Watching her watch me, I tongue it off, the sweetness melting into something far more decadent. “And tempting.”
A slow smile unfurls, heat tucked in the corners. “Oh, I like that.” She braces her arms behind her on the desk, her breasts straining against the thin fabric of her sundress. “Anything else?”
“Yeah.” I place my hands on either side of her, caging her in. “Mine.”
Against the July heat she just complained about, she shivers.
But just as I’m about to claim what’s mine, a knock on the half-open door interrupts the entirely appropriate plan I was forming to test the craftsmanship of my desk—Felix’s idea of an office warming gift for a small-town lawyer.
The knock drags a growl out of me while Audrey slips off the desk with infuriating grace, smoothing her dress likeshe hasn’t just weaponized strawberry print and buttercream.
“Come in,” she calls because apparently I work in a commune.
Eli Bennett fills the doorway, cap tugged low, a clipboard tucked under his arm, a grease-stained paper bag in the other. Hideaway’s vet looks freshly scrubbed from whatever barnyard emergency he’s just handled, smelling faintly of cedar chips and horse liniment.
“Sorry to interrupt.” His gaze bounces from me to Audrey and back, like he walked in on exactly what he did. He waves the clipboard. “But since I was nearby—Jack, I could use your take on something legal.” Noting my less-than-thrilled expression, he lifts the bag. “Fish and Chips from Chowder House as a retainer.”
This time it’s my stomach that growls. With one last glance at Audrey, I nod, albeit reluctantly. “Acceptable.”
Audrey tries to hide her smile. She’s never said it out loud, but I know she’s happy about my friendship with Eli. I think she was worried that if I moved away from Los Angeles where Felix and Sofia are based that I’d regret moving.
She has no idea the lengths I’d go to for her.
And I would have given her ample evidence of my current length if said friend hadn’t shown up.
My new ‘bestie,’ as Amanda—another recent Los Angeles transplant—likes to call Eli, drops the bag of unhealthy and delicious food on the island before turning his clipboard toward us like it’s a smoking gun. “It’s about my neighbor. The one next to the new clinic property you helped meclose on. She’s been…” He hesitates, then blurts out, “Antagonizing me to no end.”
“Antagonizing?” I cross my arms, wondering what could flap the unflappable Eli Bennet. “What did she do?”
“So much.” Heaving a long-suffering sigh, he points to a picture of what looks like tree branches and something vaguely metallic. “First there was the windchimes.” He closes his eyes as if to relive the horror. “So many wind chimes.”
“I see.” I don’t see.
Eli, as if sensing my skepticism, flips the page on his clipboard. “Now she’s set up an above ground pool and sunbathes at all times of the day while listening to music, totally distracting to the clients coming and going from the clinic.”
The look Audrey and I share asks the obvious question:Clients or you?
Not wanting to outright dismiss his complaints, I ask, “Is the music loud enough to be considered a noise violation?”
He lowers his evidence, muttering something like “setting the wrong tone for my clients,” which gives me the sense that no, his neighbor’s music is not a noise violation.
Straightening, he changes tactics. “She’s gone and planted butterfly bushes all along our shared property line.”
“Butterfly bushes.” I’m not seeing how such a pleasant-sounding plant can be so offensive.
“They attractbees.” He says the last as if it’s damning evidence that should send me reaching for legal paperwork.
“Aren’t honeybees endangered?” Audrey asks, not realizing she’s trying to reason with an unreasonable man. “I just read about how planting butterfly bushes can helprestore the population, improve pollination, and boost food production.”
Eli deflates like a popped balloon, his next words as weak as his argument. “They could sting my patients.”
“Oh.” Audrey looks at me for help.
I’ve got nothing. While bees could be a legitimate problem if someone or some animals were allergic, I happen to know, thanks to handling the paperwork of his clinic’s purchase, that Eli has at least an acre between him and his neighbor’s supposed bee-sting death traps.
Rallying once more, Eli flips to yet another photo on his clipboard. “And now she’s gone and strung lights across her back fence.” He taps the picture that’s mostly black with a few golden spots.
I blink. “Lights.”
