him to reject that offer, just on principle, but he surprised her by scooping up the sweater with the kitten nestled inside. The kitten yawned, stretched, seemed momentarily disoriented by what was going on, but didn’t seem to struggle any further when he tucked the sweater, feline and all, against his bony chest. Kirby only hoped that plaid jacket and the denim beneath it were as heavy as they looked. Somehow she couldn’t imagine the little terrorist remaining calm during their entire trek.
“I’ll be on my way. You see any of this batch again, I’d appreciate a call next time.”
“Oh, you’ll hear from me, don’t you worry.” And you’re welcome, Kirby wanted to add, but was happy enough to see this situation concluded that she managed to bite her tongue.
“Who’s we?” Clemson asked as he made his way back down the steps.
“What?” Kirby asked, confused.
“Owner of this fine piece of sweater, I imagine.” He jammed his cap back on his bald head and squinted back at her as the sun hit him in the face. “Heard you had a new boarder.”
Kirby opened her mouth, then closed it again. He’d come down here to give her a hard time for saving his precious next-generation mouser and now he wanted to gossip?
“Seen that fancy bike. Tell him to stay clear of my property. Damn kids on dirt bikes last summer ruined more than an acre leaving tire ruts.”
“I don’t think you need to concern yourself about that in this case.”
“Well, just see that he doesn’t.”
Kirby sighed a little, but didn’t bother to explain that a Harley was hardly a dirt bike and she doubted her fully grown guest was going to suddenly decide to go off road with it up the back of her hill. “I’ll make sure to mention it.”
“Neighbors supposed to take care of one another,” he said as he ambled across the expanse of groomed grass behind the inn. “Why I prefer not to have any. Can’t count on anyone these days but yourself.” Beyond the cut grass, the land turned into a grassy, rocky field, which then stretched up into trails that led to the top of the hill and beyond.
“Which is why I saved your damn cat, you miserable old coot,” she said, but too softly to carry very far. “Careful on the trail,” she called out.
“Been walking these hills all of my seventy-two years. Don’t need some green little missie telling me how to handle myself. Just because I’ve been on God’s good earth a mite longer than you doesn’t mean I’m anything less than fully capable.”
She stood on the back porch, the morning breeze carrying his grumbling and muttering back to her until he was well beyond her property line.
“Quite the character,” came Brett’s deep voice just beside her ear. “You weren’t kidding about the crotchety part.”
She startled at the sound of his voice, and he steadied her. With his hands on her hips. Which he left there.
“He’s just mad because I snatched up this property before he could finally convince the town council to let him tear down the old house and add the whole parcel to the land he already owned. He’d have been king of the mountain then. Had I known what having him as a neighbor was like, I might have kept looking and let him have it.” Again with the babbling. But, honestly, his hands were still on her, and she didn’t know quite what to do next. Seemed easier to just keep talking.
She felt the heat of him, just behind her. All that bare skin…he was like a one-man furnace with that heat. Or maybe she was the one with the elevated temperature. She certainly felt feverish…
“You gave my cat away,” he said, his breath warm on her neck. Her feverish neck.
“It, uh—it wasn’t yours, as it turns out.”
“So I heard. Good thing he’s up on all the rules of being neighborly. Are the rest of the residents of Pennydash as…colorful?”
“Never boring, anyway.” Sort of like every second I’ve spent with you. “I’ve met Matilda, the mom cat, by the way. It explains a lot.”
“Psycho senior?”
“Something like that. Let’s just say, I’m not thinking your little pet there was going to be domesticated anytime soon.”
“Well, I think our girl has found a good home. She has a fine career ahead of her. One she can sink her teeth into.”
Kirby groaned, but she was smiling.
“A real corporate climber.”
Now she laughed.
“If there was a draft for mousers, she’d be a first-round pick.”
Kirby ducked her chin and shook her head, but snickered anyway. “If you start in with the ‘my kitten can beat up your kitten—’”
“Hey, I’m just trying to show a little paternal pride here.” He bracketed her hips with his hands, careful not to drag her shirt across the raw skin of her stomach, and pulled her body back against his. “After all, I sent her into the world with the very shirt off my back.”
Which was so very, very true, Kirby thought, feeling the heat of his very bare nakedness emanating right through her thin cotton shirt. “Probably just as well you sent her off when you did,” she managed through a belly knotted up with lust. “She’s already gone through two shirts in two days.”
He pressed his lips just below her ear, and only a superhuman effort could have kept her from tipping her head back to rest on his shoulders. His very broad, very naked shoulders. Turns out she had a ways to go to achieve Wonder Woman status.
“Yeah,” he said, the low rumble of his voice vibrating straight down her spine. “It’d be a real shame if I lost all of my clothes.” He splayed his palms gently across her stomach, pressing the well-washed cotton to her ravaged skin like the softest of bandages. “Whatever would I do?”
“Indeed,” she choked out, which was something of a wonder in and of itself, given the veritable avalanche of images that accompanied that little comment. Her poor imagination couldn’t decide which clip in the erotic slide show to focus on first.
“Kirby,” he said, rubbing his lips along the side of her neck.
She covered his hands with hers, trying, and failing, to find her equilibrium. Things like this didn’t happen to her. She really…really…wanted them to, but as to actually happening? This was a first. “Yes?” she breathed.
“How many beds are there in this house?”
“Uh…” She tried to focus, but it was damn near impossible now that he’d started nibbling. “Ni—nine. Total. Including mine.”
He caught her ear lobe between his teeth and pressed ever-so-lightly. “Would it be too forward of me to tell you that I want to have you on every single one of them?”
Had he not been holding her all but braced up against him, she was pretty sure she’d have slid right to the ground in a puddle of gooey, hormone-soaked lust. She tried to speak, but he was kissing the
