed him watching her. He’d seen the unease in her eyes when it was only the two of them in the room, knew she felt the energy between them that would register on a Geiger counter.
Then she ran.
As if she didn’t trust herself.
Damn if he wasn’t willing to test her. As every hour ticked by with her in the same county, he felt the chemical draw.
He’d learned from his younger sisters on the way up the mountain that Mike had been sleeping on the couch, but neither sister saw one bit of animosity between the newlyweds.
In Zach’s brain, he’d contemplated one possibility. Could his brother be g*y?
The first reaction was hell no. He was married, which proved he wasn’t g*y.
Or did it? As much as the deception of it bothered him, Zach decided to watch the interaction between Karen and Mike with the thought of his brother not having any sexual interest in his wife.
There were differences between people who were attracted to each other and those who weren’t. Which were they? Close friends or lovers?
Zach jogged down the stairs and out the front door of the cabin and focused on his target. Karen walked alongside Hannah and Judy as they both made their way down to the water’s edge. Mike knelt down next to the little 50 on which they had both learned how to ride motorcycles when they were Eli’s age.
“Zach?” Mike waved him over. “I seem to remember there being some kind of trick to turning this thing over.”
The bike brought back a swarm of great memories. Sticky clutch and all. Zach fiddled with the clutch, went through a couple of attempts before the 50 roared to life. Eli came running with his little head stuffed into a helmet. Joe walked up behind his son with a huge smile.
With a little instruction to Joe about the clutch, Zach and Mike stepped back and watched Joe instruct his son to ride for the first time.
Rena stepped up to them while Joe jogged beside Eli as he puttered off. “I remember the first time you got on that thing,” she told Mike. “Zach was more excited for you to ride it than Dad was.”
“I can’t believe Dad still has that thing,” Mike told them.
“He’ll never get rid of it.”
Zach glanced behind them and noticed their parents holding Susie and watching the activity from the porch.
Rena slipped her arm through both Mike’s and his. “I’m so happy we’re all here. Maybe in a couple of years you can show your kids how to ride that bike,” Rena directed her comment to Mike.
Mike offered a playful nudge. “Why don’t you bother the older brother about kids?”
“Cuz you’re the one who’s married.”
“It wouldn’t be right for me to be a father right now,” he said. “My production schedule is booked for the next eighteen months.”
“That’s not forever,” Rena said.
Zach kept quiet and watched Mike as he squirmed around the conversation about having children of his own.