Belle closed her mouth, stuck her hands in the back pockets of her cutoffs—the motion doing amazing things for her breasts—and looked guilty.
He shifted his gaze away from the Bonnet Creek Owls T-shirt that fit her like a second skin. He didn’t relish standing knee deep on pitted blacktop with a hard-on over a woman he’d spent nearly five years hating.
Okay, not hating. Just resenting.
Besides, he’d outgrown his crush on Mary Belle. Sort of. But he couldn’t stop the pleasure he took watching her squirm. She’d treated him no better than the mud on the bottom of her boot. She deserved the discomfort.
“You look different. More like your daddy.” She dug the rim of her flip-flop into the gravel.
He smiled the smile he reserved for pretty women and stubborn patients. “Did you think I’d have acne, knock knees and oily hair forever? Everyone grows up, Mary B.”
She raked him up and down with a bold gaze. “Sure, but you turned out pretty hot.”
And with those words, Tripp Long felt a little piece of redemption click into his soul. “I work out.”
Mary Belle laughed, and a familiar feeling stirred inside him—that old longing for the girl next door who washed her car in an itty-bitty bikini, very aware of the gawky Tripp peering out from behind his backyard fence.
Then her blue eyes met his and he saw the awareness there.
Well, then.
“So, will you give me a ride into town?” she asked.
“It’s not that far. You can walk.”
“You’re really going to make me walk?” Mary Belle swallowed the guilt she always felt when she thought about how much she’d hurt Tripp all those years ago. But, jeez, who carried a grudge over stuff that happened in high school? Okay, maybe lots of people, but she’d never meant for Tripp to find out about her little lie. And she’d never meant it to embarrass him.
Tripp gave her another toe-curling smile. She wiggled her toes accordingly, wondering how the nerd next door had turned into…a hunk. He’d been an ugly duckling, born to beautiful parents, and everyone in town had wondered what had gone wrong with Tripp.
But now he was amazingly hot.
Maybe the smoke had clouded her vision. She blinked a couple of times.
Nope. Still gorgeous.
“Kidding. Of course I’ll give you a ride. Come on.” He didn’t wait for a reply…just walked toward his car, making her wonder, when had Dockers become so sexy?
Mary Belle grabbed her purse, locked the Beast—even though she doubted anyone would want a half-filled water bottle and a flashlight with no batteries, which was all she had in the car—and climbed into the leather seat beside Tripp.
The car barely made a sound as they pulled away from the side of the road. BMWs obviously were the spy cars of the automotive world.
“So what are you doing in Bonnet Creek, Tripp? I haven’t seen you in like—”
“Eleven years.” The sunglasses were back in place so she couldn’t see any emotion in those blue eyes that nearly matched hers in color. “I bought Fred Kramer’s dentistry practice over in Ville Platte, and I’m going to restore Long House.”
What? He was moving home? Something hot and slithery dropped into the pit of her stomach.
Oh, come on, Mary Belle. This is Tripp the Drip. You know him, and can’t possibly feel warmth in your girl parts for him.
But she did.
Strange.
“So you’re moving into Long House? It’s kinda—”
“A dump?” he interrupted with a wry smile, finishing her sentences, just like he’d always done when they were kids. “Yeah, I’m planning on bringing the house back to its former glory as soon as possible…among other things.”
“Oh.” So he had more on his agenda than remodeling a house. Maybe his coming home had to do with the way he and his family had left Bonnet Creek in disgrace. Tripp was back to set the record straight.
“Does your mother still live next door to Long House?” he asked, maneuvering around a pothole and pulling her thoughts from the past.
“Yeah, and so do I.”
He glanced at her. “You still live with your mother?”
Okay, that might make her look like a loser, but she wasn’t. “Yeah, I sorta take care of her. She has early-onset Alzheimer’s.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Terrible disease. That’s good of you, to take care of her. You always were a nice girl, Mary B.”
The except to me part was implied. Lord, guilt was not a feel-good emotion. She decided to focus instead on the fact that Tripp was moving back to Bonnet Creek…and the possibility that unwillingly bloomed in her.
But then she remembered the vow she’d made only weeks ago in front of the girls at work—the one about staying away from men and focusing on her almost-finished degree in journalism. Around managing her mother’s illness, she’d written a few human interest pieces decent enough to submit to regional magazines. Bear’s dad, Buddy Rodrigue, had even volunteered to send a few good words to the editor of Guns and Glory for a piece she’d written on Civil War re-enactments. She had hope on a string and she wasn’t untying it for a hot dentist with a cool ride. She was a new Mary Belle. Focused. Mature. Not interested.
She glanced at Tripp, at the way his dark hair blew in the wind, at the scruffy, sexy six o’clock shadow he had working for him, and that gorgeous mouth.
Nope, not interested at all.
Tripp stared at the sagging porch and the colony of granddaddy long-legs that was inhabiting the steps of Long House and sighed.
He certainly had his work cut out for him to restore the Creole cottage built almost two centuries ago outside the small community of Bonnet Creek. Situated in south-central Louisiana and bordering the Atchafalaya Basin, the town had been an active trading post for runaway slaves, Native Americans and French settlers. Long House had held down this patch of soil for many years and deserved more than dry rot and neglect. She’d once been a beauty—the pride and joy of his father…
Until almost twelve years ago.
When Howard Long had left Bonnet Creek in disgrace at the hands of Buddy Rodrigue.
But Tripp planned to set things right, to restore the balance. His redemption would start with Long House and end with Buddy crawling on his knees with an apology.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and
