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

enough stuff to make the work last more than a half hour or so. Catching him paused at the bottom of the stairs, a box under one arm and his knee bracing another against the baluster while he sucked down more java, she scoffed.
    “Why don’t you just put a nipple on that thing and call it a pacifier?”
    His eyes narrowed at her and he swigged back the dregs. “I’ve seen you swigging from your own cup all morning. I bet you twenty dollars that’s not mountain spring water.”
    She flushed. “It’s Diet Coke,” she admitted, and then rushed to continue, “but I mix it half-and-half with caffeine-free. I’m trying to cut back.”
    “Me, too. Just not today.”
    After the last load was hauled up the stairs and deposited in her room, Spencer flung himself on her queen-size bed and groaned. Two seconds later, Elwood raced into the room and leapt up beside his master, turning in circles until he settled himself against Spencer’s side. Addy wriggled out of her puffy down coat and slung it on a doorknob.
    “I believe I mentioned some ground rules a while back,” shesaid as she started yanking clothes from boxes and shoving them in dresser drawers. She’d reorganize later. “Rule number one—neither you nor your dog is welcome in my bed.”
    “Have a heart, Addy. We’re exhausted.” He didn’t move from his sprawl across the quilt. The dog just looked at her and drooled a little.
    “You should get more exercise.” Now wasn’t the time for sympathy.
    “She is a cruel, cruel woman, Elwood,” he said, and dropped a consoling hand on the dog’s head for a quick rub. Elwood grinned in agreement and drooled some more.
    “Reed.” A warning.
    He rolled over onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow. His hair, mussed and sticking up in all directions from sleep, shone a deeper, darker gold in the rich, early morning light.
    “You can list all the rules and regulations you want. That’s not going to change the fact that every time we’re in the same room for more than five minutes we want each other.”
    “Well, we’re just going to have to be adults about it then, aren’t we?” She snapped the wrinkles out of a sweater and re-folded it, adding it to a growing stack on the dresser. “Want whatever you like. Just don’t act on it.” She slammed a drawer shut and reached for another box. “We’ll be married on paper, but that’s it. We do our own laundry, cook our own meals and stay out of each other’s way as much as possible. And maybe we’ll make it through this farce without killing each other.”
    He leaned over to stage-whisper in the dog’s ear. “She’s strict, too.”
    “This isn’t a joke, Reed.” She turned to face him and stopped short, seeing the three of them in this room for the first time and letting herself picture the next six months. The vision in her head had her sitting down suddenly on a box.
    “I don’t know what I was thinking. This is never going to work.”
    In a second, he’d bounced up off her bed and whistled for the dog to follow him.
    “Sure it will. Don’t quit now, when you’ve finally done the right thing.” He ruffled her hair as an older brother would as he walked past her. “All kidding aside, I’m glad you’re here. Just let me grab a quick shower and we can get going.”
    She held her head in her hands, unconvinced. Going?
    “Where are we going?”
    “To get married, of course.” He stopped in the doorway, one hand gripping the frame, to throw her a quick grin. “Unless you want to drag this whole thing out, in which case I’d just as soon go back to bed for another three or four hours.”
    No, she didn’t want to drag anything out. But, still—today? She’d be married to this man by the time the sun set? The vague twitches of nervousness in her stomach erupted into full-blown nausea at the thought. She was out of her ever-loving mind.
    “Don’t we need to get blood tests or something?” she asked, veering without any fun