“Anyway,” Brad said, kindly steering the conversation to more benign territory—for Owen anyway.“Aurelie is a gift, and not only because she’s a nurse.She’s fiery, loyal, and loves our whole family like she was raised alongside us.”
Jace let that sink in.So, Paige was a pediatrician, her husband was former military, then her brother was a world-famous author, and his wife a high-powered lawyer.And to top off the group was Aurelie, a nurse from the islands who could have easily doubled as a fashion model with her insanely intense eyes, skin that begged to be touched, and the kind of curves that literally stopped traffic and broke up marriages.He admitted when he was wrong and, boy, had he misjudged his hometown when he’d decided to come back.Maybe it wasn’t the rural hellscape he thought he’d left behind.
The server arrived with a mountain of food and heaped it all in front of him.Jace’s jaw fell open.Between his physical training for the action films he’d done, combined with healthy genetics, he could eat.But this feast?Yeah, he’d overordered.Too bad Max wasn’t there to take some of the load off.
A pang shot through Jace’s chest.He couldn’t wait to have his faithful mutt up here.Would Aurelie and Max get along?It surprised him that he cared so much about the answer.
The men ate and caught up, the subject of women going well with the whiskey that kept flowing.Jace’s ears perked every time he heard Aurelie’s name come up.He learned she was single, ran the OB ward at the hospital, and was fiercely protective of her goddaughter, Maddie.He also learned that she could hold her liquor, was feisty and wild, and had a whip-smart intellect that kept men in their place.
All of it should have told him to steer clear, but damn if Jace wasn’t more intrigued by the time the guys begged off to get some sleep before a full day, which would start before the sun came up the next morning.
He lingered in the parking lot at Joe’s, arguing with himself and the guys that he needed a second to chill and think through the house plans.Too bad all he was thinking about was that long cascade of raven hair and eyes that peered into his soul.
Maybe that’s why he imagined the flash of neon yellow ducking into the bar side of Joe’s, followed by a dark cascade of hair.
Had he manifested Aurelie just by being unable to stop thinking about her?
Either way, his luck had run out.No way he’d be able to concentrate on relaxing when she was at the bar, too.Los Angeles was too big for his simpler tastes, but this town might actually be a little on the small side of things, at least with Aurelie cropping up every time he thought he’d gotten his bearings.
He headed back inside, reasoning that he’d check it out for a later date, but his gaze wandered the bar until it fell on the neon yellow he’d followed in.Aurelie.She was sheathed in the brightest colors he’d seen in person.A yellow tunic fell over her shoulders, and he tried like hell not to notice the perfect, full breasts that bounced as she walked toward him.Her legs were clad in a shade of blue-green he’d only seen on a diving trip to the Palancar Gardens in Cozumel.She looked like the sun and the sea, and he dissolved into a puddle when her bone-white teeth smiled at him.
Yeah, fuck peace.This woman was all kinetic energy, and his world felt the seismic shift every time she came near him.
He smiled back, offered a little wave from where his hand sat at hip-level, but it wasn’t until she stopped two tables in front of him to chat with an elderly couple that he realized his mistake.There was no way she’d magically have found a soft spot for him in the span of twelve hours.But for the brief moment that he’d thought that smile was directed at him, damn if he would have done anything to keep it on her face.
When her head turned his way, the look of utter contempt she shot him was more in line with what he’d expected.Damn if she wasn’t just as beautiful pissed off, though.
His cell rang, and he paused by the bar to answer it, reasoning that the table by the speakers wouldn’t bode well to talk to whoever was calling.
“’Lo?”he half-whispered into his cell.
“It’s me,” Cammie’s voice came through the music.
“Wow.That was quick.What’d you find?”He smiled wanly as Aurelie sauntered up to him, her hips leading the charge.She stood, hands on her waist and no hint of anything but wrath on her face, inches from his face.She pointed to the sign above the bar that said,Make love, not phone calls.He chuckled, then mouthedI’m sorry, and pressed a finger to his open ear.Aurelie sighed, a throaty sound that made him half hard, then turned to walk away, a wafting scent of coconuts and lime left in her wake.He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
“Well, from what I can tell, the mysterious land baron was behind bars but has been released.”Jace was stunned silent.He could hear the bustle of LA in the background, the honking, yelling, a cacophony of noise he was used to, but had never appreciated.
“He was inprison?”
Aurelie glared at him from behind a drink menu, her thick but groomed brows pulled in tight.She caught him looking and pulled the menu over her eyes.
“Yup.And get this, his ex-wife is the one who put him there.He beat the sense out of her one night and went to jail almost immediately.The prosecutor was some hard-ass from the town you’re in named Sophie something-or-other and made sure he never saw bail.”
Sophie?It couldn’t be Brad’s wife, could it?The town was small, but was it really that small?
“Was it Connors?Sophie Connors?”
“Yeah, actually.Why?Do you know her?”
“She and her husband are my neighbors.I met them last night, actually.”The music in the bar picked up.
“Well, shake her hand if you get a chance.If it weren’t for her, who knows what the creep would be up to.”
“What’s he doing buying up farms in town?Are the hotels just a cover?”
“It doesn’t look like it.His name is Isaac Puckman, and he’s not a nice guy from what I found out.Has a couple priors for nasty bar fights where he put the guy in the hospital, but they got knocked down to a D-and-D.Then a couple DUIs that magically disappeared.Sophie’s the only prosecutor who made anything stick.”
Jace closed his eyes.This was bad.For the town, for his neighbors, but especially for Sophie and her friends.If this guy had the power and funds to buy up half the town while he was still incarcerated, there was no telling how far his reach went, or what he would do with it now that he was out.
