Page 39 of Unwrapping Love

They had five more days left before Saylor had to return to Iowa. She didn’t have to work until the day after New Year’s and he talked her into flying home on the holiday.

He thought for sure she’d say no, but he wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with her and get as much out of their time together as he could.

“We don’t need too much food,” she said.

“I won’t go overboard,” he said. “But we’ll freeze or throw out what we don’t use. I’m sick of fishing around for frozen stuff though. And we are out of eggs. The creamer is getting low.”

“I definitely want a bottle of that.”

“We’ll get everything we want for the next five days. The weather looks good so we shouldn’t have an issue with flights.”

She’d booked her flight last night. That sealed it for him that he had the time left with her.

He hoped she ended up in his bed before then, but he wasn’t pushing. He felt he’d pushed enough to get her to come to California.

Shit, he’d never lived with a woman before. Not full time like this.

There was a first for everything, and he was looking forward to this adventure.

He didn’t think they’d get on each other’s nerves for the next five days, but they might. Anytime you spend so much time around a person without a break, it happened.

“Can we run to the mall so I can get some clothes first? I promise not to be long. I would like a few pairs of pants or leggings, some undergarments. It’s not like we are going out, but two more days’ worth of clothing would work.”

“We can come to town for dinner once,” he said. “Or more. There is no reason to stay stranded in the mountains. I’m not complaining if you want to be.”

She smiled, then sent him a wink. “I wouldn’t complain about being there, but dinner would be nice. I want to treat you to it. I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of anything.”

“I don’t,” he said. She’d argued with him last night that she was going to pay rent in California.

Yep, not happening.

Then she wanted to pay utilities. He told her it was all automatically taken out of his accounts.

She growled at him, then said she was paying for all their food and any activities they did.

He threw in the towel. There was no reason to damage her pride. He’d deal with it more when the time came.

He’d witnessed his brothers messing up with their women enough that he’d learn from their mistakes.

And he couldn’t believe in three days he was thinking of Saylor as his woman.

“Can I take you to lunch before we pick up food?” she asked. “I won’t be long in the mall. I’ve never been much of a shopper. Idon’t even have a lot of casual clothes since I spend so much time in scrubs.”

“We can do lunch,” he said. It’d be good practice suppressing the urge to pay for it.

“There isn’t nearly as much snow here as we had,” she said.

“It always happens that way. It’s almost melted and being cleared. They got about half what we did on the mountain.”

There was over three feet at West’s, but barely two feet in the city.

He parked at the mall. It was busy. People were still on Christmas break, then probably wanting to get out of the house after the mess. Most were moving around yesterday, but the extra day assured the mountain road was much clearer to come down.

Not that he couldn’t handle it, but he was used to the sun and fun, even riding a bike half the time around, not moving snow out of the driveway like he’d done on the four wheeler a few times to make it easier for the plows that West hired to keep the property clear.

“Going to be crowded,” she said. “I know what stores I want to go to. Just two. I can get everything I need there.”

“Even bras and underwear?”