Page 7 of The Secret of Emerald Cottage

“Striker Man,” he emphasized with a grind of his smile.

Jumping up, she snatched her plate and his with a sassy toss of a ponytail the color of corn silk, lobbing an impish grin over her shoulder. “Touchy, touchy. But then, I guess that’s better than kissy, kissy.”

His smile went flat. “Cute.”

Eyes squinted in thought, she put a finger to her chin. “Let’s see. Since you don’t seem to like Striker Boy or Strike-Out Man, maybe we should settle on something less offensive in the interest of peace and harmony.”

His smile slid sideways. “I have a novel idea—how ’bout good ol’ Brec?”

She scrunched her nose. “No, I don’t think so. Not unless I’m deadly serious, which most of the time I’m not. No, nicknames are very important to me as a form of expression. For instance, if I’m annoyed with you, I can always resort to Striker Boy or Strike-Out Man. But since we’ll be living in the same house together and have to get along, I need something a little friendlier …” She snapped her fingers. “I know, I’ll call you Beck.”

His brow wrinkled in confusion. “Beck?”

“Sure, you know, after David Beckham, the famous soccer star who was once a player like you?” Her ponytail bounced as she turned on the water and reached for the sponge. “He turned over a new leaf too, to be a family man, remember?”

Heat crawled up the back of his neck. Family man. That was the last thing anybody could call him. Deflecting his unease with another quick glug of coffee, he quickly changed the subject. “So why did you need a place to live?”

Her smile dimmed considerably as she washed both plates. “I just moved back to Savannah about six months ago to live with my folks”—she paused to stare aimlessly for a moment before drying the dish in hand and putting it away with a heavy sigh—“after a player broke my heart in Charleston,” she whispered, definite emphasis on “player.”

She spun around with a firm heft of her jaw. “So I quit my job, packed up, and headed home to lick my wounds at my folks. But my parents were driving me crazy, hovering over me like I was five instead of twenty-five, which is why Miss Lilly is a godsend.” She lifted the coffeepot. “Refill?”

“Might as well,” he said, extending his mug while he glanced at his watch. “We’ve got two hours to kill before we can visit Aunt Lilly, so you can fill me in on all the gaps regarding what happened to her.”

Taking a healthy swig of the sludge she poured, Brec winced while she placed the pot back on the burner, hoping her caretaking skills exceeded those in the kitchen. “But if you don’t mind,” he said, pushing his chair away from the table to rise, “I’ll brew us a fresh pot of coffee”—he tossed a wink over his shoulder as he dumped both his mug and the pot of sludge in the sink—“because something tells me we’re going to need it.”