She blew up her bangs and spritzed a little No. 5 into her palm, and briskly massaged the fragrance into her knees and elbows. Coco Chanel had once said a woman should never smell likejusta rose, orjusta lily of the valley. We were complex creatures and deserved to be treated accordingly. “Damn straight,” she muttered, hiking up the straps on her super-soft pink cotton sleep slip.
All this fuss was a little silly. This wasn’t some Hollywood rom-com where Rhett crept over to hop aboard the tongue train to Saliva Swap City, population two. He needed her help. Time to drop-kick her mind from the gutter, don her Superwoman cape, and oh, fine, what the heck, her sassiest underwear.
She shimmied out of her white cotton briefs and opened the drawer, fingering her silky-soft, rarely worn scarlet string bikini.
Within a minute, she’d unlocked the back door, tiptoed to the stoop, and glanced toward his yard. The moon was almost full and offered a pale spotlight to the half-built boat hull balanced on two sawhorses in the corner of his patio. Wayward fireflies flitted over the stern, illuminating the darkness.
Two thumbs up for the whole sweaty, brow swiping, cold beer drinking, honest labor, building a boat in the backyard routine. Total competence porn.
Did her imaginary corner office dream man ever use power tools while dressed in a ratty Under Armour tank top and carpenter jeans?
No.
Talk about a glaring fantasy oversight.
Rhett’s side door eased a crack. He shushed one of the dogs before snicking the screen shut and padding across the grass to hurtle the fence in a single confident motion.
Even that. That move right there. Such a major turn-on. Did he have a single idea how hot that gesture was, as if beneath the good-guy demeanor was a coiled tiger waiting to spring into the sheets and devour her whole?
From the lost-in-thought frown, no, it wasn’t right on the forefront of his mind. He dressed in head-to-toe black. Dark hoodie. Dark sweats. More ninja than amorous. In fact, he looked perturbed.
“What’s up?” she asked, acutely conscious that beneath her no-frills sleeveless short nightie was a scrap of red lace that put thefinfundies.
“Not here,” he glanced around as if the rosebushes were bugged by security cameras. “Even the trees have ears in Everland.”
He stalked into her kitchen and drew the curtains.
“Stop. Breathe,” she ordered, realizing before he did that her nipples puckered from the cold and folding her arms. “Unless you robbed a gas station and the cops are five minutes from busting down my door, take it down a notch.”
He crossed the room, close enough that there was no ignoring his woodsy-scented soap. His face half-masked by shadows, panting hard, a no-frills guy, unapologetically take-it-or-leave-it. And right now? She kind of, sort of, please-God-just-this-once wanted to take it.
“Hell, Pepper.” He dragged a hand through his hair and held up his phone. “We have a bona fide unfolding crisis on our hands.” He stepped back and flopped into a kitchen chair, leaning back onto two legs and resetting his glasses.
She frowned, registering his words. “We? What’s this we?”
“Has anyone filled you in on the Back Fence yet?”
“The town blog? Yeah, I used it to find this rental, in the classifieds.” Why was he asking such random questions, and, more important, why was there a gap between his hoodie and sweats, and a line ofV-shaped muscle. Her tongue explored the roof of her mouth. What she needed was some chocolate. Or a cold bath. Or a spare AAA battery for battery-operated boyfriend.
“It started last fall. Folks act appalled by some of the more gossipy articles, but the monthly site visits are through the roof. Must be the single reason why everyone over the age of seventy owns a smartphone around here.”
She let the fact sink in. “I had noticed a remarkably technology-forward senior population.”
He passed over his phone with a groan. “This popped up this evening. My friend Beau gave me the heads-up.”
She peered at the screen image. It was grainy but clearly the outline of their bodies, leaning together in Rhett’s Bronco near the Kissing Bridge. Heat stole up her neck, sending warm tendrils toward her jaw. “It’s a ‘Caption This’ contest.” She squinted and read a couple entries. “Romeo Rhett Finds His Juliet?” Inadvertent laughter erupted from her chest. “Oh, wait, this one’s even better. ‘Randy Rhett Ruts at Last.’ And ‘Rhett Needs to Rub-a-Dub after Getting Racy at the River.’ Okay, that one gets my vote, no contest.”
“This isn’t funny,” he bit out.
“It’s a little funny.” She snorted. “And that’s some truly terrible alliteration.”
She jumped at his growl. “Go ahead and think of Everland as a joke, but it’s my home. I was born here, I’ll die here, and in between those two milestones, I have to live here, preferably without everyone’s nose in my business. Hey!” He glanced to the window, pressing a finger to his lips. “Hear that?”
She paused with a slight frown. There was a subtle scratch on the weatherboards. “Oh, that’s nothing,” she said waving him off.
“Doesn’t sound like nothing to me.” His eyes were wild.
Of course the first guy she was attracted to in a year had a crazy streak. “Trust me. The first time I heard those scritchy-scratchy sounds I freaked, but it’s one of the old rosebushes brushing up against the side of the—”
