not too young. I’m in the seventh grade. All the girls wear makeup.”
“Except you.”
Birdie made a great show of sighing and rolling her eyes. They were pretty green eyes, lined in black. She’d also managed to find some awful bubblegum-pink lip gloss. She looked like a little girl playing dress up, but maybe in Abigail’s mind she always would look like her little girl.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this. It was no big deal and you’re making a federal case out of something stupid.” Birdie stopped on the walk and crossed her thin arms. Pink stained the girl’s cheeks, and Abigail was certain it hadn’t come from the cosmetic drawer. She also suspected this was a bigger deal than Birdie wanted to make it. Birdie had told her she’d spied on Leif Lively only twice last month, but Abigail doubted her claim. The kid had gotten awfully interested in drawing birds from the perch in the big tree out back.
“Spying on people is a crime. It’s called being a Peeping Tom...at worst, stalking.”
“I wasn’t stalking. Just, uh, looking a little. I didn’t intend to spy,” Birdie said, not moving another inch up the walk.
“All you have to do is apologize. Don’t worry. No beatings or stringing up by the toenails will commence.”
Birdie shook her head. “Don’t make me. He doesn’t even know.”
“That doesn’t change the fact your actions were wrong. You have to apologize, Birdie.”
“Stop calling me that ridiculous child’s name.”
Abigail sighed. “It’s not a child’s name. It’s cute.”
Birdie burned her with a laser glare. “I don’t do cute, Mom.”
No, she didn’t. Not anymore. Birdie had gone from fluffy tutus and sparkly shoes to skinny jeans and a black hoodie. The one thing that hadn’t changed was her size. Birdie may have been in the seventh grade, but she looked like a fourth grader. Slim, small and defiant, she had gone from funny Birdie to brooding Brigitte.
“Fine, Brigitte. Let’s go apologize to Mr. Lively.”
Birdie gave a short puff of aggravation. “Dad said I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to.”
“Oh, did he? Well, since he’s failed to be a parent for the past five years and doesn’t even live in the state, his insight into the situation isn’t va—”
At that moment the door swung open and there he was. Leif Lively himself...or, as Abigail had dubbed him, resident cuckoo bird. Okay, sexy cuckoo bird was a more accurate descriptor. The head of the art department at St. George’s Episcopal School had flaxen hair that fell to his shoulders, bright blue Nordic eyes, a chiseled jaw and a body that made half the women in town salivate. He probably could make the other half salivate, too, but some women had principles and sense.
Like Abigail. She snapped her mouth closed and gave him her committee smile—the one that got things done.
“Ah, my neighbors,” Leif said with a warm smile that touched those pretty eyes. “I don’t see any casseroles in hand so I’m guessing you’re not welcoming me to the neighborhood?”
He said it like a joke. He knew, of course, that Abigail would be the last person to welcome him to Laurel Creek, the new subdivision that had opened behind her historic Laurel Woods Bed-and-Breakfast in the small Louisiana town of Magnolia Bend. Abigail had vehemently protested the development behind her place of business. Laurel Woods, a plantation that had been around since before the Civil War, had always been surrounded by lush woods. The solitary, serene location was a main selling point for Abigail’s business. But a planned patio community had taken away a third of the pines and hardwoods that lent peace to the bed-and-breakfast. Abigail hated the subdivision with every fiber of her being, but she hadn’t been able to stop Bartholomew Harvey from selling the acreage to a developer.
She’d lost that battle, but she wasn’t conceding to the hotness standing in front of her.
Wait. No. Not hotness.
She refused to think of the local artist as a sexual being...even if he made it difficult not to.
Chasing those thoughts felt too, well, dangerous.
And just why were those thoughts even in her mind anyway? She’d encountered Leif many times at St. George’s and, though she appreciated his good looks and easy charm, she didn’t consider him a prospect for anything other than an art teacher. In his eyes she’d seen what he thought of her as she organized wrapping-paper drives and delivered muffins to the teachers’ lounge. Her dedication to being the PTA president amused him. He probably thought she was totally lame. Or at least she’d convinced herself that’s what he thought of her. Either way, this man was on the other end of the spectrum from her.
“You’ve been living here for three or four months so I think the welcome period is over. I’m here on another matter entirely, Mr. Lively,” she said.
“Call me Leif, and I’m just saying a casserole would have been delish,” he teased, padding barefoot down the freshly painted steps, stopping way too near her.
He wore baggy cotton pants that gathered in at his waist. His bare torso belonged in an ad for suntan lotion, all bronze and free of chest hair. He looked like a man too comfortable in his own skin. Abigail swallowed, but refused to step back. “I thought you were a vegan anyway.”
“Word gets around, huh? Well, vegans like casseroles,” he said with another smile, craning his head around her to spy Birdie standing stock-still on the walk. “Hey, Birdie.”
Abigail glanced at her daughter. The child’s face was the color of the camellias blooming by the white picket fence. Good gravy.
“Hi, Mr. Lively,” Birdie said.
“So what can I do for you?” Leif asked.
A naughty thought popped into Abigail’s mind. Really naughty. But she flicked it away and cleared her throat. “Birdie has something to say to you.”
“Oh.” Leif’s gaze swept down Abigail’s body, taking in the clothes she’d donned for the open house held at St. George’s Episcopal School earlier that day. She’d aimed for professional but suspected she looked overly conservative. But who cared? Besides it was winter, for Christ’s sake. Leif needed to put on a shirt. What kind of man answered the door in such dishabille? Not any man she knew, that’s for sure.
Abigail smoothed the wool slacks against her thighs before she could catch herself and turned toward her daughter with an arched eyebrow.
Birdie just stood there, looking scared.
“I hope you’re coming to tell me you want to take the art class I’m offering at the community college next semester,” Leif said, his eyebrows lifted expectantly. “I’m looking forward to having a talented artist in my class at school this semester, but it would be awesome to have you in the enrichment class, too, Birdie.”
“Brigitte,” her daughter said.
“Oh, of course. Brigitte, very French,” Leif said, with another sweet smile.
Christ,
