efforts seemed rather pathetic.
He slid into a chair at the table and looked around her sunny, comfortable kitchen.
“I have to say, this place has really changed since the last time I saw it, back when that scary-mean Mrs. Schmidt lived here.”
“She wasn’t scary or mean. Just old and lonely.”
“Do you always look for the best in people?”
She could feel her face heat. “If you take the time to see past the gruff, you can usually find something good.”
“Maybe you should try being a cop for a day or two. That would probably change your perspective.” He picked out a pickle spear from the jar she’d managed to wrangle down off the shelf of the refrigerator and took a chomp out of it.
She sipped at her water. “No, thank you. I’ll stick with my bead store. I like being foolish and naive.”
“I didn’t call you either of those things. I actually think it’s…sweet.”
She didn’t want to be sweet. Not when it came to Riley.
“So tell me about the house,” he said. “How did you come to be the proud owner of Mrs. Schmidt’s crumbling old brick pile?”
“I’ve dreamed of living here from the time I used to walk past it on my way to school,” she confessed.
“Even as creepy as it used to look, with the grime and the cobwebs and the shutters falling off their hinges?”
“I could always see past all the dusty corners to the gem inside. The bones were good and I knew with a little elbow grease, this place could truly sparkle.”
“So you came back to town ready to make your dreams come true.”
“Something like that. Mrs. Schmidt died a few months before Jeff finished his residency and was ready to open his practice. When we started looking around for houses, her children were just a week or so from putting it on the market. Our real estate agent put us in touch with them and we bought it just like that.”
Jeff hadn’t wanted an old house. He had wanted to build their own place from the very beginning, something modern and airy, but she had convinced him this was the perfect place to raise their children.
Her own ignorance still shamed her. She hadn’t wanted to see how different—and how distant—she and Jeff were becoming over the years.
“Did you gut the whole thing?” Riley asked.
“Close enough. It took about a year of hard work to make it the home we wanted.” And while she had been stripping layer after layer of wallpaper, painting, refinishing old woodwork to create a warm, lovely home for her family, her marriage had been crumbling around her feet without her noticing.
“I can’t imagine how much work you must have had to throw at it.”
“Yes, but just like I tell my kids when they’re complaining about their homework or having to clean up after Chester, we value the things for which we have to work the hardest.”
“True enough.”
She took a small bite of her sandwich, thinking how much better it would have tasted if she could have made her famous five-spice mayonnaise, but she hadn’t been able to reach into the cupboard for the ingredients.
“Do you find the place too much to keep up since the divorce?”
“Ask me that in the fall when I’m trying to harvest the garden—assuming I can even put in a garden this year—and rake the leaves and prep the house for winter.”
“So is that a yes?”
“My mother pushed me to sell after…well, after Jeff moved out, but I couldn’t bear to lose it after we’d worked so hard on the renovations. I didn’t want to lose everything, you know?”
She hadn’t meant to say that. The words just slipped out before it was too late to call them back.
Riley’s gaze narrowed, his features suddenly dark and extremely sexy. “I’m just going to come out and say this. The man was an idiot not to see what he had.”
Goose bumps shivered down her arms at the intense look in his eyes. She stared at him for a long moment, tension coiling between them and a glittery awareness floating in the air like dust motes in a sunbeam.
She set her water glass down, wondering if her face could possibly be as red as it felt, and tried hard for a casual smile. “Thank you, Riley. That’s a very sweet thing to say.”
“Nothing sweet about it, Claire.”
His voice was a low rasp in the kitchen. Before she could stir her brain to function, to speak or move away or something, he reached out a roughened thumb and caressed her jawline. Heat surged through her, wild and fluttery, and she wanted to lean into his skin like her silly dog nudging her hand for more petting.
“Claire,” he said softly, and then his whole hand curved around her chin and he tugged her forward slightly and kissed her.
His mouth was hard, warm and tasted of the outdoors. Beautiful and slightly wild. He didn’t rush the kiss, his mouth just barely moving on hers, and everything inside her seemed to sigh a welcome.
She felt as if she had been frozen solid for years, as if she had been waiting like the mountains for the sun to finally come out after long days of darkness. She closed her eyes, relishing the scent and the taste of him, the strength and heat of his fingers, the brilliant, delicious heat bursting through her.
Don’t stop, she thought. Oh, please, don’t stop.
He made a low sound in his throat and deepened the kiss and she leaned into him as his mouth slid across hers, as his hand tugged a little in her hair….
Through the soft haze wrapping around her, Claire was vaguely cognizant of a jarring sound, a door shutting somewhere in the house and then a voice that didn’t belong in this lovely moment she was having.
“Hey, you,” she heard Alex call out from the entryway. “What’s Ri’s pickup doing outside full of branches?”
She froze for only a second, her eyes flashing open. Her gaze locked with the intense aspen-leaf green of his—now somewhat dazed—then Claire scrambled back and picked up her sandwich, trying not to notice how her hands trembled.
She was just in time. An instant later, Alex walked into the kitchen. “Hey. Here you are.”
“Right. Um. Here we are. Hi.”
Chester, who adored Riley’s sister, jumped to his feet and headed over for a little love, which she freely dispensed, though her gaze wandered from Claire to Riley.
Claire knew her best friend well enough to feel more than a little trepidation when her gaze narrowed. What could she see? Were her lips swollen? Her hair messy? She wanted to check but couldn’t with Alex still studying her with the scrutiny she usually reserved for fresh produce at the farmer’s market to serve at the restaurant.
Claire
