Page 12 of The Heartbreaker Next Door

She moved around the desk and I quickly stood. As we walked to the door, Selma noticed me looking at the photos on her wall. “Do you have children?”

“I do, a son. He’s four.”

“What’s his name?”

“Maverick,” I said.

Selma’s face lit up, and she actually clapped her hands once. “Maverick! Like Top Gun?”

It was a question I got a lot, but from her it sounded like a genuine delight rather than a pop-culture dig. I grinned. “Yeah, it was one of my favorite movies growing up.”

Selma’s eyes lit up. “You know, my English was terrible when I first moved here at sixteen. I barely knew how to string one sentence together. So I did what everyone does, I watched American TV. All day, all night. Sometimes I’d watch the same show over and over.” Her smile grew wider as we reached the doorknob. “When I had my boys, I named them all after characters from my favorite TV shows.”

A memory pinged in the back of my mind. Hadn’t Dean mentioned, in his low, grumbly way, that his mom named him after a TV show after I said he didn’t look like a Dean?

Surely, he wasn’t a Lockhart. Dean said he worked at the ranch—like, punched a clock, did his time, went home to stew in his own silence. He definitely didn’t say “My family owns this place,” or “My name is on the sign.”

My mind was still discounting the chance that Dean might be related to the Lockhart’s when Selma opened the door, and as we walked out of the office, she introduced her sons, one of whom was the man who probably didn’t exceed a daily word count of one hundred and was proof God sometimes compensated for poor communication skills with an offensively handsome face and drool-worthy shoulders standing in the office. The cowboy who I’d spent the entire night tossing and turning over was there, in the flesh.

And apparently, my second interview is with him.

4

CONFETTI CANNONS, CHEMISTRY, AND KARMA

Dean

This had to be a mirage. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Walter’s niece, the woman I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since the night before, who had moved into my brain, filling my thoughts, and I’d been unable to evict her, was at Lockhart Ranch. She looked even more beautiful in the light of day. My traitorous heart slammed against my ribs.

She was standing beside my mom, and I could feel the nervous energy radiating off her. It was so unlike the night before when she’d been filled with confidence, or at the very least, bravado.

“Oh, perfect timing, boys. This is Felicity, she is interviewing for the events coordinator position. Felicity, these are two of my sons, Dawson and Dean.”

My mom’s words went in one ear and out the other. I registered that she was speaking, technically heard her, but none of what she said stuck. I couldn’t have repeated it to save my life. They were just sounds. I had zero comprehension.

Beside me, I heard my brother say, “Nice to meet you.”

Again, it could have been a foreign language for all I could tell. It was as if everything was going in slow motion. Just like the night before, seeing her knocked me off balance. My entire world stopped spinning, but I kept going.

When her eyes met mine for the first time, I saw a flicker of recognition. My body instantly responded, surging with impulses entirely inappropriate for a myriad of reasons. I didn’t know this woman. Not really. But I had the overwhelming urge to close the distance between us and capture her mouth in a kiss.

“Oh hello, Sunshine,” she greeted me.

“You two know each other?” My mom asked, eyebrows up.

“Not formally,” Felicity vague-sprained, performing a balancing act between truth and misdirection that only the truly interesting could manage.

“Okay, well, Felicity, if you’d like to take a seat in the conference room?” My mom’s tone was the bright, competent chirp she used when she sensed the danger of an awkward silence. “Dean will be in with you shortly for round two of the interview.”

“Oh.” Felicity’s eyes widened, a tiny bit, enough to suggest she hadn’t realized there was more to come. “Okay.”

I watched as my mom escorted Felicity to the conference room.

“Real smooth, Romeo,” Dawson spoke, but it might as well have been another language, none of it landed with me.

Once Felicity entered the conference room and was no longer in my sight, I blinked and felt myself return to the present. I was no longer floating above myself.

“What?” I asked my brother, trying to catch up with the conversation.