Why Not Tonight. Susan Mallery
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Mitchell disappearing into his work at his house for days at a time wasn’t uncommon, but no matter what, he always answered her texts. As the part-time office manager for the Willow Gallery, Natalie was responsible for all the local artists. All three of them. Nick and Mathias were never any trouble, but Ronan was a giant, somewhat good-looking pain in her butt.
Oh, sure, his work was amazing. What he could do with glass—turning something that should be static and not that interesting into movement and beauty—was astonishing. She could spend hours watching him create. But he wasn’t very friendly and, more significant to her, when he disappeared like this he stopped communicating to the point that she had to text with a very pointed, Are you home sulking or are you dead? Which always got a response. Only not for the past five days.
As far as anyone knew, he hadn’t taken a trip. Ronan wasn’t big on travel, and when he did, it was for work, so the gallery would know. His brothers had no knowledge of anything other than his normal reclusiveness, or as she liked to call it, brooding artist pouting.
She’d tried to talk her boss into checking on him, but Atsuko had only laughed and told Natalie to keep track of the miles so she could be reimbursed. Which was why Natalie was still driving up, up, up in a horrendous downpour and wishing there were indeed dragons. Or bigger guardrails should her tires lose their grip.
“Just a little farther,” she whispered.
She’d only been to Ronan’s a couple of times. Once to deliver some packages—yes, being the office manager of a gallery came with mind-boggling responsibility—and once to take a piece of his art back to the gallery. Both tasks had been accomplished without him having to let her inside his gorgeous house. If she arrived in one piece, she was going to insist on a tour...and maybe a snack. Honestly, it was the least the man could do after not admitting he wasn’t dead.
Unless he was.
Natalie didn’t want to think about that but why else would he not answer her? Maybe he was hurt, she thought, although was that better? If he was so injured he couldn’t text her back, then there might be blood, and while she had many excellent qualities, the ability to deal with blood was not one of them.
“I’m fine,” she told herself, trying to ignore the bile rising in her throat. “There’s no blood. Just rain. Look!”
She gripped the steering wheel with both hands as she continued up and up, the water racing down the road in the opposite direction, lightning flashing in the sky. She slowed even more, her car complaining loudly. An unfortunate knocking began from somewhere in the engine area. An ominous red light flashed on her dashboard.
She was pretty sure she was close to his house. Nothing looked the same in the driving rain but she was confident that just around the bend in front of her was—
She screamed as her car hit a river of mud and started to slide off the road. She’d barely begun to panic when she slammed into something hard and unmoving. Her body jerked, the car engine died and there was only the sound of the rain.
“This can’t be good,” she murmured, taking the key out of the ignition and unfastening her seat belt. She peered through the curtain of rain and thought she saw Ronan’s house up ahead. She must have made it onto his driveway, only to be swept into—
“Well, crap!”
She’d been pushed into a tree. A big tree that had probably put a sizable dent in her already-on-its-last-legs car. While her boss was willing to pay her mileage, she doubted Atsuko would cough up repair money. Plus her favorite mechanic had told her there was nothing that could be done anymore. That her car deserved a decent burial.
Which she was working on. Ah, getting a new car, not the burial. She had savings, but she wasn’t ready yet. Regardless, she had to make her way from here to the house without getting swept away.
Natalie glanced at the umbrella she’d brought and knew it would be less than useless. She zipped up her lightweight coat, grabbed her handbag and opened the car door.
Rain immediately pelted her, but that was nothing when compared to the six inches of cold, wet mud swirling around her ankles. She shrieked and bolted for the house, only to realize there wasn’t going to be any bolting. There was too much mud everywhere. She had to physically drag each foot out of the muck before planting it down again. The mud seeped into her ankle boots and splattered her legs. In the middle of the storm the temperature had dropped enough that she actually shivered.
In a matter of a minute, she was totally soaked. Her hair clung to her head, water dripped off her glasses and, about five steps in, she lost one of her boots.
“Damn you, Ronan Mitchell,” she yelled into the storm. “You’d better be dead or I’m going to kill you!”
The house, a huge stone fortress that normally looked as though it had grown up out of the mountainside, was barely visible in the deluge. She kept moving because to stand still was to be swept backward. She fought her way to the front door and rang the bell, then began to bang on the door.
It opened without warning and she nearly fell inside. Ronan Mitchell stared at her, his eyes wide, his expression confused.
“There’s a storm, Natalie. What are you doing here?”
“A storm? Really? I hadn’t noticed, what with sliding off the road and almost drowning on my way up the walk. Wow. A storm! Who knew.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the house. “Now I know you’re upset. You’re almost never sarcastic. What happened?”
“What happened?” she asked as she dripped on his tile floor. “That’s not the question.” She tried to wipe the moisture off her face only to realize her wet hair was the ongoing source. “The question is, why aren’t you dead?”
Ronan stared at her for a second. “Did you hit your head?”
“No. I didn’t. I slammed into a tree, which was not my fault, by the way. It was the mud.” She felt herself starting to shake, no doubt from shock and his air-conditioning. “You didn’t answer your phone. I texted, then I called like eleven times. Everyone was worried, and since they’re all more important than me, I was tasked with coming up to check on you.”
“I left my phone in my locker at the studio in town.” One shoulder rose and lowered. “Probably why you couldn’t hear it when you called.”
“At work?” Her voice grew louder. “You left your phone at work and because of that I had to come all the way out here?”
The same shoulder rose and lowered again. “Sorry.” He looked her up and down. “You’re soaked and freezing. Come on. Let’s get you dry.” He turned away and started down a long hallway.
Natalie tried to go after him only to realize she still had just one shoe. She toed it off, then followed him barefoot, dripping and shivering. Not exactly her finest hour.
“This is your fault,” she said as she caught up with him. “You could have—”
“I don’t have a landline.”
“Sent an email,” she said triumphantly. “When you realized your phone was missing, you should have emailed one of us.”
“I didn’t think it would matter. It was only a couple of days.”
“Five. It’s been five days since anyone saw you.”
He glanced at her, his eyebrows raised.
“Oh, please. I only know because it’s my job to know. Don’t flatter yourself.”
Not that she didn’t find Ronan attractive. How could she not? He was tall and muscled, with light brown hair and green eyes all put together in a dreamy package. A woman would have to be totally, well, she wasn’t sure what not to notice his good looks, but still. There was no way he had to know that.
“Do you think I like babysitting you and your brothers?” she asked, trying to sound haughty