Free Sleeping Arrangements (Silhouette Desire) by Amy Jo Cousins Page A

“I’m not marrying Spike just so he can pay you back the money you loaned him to buy that Harley. That was your dumb decision, not mine.” At the sudden clamor of voices, she ducked her head and threw her hands in the air. “Tsst! Enough! I’m not going to scam my way into this thing. I’m not getting married and that’s that.”
    She collapsed onto the couch and flung a bent arm over her face. Scenes with her family were always such a drama. Although each person was sane on his or her own, put them all in one room and they were certifiable.
    “That’s not what I heard.” Her mother’s voice from the living room doorway drew all of their attention. She lifted a hot-pink apron over her head, revealing a trim black pantsuit. “Dinner in ten.” She left the room.
    “What’s not what you heard?” Addy could hear the whine in her own voice. The chaos was getting out of hand when her mom joined in. The doorbell rang. “And who’s at the door? Mom?”
    “I’ll get it,” Maxie said, bouncing up from her cross-legged seat as only a twenty-year-old girl could do and running to the foyer. They could hear her voice as she opened the door. “Hi! Who are you?”
    “I’m your dinner guest. Nice hat.”
    “Thanks! Come on in.”
    But Addy had recognized that voice. She should. She heard it every time her brain stopped racing around in circles of thought. Don’t make up your mind yet, Addy.
    She leaped up off the couch and braced herself in the doorway to the front hall, hands clutching the door frame.
    “What the hell are you doing here, Reed?” Before he could answer, she was shouting for her mother, feeling suddenly like a teenager again. Completely out of control.
    Her mom, who disliked people who rang doorbells at the dinner hour, stepped calmly into the foyer, finished wiping her palms on a dish towel and then extended a hand in welcome to the man standing in the open front doorway with laughter in his eyes.
    “Welcome to my home, Mr. Reed,” she said as they shook hands. “Maxie, sweetie, close the door. May I take your coat?”
    “What!”
    “Call me Spencer, Mrs. Tyler,” the traitorous man said, shrugging out of his coat and passing it to Sarah, who hung it in the hall closet. “Thank you for inviting me to dinner tonight.”
    “What!”
    “I like to have the whole family together at meals, Spencer. And, please, call me Susannah. Would you care for a glass of wine?”
    Addy stared openmouthed as Spencer Reed followed her mother toward the back of the house, the two chatting pleasantly as if they’d had dinner together once a week for the last decade. Her siblings took one look at her, shrugged in unison and trooped off to find out who the stranger was and join the fun.
    Left alone in the chilly foyer, feeling cold water seep into her socks from the puddle she’d stepped in—a puddle no doubt left by Reed’s snow-crusted shoes; the man was completely without consideration for others—Addy waited for the world to stop tilting underneath her.
    “What the hell is going on here?”
    The whole family together?
    The moment she set foot in the dining room, the barrage of voices, some directed at her, some not, hit her like a blow to the solar plexus. Bracing herself, she ignored everyone and made a beeline for Reed, who was about to sit down.
    She grabbed his arm and yanked him out of his chair.
    Ignoring all protests, including her mother’s—she’d pay for that one later—she dragged him back down the hall.
    “What are you doing here?” she hissed at him, trying to keep her voice down.
    He leaned against the wall, looking completely at his ease. The fact that she could recognize his scent—warm vanilla and leather—irritated her. It made her hungry.
    “Your mother and I thought it would be a good time for me to get to know your family,” he said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
    “And when did you two decide this?”
    “When I called her this morning,” came the