Catching Claire Read Free

of Ridge’s
hot bod had consumed her. For some reason, she’d considered it the
height of brilliance to seek out his ad in the laundry.
    Had she planned to call him? Why hadn’t she just
checked her cell phone history?
    What a dope.
    “Is this Alicia’s building?” she attempted to
clarify. “Do you live here, too?”
    “Yes to the first question, no to the second. I’m
apartment-sitting. I couldn’t leave a drunk girl in the laundry. I
took you up to Alicia’s, but she wasn’t home. Neither was her
friend across the hall.”
    “Lacey,” Claire supplied.
    Ridge nodded. “From what you said then, you left
your cell inside Alicia’s and couldn’t remember her number.”
    Damn speed-dial.
    “You couldn’t recall your address, either. You
obviously needed to sleep it off, so I brought you here,” Ridge
finished.
    Claire’s heart pounded. Oh no. She’d begged him to take her home. To make love with her. Thank
God they hadn’t. He’d have seen her jelly belly! He’d have touched
her thighs!
    She sucked in a breath. “I need coffee.” Gallons of
it. “And toothpaste.”
    His brown eyes twinkled. “Coffee’s in the kitchen.
Also got some orange juice.”
    She crawled out of the sleeping bag and kicked aside
her purple sandals sitting on the wood laminate floor. Grateful her
top covered her bottoms, she lumbered barefoot to the counter. A
sugar bowl sat beside the coffeemaker, but no creamer.
    Cream, ugh. She’d try the orange juice.
    She opened the fridge.
    “Claire, wait,” Ridge called.
    Her gaze zeroed in on the middle rack. A mouse—its
dead eyes staring and its tiny body oddly misshapen, as if it had
contorted itself into a parody of a modern dance routine—lay on a
dessert plate between the cheese and juice carton.
    Nausea punched her stomach. “Omigod,” she choked.
“That is just… sick.”
     
    ~*~
     
    Ridge dumped his breakfast bowl on the floor and ran
into the kitchen. Damn it, he should have remembered the snake’s
weekly meal thawing in the refrigerator. The sight of Claire’s
bouncing butt had knocked him into Stupid Land.
    Shutting the fridge, she spun around. “What. The
hell. Is Ratatouille. Doing in your fridge?” Face white, she gulped
in air.
    Ridge scrounged in the drawers for a paper bag.
“Breathe into this for a few seconds.” He helped her fashion the
bag around her nose and mouth, allowing space for the flow of fresh
air. Her babydolls grazed his naked chest, and his skin tightened.
“Six or seven calm breaths. One…two…three…”
    Claire followed his instructions. The paper bag
inflated and deflated.
    “Sorry about the mouse,” he said, stepping away.
“It’s for the snake.”
    She squealed into the bag.
    “My dad’s snake.” Ridge lifted a hand. “Don’t worry,
he’s in the other room. The snake, not my dad. He’s a
three-year-old ball python called Fargone.” He’d counted her
inhalations—six slow, steady breaths. Her color returned.
    “Feel better?” he asked.
    She nodded.
    “Good.” First he’d freaked her out in the laundry,
and now this. Real smooth, Pederson. “You can breathe
normally now. I’ll take the bag.”
    She handed it over. Her forehead furrowed. “You have
a snake?”
    Ridge empathized with her confusion. Hangovers were
a bitch.
    “My father’s snake,” he reiterated. “This is
his apartment.” He motioned to the fridge. “Fargone’s next meal is
tonight. The mouse will have thawed by then.” He’d removed it from
the freezer moments before Claire had awoken.
    She shuddered. “Tell me you don’t murder mice to
feed your snake.”
    He gave up. “It’s no different from you or I buying
ground beef.” He placed the bag on the counter and fetched two
coffee mugs from the cupboard.
    “I’m turning vegan.”
    He smiled. “Fargone eats once a week. You just
happened along the night before his next meal.”
    She squinted. “What kind of name is Fargone?”
    “What kind of name is Merriweather?”
    Her lips