by Jacie Floyd
“There are a couple of places, but they’re full up.” His gaze fixed on some point past her shoulder.
As he considered, she had to wonder what he’d come up with next. He hadn’t said anything yet that even came close to her expectations.
“Do you like cats?” he asked, apropos of nothing.
His words took her on a sharp detour back into the land of confusion. “Cats, the musical, or cats, the animal?”
“The animal.”
“I like cats.” She paused, not exactly sure where he was going, unless... “How many cats are we talking about?”
“Ten. Or twenty.” He considered. “Maybe more.”
“Probably too many cats for me.”
“That lets out Cora’s Cordial Bed and Breakfast then.”
Unbelievable. She’d been globetrotting and jet-setting her whole life. She’d probably been to more countries than the people of Sunnyside could find on a map. Plenty of crossed wires and lost reservations had occurred during that time, but she’d never traveled any place where her mother hadn’t been able to find them a place to stay. Harper could be equally as resourceful. “So where does that leave me? Back to the hour drive?”
“Maybe. Unless...” He hesitated. “There’s room at my house, but my dad and brother are out of town. If you stayed over, everyone in Sunnyside would have us married by morning.”
She suppressed a small scoff. “How would they know I was there?”
“Small-town grapevine, honey. Everyone knows everything. About everyone. All the time. Get used to it.” He took a quick visual survey of the neighborhood. “There are at least five people peeking out from behind their curtains watching us right this minute, waiting to see what I’m going to do with you.”
At last, he favored her with a real smile. His deep brown eyes twinkled, and that smile pulled her right in with down-home charm he hadn’t previously bothered to display.
Okay. Something else to adjust to. Not just a lack of amenities, but people who’d be curious about her off-work activities. In Chicago, she could have given an orangutan a blow job outside her apartment building and not generated much interest. But here, apparently, watching neighbors stand around on their own front porches constituted a spectator sport.
There were worse things. She had nothing to hide. She never had unorthodox amorous adventures with humans or orangutans, indoors or out. Everything open and above board, that described her normal, boring, everyday style.
And now that she thought about it, she didn’t like the sound of that. This was her new life. She should adopt a new style. Something more fun. More daring. More adventurous. At the very least, she could try for more flirtation.
If there were five people watching, she should give them something worth seeing.
She gave her eyelashes a slow slide downward and then lifted them back up, conjuring the secret smile her sister had perfected before she was twelve. Peering up at Zach, she brushed her hand across his shoulder, kind of cozy and caressing. Similar to the way Brianna had touched him, but with less Fatal Attraction undertone. Her fingers trailed up the back of his neck to tease the hint of curls that grew there.
Stretching up on tiptoe, she whispered into his ear. “That makes six of us then, ‘cause I’m curious to see what you plan to do with me, too.”
Chapter Three
What am I going to do with her? About twenty possibilities fired through Zach’s brain in two seconds flat.
From the moment she’d stepped out of her car in that dress that fit like a second skin and those high-heeled sandals that stretched her legs from toned and shapely to X-rated fantasy, he’d gone from bone-weary to bone-hard. Ever since, his dick had been shouting suggestions of what he could, should, or would do with her. If he allowed himself to, and if she were willing.
All of which amounted to a great big reality of no freaking way.
In his fantasies, she embodied the words expensive and delectable. Like hot sex, cool sheets, chilled mimosas, and romping in bed on a sex-infused Sunday morning.
In reality, she looked like someone who’d detoured into town by mistake and would motor back out again as soon as she found somewhere to top off her latte and gas tank.
And despite all that, or really—because of it, she looked like wa-a-ay too much trouble.
Which made him fleetingly wonder how much trouble would be too much trouble to have her in his life. In his bed. Just for the three or four months until he left town. Would that be too much to ask?
Probably.
