thumbs-up and a warm smile before returning to her steaming coffee, making Em instantly regret her unkind comment.
Just because Louella Palmer had come precariously close to ruining her life in Plum Orchard, had turned her children into the subject of cruel jokes at school, was no reason for her to take pleasure in cheers from the crowd. That would make her as bad, if not worse, than Louella Palmer.
But she shot a conspiratorial smile back at Jo-Lynne anyway; because today, Louella’s gruesome was something she just couldn’t cotton on top of her minihangover.
Head down to fight the yellow beast of the sun in the sky, Em went straight for the hardware store’s door, stopping just shy of entering when she sensed a presence, a large, warm, almost-imposing presence.
Her eyes flew upward, locking gazes with an intense pair of light brown eyes surrounded by a thick fringe of lashes. The sun glazed them for a moment, turning them a deep, glimmering whiskey.
It was him.
Her cheeks went hot.
The him she’d spent far too many hours daydreaming about since they’d first made eye contact over two months ago. Him laughing, his perfectly straight white teeth flashing when he smiled at her. Him, gruff and darkly beautiful, his thickly roped arms wrapped around her waist, securing her to his side.
Him when he leaned in low and took her mouth, letting his tongue rasp along hers and kissing her like her lips were the very reason he breathed.
And yes, even him naked, with every corded muscle that made up his smooth planes and rigid lines hovering above her, hard against her belly, her legs tight around his waist as he thrust into...
Her heart stopped pumping, the unquenchable heat in her veins threatening to set her limbs on fire.
His square jaw was almost too square, too hard and unforgiving until it shifted when his lips turned up in a smile of inquiry, leaving Em holding her breath.
Apparently, “him” didn’t recognize her. Disappointment flared in the pit of her belly. To be fair, her hair was a little longer now, and she did have dark sunglasses and a hat on.
Somehow, in her daydreams, when they saw each other again, he would’ve known her if he was blind.
Em’s stomach clenched and released then contracted into a tight fist again when he cocked his dark head in the direction of the interior of the hardware store as if to say, “Ladies first.” He patiently held the door, his squared fingers covered in Band-Aids, scratches and hangnails.
The cool breeze blew another swift gust, carrying with it his scent, crisp and clean—like Irish Spring and fresh creek water. The way he smelled made perfect sense to Em. A man like him, hard and raw, sinful from head to toe, didn’t need expensive cologne as a final touch to his rough perfection.
Em’s heart finally struck up the band again, and began to boom in time with her head. Her fingers clutched the strap of the purse slung over her shoulder. Words, as they always did with a man, especially this man, failed her.
A bump from behind jolted her forward, making her aware she was staring. “Gawking, honey,” Dixie whispered in her ear. “Stop gawking and say, ‘hello, divine man. Need a screw for your screwdriver?’”
Em did everything she could to keep from gasping at Dixie’s suggestive words, nudging her in the ribs before sending the man a cool smile and whisking past him into the hardware store, Dixie in tow.
She headed straight for the farthest aisle from the door, almost running into Nanette Pruitt and Essie Guthrie without even acknowledging them, refusing to stop until she was as far away from that man as possible.
Dixie’s ankle boots clacked behind Em, skidding to a halt when she rounded the corner and hid behind a pallet of two-by-fours.
Em grabbed Dixie by her arm and pulled her close, scrunching her eyes shut. All that rapid forward motion left her stomach sketchy at best.
Dixie fought to catch her own breath in a harsh wheeze, before asking, “Why did we just run all the way across Lucky’s like we were runnin’ from a band of Magnolias with lit torches?”
The stomp of work boots as Lucky’s employees loaded and unloaded pallets of heavy wood made her wince, but it was the stench of turpentine and furniture polish that was almost her undoing. She took a gulp of air, thanking whoever was in charge of the universe the moment passed.
Dixie smoothed Em’s hair off her shoulder, giving it a gentle tug. “One more time. Why did we run all the way to the back of the store when what you need is in the front?”
“Because that’s him!” Em wheezed back, pressing her fingers to her queasy stomach and tugging her knit beret farther down her forehead.
Dixie snickered, unwrapping the turquoise scarf from her neck. “I know it’s him, Em. I remember. I was in the square that night when the two of you all but consummated your mad lust just lookin’ at each other. If you’d stared at each other much longer? Total combustion. Poof.” She gestured an explosion with her fingers and a grin full of mischief.
Em groaned out her misery in both ailment and bad memory. One of the worst nights of her life had included the best ten seconds of her life. One long searing gaze over picnic blankets and children’s heads was really all it had been. Yet, there had been more bad that night than good.
“Didn’t you once say you heard Louella call him Jax? What a gorgeous name. You’d better make haste before Annabelle Pruitt lures him to her house for her special fudge candy pops. Or the seal-the-deal cherry crumb pie,” Dixie teased.
But Em was back in the square—locked in the memory of all the horrible stares, the gasps of shock when Clifton’s secret was revealed. “I don’t want to think about that night ever again, Dixie.”
Dixie scoffed, lifting Em’s sunglasses to gaze directly into her eyes. “Stop clinging to a bad memory, Em. It’s over. Everyone knows Clifton cross-dresses now. So what? If anyone should hate the memory of that night, it should be me. Or have you forgotten you thought I was the one who’d gossiped about Clifton’s secret to someone and that ‘someone’ told Louella, who accidentally on purpose included the picture of him at the Founders’ Day slide show all dressed up in his Trixie LeMieux gown?”
Em’s lips thinned, snapping her back to reality and the sounds of a busy Saturday at Lucky’s. “We’re not far from the nail aisle, Miss Dixie. Do you want to buy some to seal my coffin all right and proper?”
Dixie snorted a chuckle, scanning the surrounding area and lowering her voice. “Hah! I’ll just borrow some of yours.”
Oh. That night. She’d said so many unforgivable things to Dixie, it left her with an actual physical pain when she remembered them. “I’ve apologized for that night. Over and over, might I remind you?”
Dixie’s smile was full of warmth and sympathy. “Which is sort of my point, silly. You don’t need to apologize anymore because it’s over, Em, long ago. And might I remind you, just before all those bad memories happened, you made a good one, too. A really, hot, longingly, deliciously good one. One that involves that enormous man dipped in delicious all the way up to his eyeballs. Whose name is Jax, in case you needed remindin’.”
Fear and humiliation rooted her to the spot, refusing to allow
