had a great time, exchanging stories and giggling over a bit too much Moscato as they painted toenails and discussed Julia’s engagement to Eli Donovan of the Knoxville Donovans and urged her to have a big, fancy wedding right here at Peach Orchard Inn.
Now the others were snoozing like fossil rocks while she trembled in fear over the storm and nursed the teeniest headache. Wine had a tendency to do that to plain old Carrie of the boring life who rarely drank anything stronger than a single-shot espresso. She couldn’t even tolerate a double. Wimp.
At the bottom of the steps, she noticed a light in the kitchen. Curious and eager for human companionship, Carrie hurried on shaky knees across the cool wood floors, but skittered to a stop in the arched doorway when she spotted him. For the person in the kitchen was definitely a him. A lean, rangy, masculine him.
He obviously had not yet been to bed. Still in casually expensive jeans she recognized only by the label on the back pocket holding a cell phone and a long-sleeved navy pullover with the sleeves pushed back, he was turned away from her, lifting a tea bag in and out of a China cup. His wide shoulders, like his forearms, were muscled, his hands long and strong-looking as if he worked outside for a living. But not in those jeans. Or with that haircut.
He wore a rich man’s haircut. She knew this because her sister Nikki was the most fashion-conscious woman in Honey Ridge. Boutique owner Nikki knew fashion, knew haircuts, knew high-end anything, unlike Carrie, who couldn’t tell Gucci from a gunnysack and basically didn’t care. The man’s straight brown hair was casually shoved off his forehead in a loose, sexy muss that probably cost a bazillion dollars to maintain.
Carrie couldn’t decide whether to speak or wait until he noticed her. In her case, that might be another fifty years. Men did not notice Carrie Riley. Not unless they wanted to check out a book.
The loudest clap of thunder ever heard, at least to Carrie, rocked the countryside. The house trembled. More lightning followed on its tail, a blinding explosion of light and sound that crackled the air.
Carrie jumped, fists raised, and squeaked.
The spoon clattered against the counter. The man stilled and then slowly turned his head. He was good-looking, darn it. Romantic-looking, like one of the poets she read incessantly with a deep longing for that kind of love to find its way to her house. Now she’d be a bumbling, stuttering mess for more reasons that the storm.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She crossed her arms tightly over her chest.
A very nice, full-lipped mouth curved. Eyes the color of fog and smoke and mystery watched her. “You squeaked.”
Like a mouse. Stupid. Stupid.
“Storms scare me. I thought I’d better check the weather.”
“It’s raining.”
Carrie rolled her eyes, almost smiled, though she was still too shivery. “What if there’s a tornado?”
He shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
Something about the easy way he rejected the idea of a tornado soothed her. Maybe he was a meteorologist.
Carrie took a few steps into the kitchen. She didn’t know this man, but she could always scream if he tried something, though not a soul in this house would hear her over the storm.
Comforting thought.
“Want some—” he saluted her with one of Julia’s delicate white cups and a wry arch of eyebrow, sipped and made a face “—lemon zinger tea?”
At times like this she wished she was as outgoing as Nikki or gorgeous like Bailey or even a little wild and easy with men like Valery. But she was none of those things. She was plain Carrie, the librarian, wishing she could say something snappy and clever.
“If you don’t like lemon zinger, pick a different kind.” Very snappy and clever. No wonder she was past thirty and still single.
“I wanted caffeine,” he said with a shrug.
“You won’t get it from lemon zinger. Make coffee.”
“I would if I knew where the machine was.”
She lifted a finger. “That I can help you with.”
He dropped his head back. “Praise the saints and Maxwell House.”
Bare feet soundless on the cool tile flooring, Carrie moved to a pantry and removed one of Julia’s sterling silver French press urns. “We’ll have to grind the beans. Julia’s a bit of a coffee snob.”
“Won’t the noise disturb the others?”
Thunder rattled the house. Carrie tilted her head toward the dark, rain-drenched window. “Will it matter?”
“Point taken. You’re a lifesaver. What’s your name?”
“Carrie Riley.” She kept her hands busy and her eyes on the work. The fact that she was ever so slightly aware of the stranger with the poet’s face in a womanly kind of way gave her a funny tingle. She seldom tingled, and she didn’t flirt. She was no good at that kind of thing. Just ask her sisters. “Yours?”
“Hayden Winters.”
“Nice to meet you, Hayden.” She held up a canister of coffee beans. “Bold?”
“I can be.”
She laughed, shocked to think this handsome man might actually be flirting a little. Even if she wasn’t. “Bold it is.”
As she’d predicted, the storm noise covered the grinding sound and in fewer than ten minutes, the silver pot’s lever was pressed and the coffee was poured. The dark, bold aroma filled the kitchen, a pleasing warmth against the rain-induced chill.
Hayden Winters offered her the first cup, a courteous gesture that made her like him, and then sipped his. “You know your way around a bold roast.”
“Former Starbucks barista who loves coffee.”
“A kindred spirit. I live on the stuff, especially when I’m working, which I should be doing.”
She didn’t want him to leave. Not because he was hot—which he was—but because she didn’t want to be alone in the storm, and no one else was up. “You work at night?”
“Stormy nights are my favorite.”
Which, in her book, meant he was a little off center. “What do you do?”
He studied her for a moment and, with his expression a peculiar mix of amusement and malevolence, said quietly, matter-of-factly, “I kill people.”
Hayden didn’t know what possessed him to say such a thing when this pleasant woman was already a nervous wreck and had saved his night with a terrific cup of coffee, but he’d given his standard glib answer when asked about his line of work. The press seemed to love it. Carrie, not so much.
She