He heaved a disappointed sigh. No wonder Brianna had been such a bitch. This sophisticated fashion plate had no business showing up to tempt him and every other sex-deprived, numb nuts in a slow-moving, isolated place like Sunnyside. She’d dazzle this little town, shake it all up and turn it upside down in a New-York-minute. If she didn’t get run out on a rail first.
All the women here had their hair done at the Sheer Delight or the Cut ‘n’ Curl, and nobody here had hair that glowed in the sun with red and gold highlights or swung sleekly around her shoulders like tousled silk begging to be crushed.
In Sunnyside, people bought their everyday clothes from Wal-Mart and their good clothes from JCPenney. Undoubtedly, Harper Simmons had never set foot in any store with such commonplace names.
No matter how much he wanted to strip her out of that cling-on designer dress, leaving her in nothing but those do-me heels and whatever teeny tiny transparent scraps she might consider underwear, he had to remember his goal. His Plan. His Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card.
Apparently, the breath-taking, but misguided Harper Simmons had chosen to come here. She wanted to stay for reasons of her own. Whatever she wanted to find here he couldn’t fathom, but it wasn’t what he needed, which was to get far away as soon as possible. Leaving the weight of his past behind.
Which made him the most ungrateful, hard-hearted, deceitful bastard that ever lived.
The good people of Sunnyside had supported him in every pursuit in his entire life, but that support carried a soul-sucking responsibility that left him hollow and resentful. They had too much knowledge of his past, too much involvement in his present, and too many expectations about his future.
So he could lust after this high-maintenance beauty, breathe in her expensive perfume, and feel the temperature around him elevate from too-hot-for-comfort to incendiary passion just because she stood too close and batted those long, sweeping lashes up at him. He could picture her sizzling and sweaty with her hair tangled and her skin flushed and her lips—oh, God, yes—he could picture her lush lips trailing down his stomach in a steamy path.
He could picture all of that, clear as sunrise. But even if she were agreeable to a brief but satisfactory romp as his own personal sexual playground—which was a freaking big if—he wouldn’t suggest it. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Probably not ever.
For her own good and his.
He didn’t want or need more ties to this place. The town would judge the idea of the new librarian having an affair with anyone harshly, but especially with him. They had other plans for him.
The frustrating result of those combined roadblocks had him gripping her shoulders and firmly moving her away from their nearly chest-to-chest contact to a much safer arm’s length away. A distance that allowed him to cool down and get his head on straight. The head on his shoulders, not the other stupider one that was screaming “closer, closer” and didn’t want to co-operate.
But it would. It definitely would as he pinned on his professional expression and planned to put her in a safe place far, far, away from him. He firmly ignored the way the expanding space between them transformed her expression from flirtatious to guarded to neutral.
“Like I said, my family’s out at the farm, so you can’t stay with me. But my sister has her own place here in town. I’ll check with her first. But I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you stayed there while she’s gone.”
Harper grinned ruefully. �
��Nearby?”
“Two doors down on the street behind us.”
“Just one question.” She looked up at him.
He nodded the go-ahead.
“Umm, I appreciate the help and I’m not sure how to ask, but... who are you?” She laughed, a throaty little chuckle that sounded low and intimate, and just like that, the heat index surrounding them surged upward again.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he took another step back, increasing the distance that prevented him from pulling her into his arms and kissing that happy, succulent mouth. The impulse to do so blindsided him, but he held firm.
“Malcolm Newcomb was supposed to meet me here,” she continued, “and you are definitely not Malcolm. The Pippa Welcoming Committee said that your name’s Zach.”
“Right. I should introduce myself.” He cleared his throat and then nodded. Good way to get them back onto an impersonal, business-like track. He was a town official. Time to remember that. “Malcolm broke his leg this morning. My father owns this house, and I’m a member of the town council. So when Malcolm asked me to meet you in his place, I agreed. I guess the Vicodin knocked him out before he made the call to let you know.” He’d handled this meeting wrong from the start. But so far, she’d been a pretty good sport, and damn, she was gorgeous. But that was irrelevant. “Let’s forget the awkward puppy incident and start over.”
