Page 39 of My Favorite Hero

“Don’t be an idiot, Thorne,” she replied with a straight face. “I only wear the ball gown for the dances we hold.”

I had to laugh at her drollness.

At one point, she slapped my hands. “Stop it, you’re making it worse.”

“We’ve been at it for hours,” I complained.

She glanced at the clock. “One hour.”

“Seems like longer.”

She hip checked me. “Sit down and be quiet. I’ll do this part, and then you can help hold it away so it doesn’t get re-tangled.”

I sat down, feeling the exhaustion of the past few days catching up with me. I leaned my head back and shut my eyes. “Damn, this chair is comfortable,” I murmured.

“I know,” she replied as she worked. There was a steady rhythm to her movements, and for some reason, I found the sound of the bells and gentle chimes relaxing. I let out a sigh, deciding I would sit quietly for five minutes until she needed me again.

Just five minutes.

Chapter Nine

CASEY

Iglanced over at Jesse when he started snoring. Quiet rumbles that indicated he’d given in to his exhaustion. I stopped what I was doing, studying him. He had a five-o’clock shadow darkening his chin. I only saw it on his days off since he had to be clean-shaven, he had explained to me, for the equipment to adhere properly on his face. But the rest of the time, he let it grow.

Good God, how was it possible that scruff made him even sexier? Slumped in my new chair, his arms loosely crossed over his chest and his head lolling to one side, he was absolutely delicious. His Batman T-shirt stretched across his biceps and chest, showing off his muscles. He had big hands—blue veins running along the backs, and his fingers were long, the nails neatly trimmed.

For some reason, my wicked fantasies hit me again, and I wondered how those fingers would feel on my skin. Touching me. Stroking my clit.

I shook my head before my lurid thoughts got me in trouble.

He looked so tired. And with his face relaxed, he seemed peaceful. He wasn’t frowning or barking out demands.

I had only planned on dropping off more cookies at the station until I saw Martha. I remembered her from when I lived here as a child. She had been much younger—in fact, in my mind, I remembered she was quite the sexy woman behind the desk, the single cops and firefighters falling all over themselves for a moment of her time. But she was married and only had eyes for her husband, who back then had been the owner of the one garage in Covington. He would drop by with lunch or to visit his wife. He was a big, burly man, covered in tattoos and rather scary-looking. But Martha looked at him as if he were a movie star. And he acted as if she had hung the moon. He was always sweet to me if he saw me there, talking to me in a low, friendly voice.

She told me today that he was retired and waiting for her to join him. She laughed when she confessed she wasn’t that anxious to give up her job yet. “Maybe once he gets a hobby. He’s already moved things around in my kitchen, plans dinners neither of us likes, and insists on doing the laundry and loading the dishwasher.” She looked over her glasses at me. “As if I’d been doing it wrong all these years.”

I laughed with her.

When she asked why I was bringing food and not letting Thorne have any, I paused.

“We’re sorta in a tug-of-war right now.”

She pursed her lips. “I see. Is he being thorny?”

I chuckled. “At times.” I shrugged. “He doesn’t like, um…”

“…changes,” she finished for me.

“Yes. And we’re disagreeing about a decoration I have. Or had.”

She leaned close. “Wind chimes?”

“How did you know?”

She smiled knowingly. “I know everything that goes on around here. Oh, here he comes. Leave it to me.”

And she had made it seem as if I was going to file a report on my missing wind chimes.