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“Are there any other hotels close?” she asks.
“Not for about an hour outside of town. And they’re probably booked too,” I say, “Is there anyone you can call?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No.”
Well fuck.
There’s a brief knock at the door behind me and then it opens admitting Dr. Aldric. “You ready to get out of here?”
Maisie looks at the doctor for a second and then laughs mirthlessly. “Sure.”
My brothers and I step out of the hospital room while the doctor checks Maisie over one last time and gets her discharge paperwork together. Jedd, Rhett, and Finch head for the vending machines while Boone hangs back with me. He works at the local ranger station as a park ranger, and had the day off.
My other brothers are just nosy fucks and came down after Jedd blabbed to them.
“What’s she gonna do?” Boone asks.
I shake my head. “I have no idea.”
“Well, we can’t just let her and Audra leave here with no car and nowhere to go.”
“I know.” My head throbs with a dull headache from the lack of sleep the night before. I spent most of the day in and out of the station and the hospital waiting for Maisie to wake up.
Boone tugs on his ear. “You have that apartment over your garage.”
Fuck. No. Fuuuck.
“Yeah. I do.” The one bedroom and bathroom was set up as a mother-in-law suite, or guest quarters when I bought the place. I’ve been toying with the idea of turning the space into a home gym over the last year, but never pulled the trigger on it, or had the time to figure out if it would actually work.
“Is it still set up as a guest suite?”
I nod again, feeling trapped.
“Do you think she could stay with you for a few days until something at the bed and breakfast opens up?”
“Hollie’s booked for weeks, the resort will open before anything here in town does.”
“Semantics, Harlan. She was just in a car accident. She has a six-month-old daughter and nowhere to go,” Boone points out.
I shoot my baby brother a sharp glare. “I know.”
“I’d let her stay with Jem and I, but we don’t have the room in the camper.”
Boone and Jem bought a piece of land just outside of town right after their wedding and are in the process of building their own house, living in a camper on the property until it’s done later this summer.
“Fuck. Fine.”
Do I want a woman that I know practically nothing about living above my garage, even if it’s only for a few days? No. Not at all.
But my mama would roll over in her grave if I didn’t offer to help when, out of all of my brothers, I’m the one with the most room.
Jedd lives above his shop in a tiny apartment. Duke is in a house, but it’s the size of a postage stamp, and Rhett’s house is a disaster of a fixer upper. Finch’s house has chemicals everywhere for his job. None of their places are fit for women, or babies.
“Fine. She can stay with me, but the second that a room opens up at the resort, or her camper is road-worthy, she’s out,” I say.
Boone shoots me a triumphant grin.
I like my space. I like my solitude. I’m a thirty-eight-year-old man, and I haven’t lived with anyone in a long time.