Reaching out to shake her hand, he realized the mistake of touching her again the moment he did it. Palm to palm with her soft, warm skin against his only served to revive the sizzle.
It would be much safer to concentrate on her negatives.
Hell, think fast. What were her negatives?
Right, right… She was probably one of those pampered, self-centered, spoiled rich girls who didn’t care about anything but their manicures, their wardrobes, and their desires. Sure, she had long, strong fingers and a very competent grip, but now that he noticed, her nails were done up in some intricate design that probably cost more than his clothes.
“Hi, I’m Zach Novak, here to greet you on behalf of the Sunnyside Town Council.”
“I guess you were the one missing from the teleconference when I ‘met’ the rest of them.” She smiled, playing along with the do-over. “I’m Harper Simmons.”
“Yeah, I have a tough schedule for daytime meetings.” Man, if she kept smiling, he was never going to be able to resist her. But he could do it. Starting now. All business. No flirting with the new girl. “This will be your house while you’re in town, Ms. Simmons. Until the renovations are completed, you’ll be staying at my sister’s home, just a short distance away.”
“Sounds perfect, Mr. Novak,” she agreed. “Or should I say Dr. Novak?”
He waved away the suggestion. “Just call me Zach. Nobody in Sunnyside stands on ceremony with me, so you shouldn’t either.”
“Hard to imagine.” She gave him a visual once-over that he ignored.
“It’s kind of tough for the locals to show the proper respect when they remember me crashing my bike through Mrs. Carter’s garden fence, uprooting her prize Heritage rose-bush, bleeding all over my soccer uniform, and needing six stitches.” He pointed to the scar on his chin. “Pretty much anytime any of them come to me to get stitched up, they remind me of how I almost fainted from the sight of all that blood. And the needle.”
He shuddered at the memory. Words kept spilling from his mouth. He couldn’t seem to stop. Taking a deep breath, he was determined to retreat to his normal level of detachment.
“When they come to you for stitches?” Harper bit her lip and seemed disturbed by the idea. “You mean you’re a real doctor? A people doctor?” She cocked her head to the side as if she could determine his occupation and all of his innermost secrets simply by studying him more closely. And really, if she studied him that way much longer, he’d proceed to spilling his life story.
“As opposed to what? Animals? Philosophy? Rugs?”
“Animals,” she admitted. “I thought you were a veterinarian because of the way you protected and handled Pippa. And went to such great lengths to save her.” She muttered under her breath, “Even though she was never in any real danger.”
“Matter of opinion.” He held up his hand to prevent her from going down that road again. “When you grow up around a farm, you learn to tend your own animals. And medicine is medicine. In many ways, a lot of what I do with humans applies to any warm-blooded creature. A broken bone is a broken bone, a severed artery is a severed artery, and so on.”
“I guess,” she said, noticeably underwhelmed. “No wonder you’re so... so....”
He didn’t think “wonderful” was the word she was searching for. When she didn’t finish the sentence, he had to ask. “I’m so... what?”
“Never mind. You said you grew up on a farm?”
Clearly, she didn’t intend to share her previous thought which made him all the more curious. “It was my grandparents’ farm, but I spent a lot of time there. The rest of my family’s there now celebrating my dad’s sixtieth birthday. I came back to set Malcolm’s leg this afternoon, or I’d still be with them.”
“So, aside from the famous bicycle/rose garden incident, what other tales from the dark side will the town be clamoring to share about you?”
Too many to think about—good, bad and ugly—but he’d let her uncover the truly bad and ugly ones on her own. The gory details of how he’d killed his best friend when he was seventeen would make great gossip in the grocery store one day. “Well, there was an unfortunate occasion in a pumpkin costume when I was six. But the less said about that the better.”
