Free Hitched by Erin Nicholas

dried her hair and pulled the sides up on top of her head with a gold clip while thinking about talking Gavin into a tour of his place and the town. She’d never been to Alaska but she knew it was gorgeous. She wanted to see some glaciers. And whales.
    As she applied light makeup, she thought about all of Gavin’s favorite foods and made a mental list of ingredients. She’d go through the kitchen before he got back to see what she had to work with and figure out if she could surprise him with dinner.
    Feeling better now that she had a plan, Allie ventured out of the bedroom for the first time since arriving in Alaska. She ignored the butterflies in her stomach. That was stupid. Nothing bad was going to happen just because her phone was on a different floor, she had no email access and she was thousands of miles from home.
    Or if it did, it wouldn’t be because she was away from her phone and email and was thousands of miles from home.
    She groaned. That wasn’t really helping.
    Then she stepped through the doorway into the rest of the house.
    That helped.
    The house was amazing.
    The bedroom was actually a loft above the main room of the house. She stepped out onto a landing that overlooked the living room. The room had twenty-foot ceilings and the wall facing Allie was made up of windows overlooking what had to be acres of wilderness with mountains in the distance. It was breathtaking, and for a moment she just stood and stared.
    No wonder Gavin loved it here. Waking up to that every morning was not a bad way to start the day.
    As she moved down the staircase, she took note of the furniture Gavin had picked: the packed bookshelves, the stone fireplace, the huge entertainment center. The browns and tans were warm and masculine, everything was big and solid, and it made her feel comfortable and safe. All just like Gavin.
    She wished he was here. The thought hit her as she stepped off the bottom step and looked around. She was lost. Not just in this house but in general. She didn’t know her way to or around town—she couldn’t even remember the name of the town at the moment. She certainly couldn’t find it on a map.
    She was standing in the middle of a place she couldn’t even find on a map.
    Allie made herself breathe and grabbed the banister.
    She really wished Gavin was here.
    When he was with her, this made sense somehow. She wanted this, wanted him, and when he was in front of her, walking away from everything else she knew and loved didn’t seem crazy.
    But at the moment, things definitely seemed crazy. And scary. And like going back to bed was a really good idea.
    Allie turned back toward the stairs and even lifted her foot, but she glanced out the window again before she could step up.
    In bed she couldn’t see that .
    It was gorgeous and vast and wild and…different. It seemed surreal, like something in a movie, retouched to make the colors brighter and everything bigger. The land was covered in trees, and it seemed to stretch forever. The mountains in the distance could have been in a painting. It was almost impossible for her to grasp that it was all real. It was so different from what she was used to. And it was beautiful. Though that didn’t seem like an adequate word.
    Okay. She could do this.
    She turned to the room and looked around again. The kitchen couldn’t be too far away.
    Across the room, a large, arched doorway led to a room with ceramic tile visible from Allie’s vantage point. A moment later she stepped into a gigantic modern kitchen. Everything shone in the morning sun that swept in through windows almost as large as the living room’s, and there wasn’t a crumb to be found.
    She didn’t remember Gavin being so neat. She appreciated that trait immensely. She’d cleaned up after enough men to last her a lifetime. She wondered if her brothers would think to buy Dad’s favorite cereal when they finally had to go to the store because the peanut butter jar didn’t magically refill