not the point. It’s as if you’re trying to erase Brett from your memory.” He wasn’t ready to let go yet, and she shouldn’t be, either. She pulled her arm free, and her silky skin slid against his fingertips, marginally deflating his anger. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts and clenched his teeth on the persistent bite of desire.
“My memories are here, Sawyer.” She tapped her temple and then gestured toward the bounty in her yard. “These are just things.”
He paced to the hedge and back. Was Lynn trying to purge Brett from her life? And what if there were a child? He might have a legal hold on his child, but not on Brett’s. The big aching void where his heart used to be threatened to suck him into a black hole. “Why are you trying so hard to forget him?”
“I’m not,” she fired back defensively and then chewed her lip. She glanced away and then back at him. Resignation settled over her features. “We have a few debts I need to pay.”
He zeroed in on the tension in her voice. “What kinds of debts?”
She stepped from one foot to the other and fingered the lock on the cash box. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Lynn, I can’t help if I don’t know what I’m up against.”
“And I told you I don’t need your help.” She fidgeted when he stared her down and then sighed. “Credit cards, mostly, but as administrator of the estate, I can settle our debts by selling a few items.”
Hadn’t Brett learned anything from the tightly budgeted years after their parents’ deaths? Or was Lynn the one who’d insisted on flashy cars and a luxurious house? Since marrying his brother she’d certainly developed a high-maintenance lifestyle with her flirty body-hugging dresses, long, manicured nails and hair color that changed as frequently as the seasons.
His gut knotted and a sour taste filled his mouth. Brett had bragged that every time Lynn dyed her hair it had been like making love with a different woman, a sexy redhead, a sultry brunette, a tawny-headed temptress. Cheating, but not cheating, he’d said with a wink and a smirk that lit a firestorm in Sawyer every time. He’d once thought he and Lynn had a future together, but that was before she’d ignored his letter and chosen his brother.
Sawyer preferred Lynn’s hair blond—which he now knew was her natural shade, dammit—and he’d liked her back when she’d been a waitress who traded her contradictory uniform for jeans after work. Sure, he appreciated the curvy shape her clothes revealed—what man wouldn’t?—but he preferred a woman to leave a little to the imagination.
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear with a long fuchsia fingernail, and in the blink of an eye his mind shifted gears again and his blood ignited. The crescent marks on his butt where she’d clutched him and pulled him deeper had barely faded. He cleared his throat and shifted, trying to ease the discomfort behind his zipper. “How much do you owe?”
Her pink lips pressed in a determined line, and she lifted her chin. “I’m busy now. Can we have this discussion later?”
Several couples hovered as if waiting to make purchases, and Lynn’s closed expression made it clear she wasn’t going to talk now. He didn’t have the right to stop the yard sale, but he couldn’t stand around and watch the vultures cart off his brother’s possessions without acid eating a hole through his stomach. “What time will you finish here?”
“The neighbors’ teenage sons will come back at three to help me pack up what I don’t sell.”
“I’ll be back this evening.”
Pretend it didn’t happen. Pretend the man striding up your driveway didn’t give you more physical pleasure in five desperate minutes than your husband did in four years.
Lynn hovered on her side porch with her cheeks on fire and her insides a jumble. Coward that she was, she’d anxiously watched for Sawyer through the windows and then raced out the kitchen door before he could head up the brick walk to her front entrance. She couldn’t face him in the foyer.
Sawyer’s navy-blue polo shirt delineated his muscles to mouthwatering perfection. The short sleeves revealed thick biceps and tanned forearms lightly sprinkled with dark hair—hair that matched the denser whorls at the base of his throat. Her lips tingled with the memory of tasting him there, and a shiver slipped down her spine. His khaki shorts displayed rock-hard thighs and calves. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw. She clenched her fingers as she relived the rasp of his chin against her palm.
She’d just lost her husband, and even if she’d quit loving Brett long ago, she shouldn’t be having womb-tightening thoughts about Sawyer or his athletic body. Ashamed, she ducked her chin, thumbed her wedding band and hoped the warmth beneath her skin wasn’t visible.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he stated without preamble.
Her heart jumped. Guilty as charged. “I’ve been busy for the past week with the estate paperwork, the real estate agent and appraisers.”
His cobalt gaze raked over her from head to toe, stirring up feelings best left undisturbed and leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake, but then concern softened his eyes and the hard planes of his handsome face. “How are you holding up?”
His quiet question put a lump in her throat. “I’m okay. You?”
He shrugged and she nearly rolled her eyes. Typical man, refusing to admit to emotion. Her father, the tough cop, had been the same—especially after her mother died.
“Come in.” She led the way through the garage and into the kitchen. Even though she kept her back to the curved archway leading to the foyer her heart thumped harder, and the sensitive areas of her body tingled with awareness for the man hovering a few feet away.
She concentrated on keeping her hand steady so she wouldn’t scatter the coffee grounds across the granite countertop and then poured water into the coffeemaker and turned it on. Pressing her palm against her nervous stomach, she tried to ignore the tremor running through her. “The coffee should be ready in a few minutes.”
“How much do you owe?” Sawyer’s tone sounded level, almost impersonal, but the way he looked at her wasn’t. His eyes stroked over her, and her skin reacted as if he’d touched her. Intimacy stood between them like a living, breathing being, connecting them in a way they hadn’t been linked before.
Don’t fool yourself, Lynn. The encounter in the foyer ten days ago had nothing to do with making love and everything to do with forgetting. The regret on both sides proved it shouldn’t and wouldn’t be repeated. So why couldn’t she get it out of her mind? And why, when he looked at her in that slow, thorough way did her awakened body hum with the memory of the way he’d caressed her and with the deep-seated need for him to do so again?
My God, what must he think of her? Had she become the clichéd merry widow? Embarrassment scorched her cheeks. She staggered back a step and retreated to the sunny bay window overlooking her tiny backyard in an effort to clear the unsuitable thoughts from her mind. She fussed with her multitude of plants, polishing dust off this one and plucking a dead bud from another, but Sawyer’s spicy scent pursued her relentlessly.
“How much, Lynn?” he repeated.
“Settling the estate really isn’t your problem, Sawyer.”
He leaned forward, bracing his arms on the table. His biceps
