I blinked. Maybe she was a mirage and I was just extra fucked-up from—well, everything. Because no one spoke to me like that. No one aside from my brothers but wasn’t that the whole point of brothers? Not that either of them talked to me much as it was. “The property lines run from there”—I pointed to the dock extending out into the cove—“to there.” I swung my arm in the opposite direction, toward Market Street. “As you can see, you’re encroaching on my property. I’m sure there’s plenty of room on the other side of your little patio for this whole situation.”
I wasn’t positive about her being a real person and not a figment of my sleep-deprived imagination, though it seemed like she muttered “such an ass” under her breath.
Rather than responding, I reached for one of the pots. It was ludicrously heavy and cumbersome, and moving it really did require another person or heavy machinery, but there was no way in hell I could admit defeat. I was committed now. I had to get this overflowing monstrosity out of my way and prove my damn point to this imaginary yet very mouthy andverybeautiful woman. Even if I gave myself a hernia in the process.
I craned my neck to avoid getting a face full of flowers and found her glaring up at me. Soil spilled down the front of my shirt. I could feel some leaves or petals sticking to my beard scruff. It was horrible. I hated this. But I hated backing down even more.
“I’ll thank you to stop this nonsense now.” She pushed to her feet as she spoke, and her dogs—fuck, those dogs did not look happy—closed in on either side of her. Her hands were dirty and her stare was dark, like she had no trouble imagining me crushed under the pot.
I had to give her credit. Most people found me intimidating, especially when I issued orders, and this woman seemed to find me as intimidating as a gnat. Probably because she was a hallucination. Was it normal to have conversations while hallucinating? Did it always feel like being plugged into an electrical outlet and fully alive for the first time in forever? Would I remember any of this when it was over?
I hoped so. She really was breathtaking, even while being an endless headache.
“I’ll put it down over there,” I said, jutting my chin across the patio and away from my loading zone. “Off my property and where it’s not interfering with the flow of traffic.”
“Just because you say something over and over doesn’t make it—” She took a step toward me, a warning expression carved into her lovely face, but her sandal caught on a loose stone and she pitched forward.
When panic flashed across her hazel eyes, I realized there wasn’t time to catch the woman and keep a hold on the flowers. Had to make a split-second choice. While one was an increasingly annoying problem, the other could be replaced within the hour.
Decision made. The pot hit the stone and cracked. I caught her by the wrist and she slammed into my chest. Her dogs closed in around us, whining and nosing at her as she gasped.
If this was a mirage, a hallucination, a goddamn nightmare—it was a good one.
Instinct took over and I flattened my hand between her shoulder blades as she stared up at me, her lips parted. There was a streak of soil on her cheek, four studs climbing up her left earlobe, and no hint of a bra under my palm. She wassobeautiful. Stunning. If I’d met her before, I’d remember. I wouldn’t forget a face like this. I couldn’t. Iwouldn’t. I wouldn’t forget anything about the way she felt in my arms. Small though soft. Curved in the most lovely ways. All I wanted to do was hold on.
She was on the short side. I hadn’t realized that until I watched her tip her head back and—andscowlat me. Why was she scowling at me? I saved her from eating rocks.
“You didn’t need to do that,” she said. “I tripped and would’ve recovered just fine. Even if I didn’t, the dogs wouldn’t have let me fall.”
“Thedogs?” I snapped. As if waiting to be invited into the conversation, one of the dogs nudged between us while the other thumped his tail against my leg like a warning.
“Yes, the dogs,” she said, pushing away from me. “Just because you haven’t had to put up with a neighbor for years doesn’t mean you can come over and yell about anything that comes to mind and break a pot in the process.”
I couldn’t believe this response. I’dsavedher. “I think what you’re trying to say is thank you.”
“Once again, I think you’re confused.” She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head at the broken pot. I worked very hard at keeping my eyes on hers rather than dropping to study the bra-free situation.
I thought about wiping the dirt off her cheek. I thought about reaching for her again to steal one more moment before coming to my senses from this stress-coma. Though I knew it was no hallucination, no mirage. This was real and I was fucked as per usual because I had too many problems and she was too young and—by the grace of a good attorney—I wouldn’t be here too long. But that bra-free thing, I had some thoughts on that.
Instead, I did the only thing I could reliably do for anyone, and pulled out my phone and shot off a few messages. “I wouldn’t be so quick to make those kinds of declarations,” I said.
“I can be whichever speed I’d like when I’m right.”
Yeah. I liked arguing with her, I really did. It was fun in a dangerous kind of way, like the looseness that came from a good whiskey or too much soap on the shower floor, and it made me want to throw out every preposterous thing I could come up with just to hear her reaction. “Then power-walk yourself over to the Town Hall and take a peek at the property lines.”
“If you think I don’t think I already have a copy, then you—”
“What kind of shenanigans have we started back here?”
I looked up from the screen to see a trio of women coming around the side of the building. They shared a silent conversation over the ruins of the flowerpot and my soiled shirt before my clumsy friend with the dark hair and all the unjustified glaring said, “The neighbors aren’t a fan of our herb garden.”
“Now wait just one second.” I glanced over my shoulder to find Hale Wooten, my oyster alchemist and one of the few people I wouldn’t be firing, pushing a dolly stacked with crates of this morning’s harvest up the dock. “We love herbs. We love gardens. Don’t let this guy tell you otherwise. He doesn’t like anything.”
“Yeah. I’ve noticed that,” the dark-haired woman said.
I stared at her as if to sayReally? You’re doingthisto me after I saved your pretty little face?
Hale strolled over, barely suppressing a laugh at the soil all over my shirt and the wreckage at my feet, and held out a hand to me. “Figured you’d show up today. Holdin’ up all right?”