She chuckled, and he moved on. “I know my misspent youth must be fascinating, but I need to call my sister. Are you willing to stay at her place?” He hesitated. “It might not be what you’re used to.”
She blinked up at him. “How do you know what I’m used to?”
“You lived in Chicago.” He’d gone to Northwestern as an undergrad. Normal life for him in those years had been about scrimping and saving, but he couldn’t see the vision in front of him doing the same.
“Hah,” she said. “On a librarian’s salary? In case you don’t know how much that is, it’s a pittance. Especially compared to, say, oh, I don’t know, a doctor?”
“Hah,” he said right back at her, although he saw her point. Just as it was a stereotype to think all doctors were rich, he knew there were plenty of poor people in Chicago. She didn’t look like one of them though. Everything about her shouted dollar signs and lots of them. “You don’t know the salary a small-town doctor pulls down. I mostly get paid in produce.”
“Ah, the barter system.” She exaggerated a grimace. “That’s positively medieval. Does your W2 list a hundred thousand dollars, forty goats, six sides of beef, two chickens, eight bushels of corn, and four bunches of radishes?”
She almost got him to chuckle with that one, but he frowned instead. “God, no. A hundred thousand dollars would be way out of the ball park, and the number of farm animals sadly under-reported.” He waited for her smile before looking her up and down and then glancing at her expensive car. “I’m just a poor farm boy, not used to much. Salaries and occupations aside, everything about you presents itself as ex-pen-sive.”
“Is that right?” Her eyes flashed, and he expected excuses or explanations, but she just shook her head. “Your truck probably cost as much as my car.”
That much was true, but he shook his head right back. “Loaner.”
She jerked her chin in the direction of the Infiniti. “Gift.”
Who in hell could afford to give a present like that?
Harper tapped the toe of her high-priced ankle-breaker, reminding him he needed to get a move on. “As long as there’s running water and a bed at your sister’s, I’ll manage.”
“Okay. After I call Rachel, I’ll help you get what you need from your car.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“Won’t I need my car?”
“Planning on
going someplace?”
“I thought someone—er, you were going to show me the library, and I need to get something to eat.”
“We’ll walk.” He dropped his gaze to the sandals that didn’t resemble anything humans should wear for getting from one place to another. “Or we can take my truck.”
Lifting the trunk of her car, she pulled out an overnight bag. Then, holy shit, she exposed an even greater expanse of leg when she had moved around and leaned into the front passenger seat to grab a large leather satchel. “Walking’s good. I’ll change shoes when I get to your sister’s.”
“What else do you need?” He resisted the urge to pop his eyeballs back into his head when she caught him ogling her.
“That’s it.” She kept a grip on both bags when he reached out to help. “I’ve got them.”
“I’ll carry the bigger one.” He’d have pegged her for someone who’d travel with something more the size of a steamer trunk. Even for a short stay.
She relinquished it with easy grace. “Ready if you are.”
“Hang on a sec.” He leaned against his truck and made the call to Rachel.
While he negotiated terms with his sister, Harper picked up the ball cap he’d lost when launching himself off the porch on his rescue mission and brought it over to him. He slid it back into place, and she wandered down the driveway to the backyard and then over to the garage. The oddest things seemed to catch her attention. She stopped to peer into windows, tilted up the bird feeder, and leaned in to take a whiff of every blooming plant she passed.
“This smells heavenly,” she said when he strolled up to her. She pointed to the yellow flowers creeping over the fence in the back.
“It’s honeysuckle, so it’s basically a weed.” To keep her from falling and breaking her neck in those ridiculous shoes—he cast them a sidelong glance and yep, they were hot as firecrackers, but still, ridiculous for the occasion—on the uneven lawn, he took her arm. He guided her toward the alley that divided the Oakley Street back yards from the houses behind it on Willow.
“Growing wild doesn’t keep it from smelling good.” She picked a blossom and inhaled deeply. “Is the garage mine to use?”