Page 38 of The Heartbreaker Next Door

“Looks like you weren’t exaggerating about the turnout.” The words dry but not unkind.

“Yep, and there’s still a second wave coming for the cookout,” I informed him, not able to hide the pride I felt for the event.

His lips twitched, ninety percent to a grin. “I might have to alert the fire marshal.”

I held up a finger. “You can’t alert anyone until you officially check in.” I slid a badge across the table to him, pre-printed in bubble letters, Sunshine, and beneath it, Your Friendly Ranch CFO.

Dean took the nametag and examined it, as if weighing whether to comment. When he spoke again, it was quieter, just for me. “You actually printed this for me.”

“I did,” I confirmed, amazed at my own bravado. “I nearly went with Mr. Spreadsheets, with the s’s being dollar signs, but I thought this was more professional.”

He peeled the sticker from its backing and, with a precision that should’ve been illegal, centered it on the left breast of his shirt. “Your restraint is admirable.”

Nothing he said to me was sexy, but tingles spread through my entire body at his words. It was his voice. His attention. His BDE—because if anyone had big-dick-energy, it was Dean Lockhart—that had me on the edge of jumping off a cliff, saying fuck it, and going for it every time he came within a mile of me.

I was about to fire back a joke about the past few weeks, and his “avoid Felicity” strategy, but Selma Lockhart appeared back at the registration area at exactly that moment, taking Dean’s arm and steering him through the crowd like a runway model corralling her reluctant co-host. I watched her glide him toward the barn, explaining something animatedly, and for a second I let myself enjoy the view.

Then a shriek of pure joy erupted from the hay bale sculpture, followed by the thumping sound of a four-year-old in rubber boots. Maverick was already in his element, leading a parade of smaller kids straight through the middle of the crowd, waving a foam pool noodle like a sword. Blake jogged after them, all business, her voice raised in a command that would’ve made a drill sergeant proud.

In the next hour, I didn’t have time to think about Dean, or pheromones, or anything except the relentless machine of registration. The line snaked halfway to the stables, and it was anything but smooth sailing. I reunited a lost child with her parents, cleaned up a juice box spill, and convinced an entire family of gluten-intolerant siblings that the s’mores station had their dietary needs handled. I was in my zone, and if anyone noticed the high-pitched edge in my laughter or the way I fussed a little too long with the schedule, they were kind enough not to mention it.

It wasn’t until the last family came through that I allowed myself a breath. I scanned the area for Mav and spotted him at the corral fence, holding a carrot out to a horse with the reverence of a priest presenting an offering. Next to him, Blake flashed me a thumbs-up.

I closed my binder, filed the leftover name tags, and stood up to stretch for the first time in what felt like years. I was about to head to Mav, Tabitha, and Blake when a hand brushed my forearm. Before I even turned my head, my body responded to the touch. Somehow it just knew it was the man who had occupied every thought, waking and dreaming.

“Congrats on the turnout,” he said, voice pitched low.

I made myself laugh, light and easy, even as every cell in my body suddenly woke up, alert and absolutely on fire. “Thanks. I might actually survive this weekend. That is, if I survive goat yoga.”

He didn’t smile, exactly, but his eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’m serious, I’ve never seen this place so organized. It’s all running like clockwork.”

“Every department chipped in. The support for this was incredible.”

His lips curled at the edges, and I noted his shift in demeanor as he grinned, actually grinned. “You’re really bad at taking compliments.”

It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. One I had every intention of refuting, but I just couldn’t seem to find the words. He was standing so close that I could see the muscle jump in his cheek when he looked at me, and I told myself the butterflies in my stomach were because of the weekend and had nothing to do with him. I knew I was lying.

My phone vibrated with the alarm, indicating it was time for me to go check on…something, I couldn’t even remember now.

“I have to…” I licked my lips and his stare only intensified. I felt caught in his web of sexiness. It took every ounce of self-discipline to move my feet away from him, out of his tractor beam of sexiness. “I have to go.”

Once I managed to extract myself from his hotness, the spell he had me under momentarily faded. The afternoon settled into a pattern: I flitted between the activity zones, checked on the grills, wrangled a couple of misplaced toddlers, and tried not to notice the way Dean drifted through the day like a fixed point on my radar. No matter where I turned, he was always at the edge of my vision, talking with a vendor, calming down a panicked mom whose kid got a splinter, or—more often than not—keeping one steady, watchful eye on Maverick, even though Mav was being looked after by Blake.

At the five minute mark to the scavenger hunt, I was flagging families over to the starting line when Dean appeared at my shoulder, holding two bandanas and a clipboard. “We’re a team,” he said.

I blinked, thrown by the “we.” “You’re volunteering for a scavenger hunt?”

“Team Maverick. He insisted.” His voice held an exaggerated resignation, but I could tell he wasn’t really complaining. He handed me the red bandana, and for a fleeting, stupid moment, I imagined him tying it around my eyes, blindfold style.

I quickly shook off that rated R thought and I knotted it around my neck and gave him my best don’t-mess-with-me smile. “Bring it on, Sunshine.”

“We’re on the same team,” he reminded me.

“Oh yeah, right.” Once I got those competitive juices flowing, they just sort of splattered on anyone in the splash zone.

The next hour was pure, undiluted chaos. Dean had the sort of mind that treated even a low-stakes competition like war games: he read every clue with Talmudic precision, negotiated our route for maximum efficiency, and even—politely, but firmly—dissuaded a rival family from skirting the course’s official boundaries. Maverick, who’d never met a rule he didn’t immediately try to bend, sided with Dean every time. By the time we’d completed the circuit and returned triumphant to the prize table, I was winded in a way that had nothing to do with running and everything to do with how easy it had felt to be a trio.

In fact, it felt so natural that when one of the other parents snapped a candid photo of us at the finish line, I had to actively stop myself from clutching Dean’s arm. Instead, I let Maverick do it; he wrapped both little hands around Dean’s wrist and declared us the “winningest team in the whole world.” Dean grinned, which, for him, was basically a ticker-tape parade.