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My gaze went from Timber at my feet, to the two Dexter Peabody books—the items Rett must’ve retrieved from his truck—on my reclaimed wood dining table to the man himself as he inspected everything more closely than he should.
When I swam in the lake, I usually did it naked so I wouldn’t have swim trunks to add to my laundry pile. Since I didn’t have a washer and dryer in the cabin—and probably never would due to space—to reduce the trips into town to use the small laundromat next to the diner, I tried not to dirty too many clothes.
I had one pair of jeans I wore strictly for dragging dead, downed trees out of the woods, as well as chopping and stacking split firewood. Those jeans could now stand up on their own.
Sometimes I rinsed stuff out in the old farmhouse kitchen sink and hung the clothes out to dry on the porch, but that wasn’t the same as using a real washer with quality laundry detergent.
I had purposely taken my time walking out of the lake, hoping my nakedness would make Rett uncomfortable and chase him off.
Of course it didn’t.
Instead, he looked at me like I was the Sunday brunch buffet served at The Eagle’s Nest. However, Rett’s visual inspection of me made him look far more hungry than the after-church crowd fighting over a chafing dish of sausage links.
“You’re still here,” I grumbled, even though I shouldn’t be surprised that the man couldn’t take a hint.
He quickly closed the door to the kitchen cabinet he was snooping in and turned with a grin. Not even an ounce of embarrassment on his face for being caught. “I told you I had something to bring you.” He jerked his chin toward his books on the table.
My eyes landed once again on the paperbacks. I moved closer to the table and lifted the cover on the top one with a single finger.
Of course.
He’d signed them. I did everything in my power to keep my expression locked down as I read the inscription in his obnoxiously neat handwriting.
To my former favorite author,
Maybe one day you’ll achieve that top spot again.
Good luck.
I shook my head and bit back a sigh. “Thanks.”
“Anytime. Sooooo, anyway,” he cleared his throat, came closer to where I stood and waved his hand around, indicating the cabin’s interior, “the place looks great. I’ve never seen it look so clean.”
That was because before I began obsessively chopping wood, I had been tiring myself out by scrubbing every inch of the cabin from floor to ceiling. If I wasn’t exhausted come nighttime, I couldn’t sleep. And if I could fall asleep without being exhausted, I ended up dreaming.
I did whatever I could to sleep dreamless.
Sweet baby Jesus, he was still babbling…
“And all the improvements you did will help come winter. The winds can be wicked and the snow deep. Have you thought about hiring someone to plow the lane when it snows?”
“No.”
“You should. You don’t want to be stuck up here for days with no way to get out.”
Being stuck alone in the cabin didn’t sound like a bad thing.
“Especially if there’s an emergency,” he added.
I swore the man liked to hear himself talk. “Thanks for your concern, but I’ll be fine.”
“I guess you should be used to rough winters in Jericho.”
My head jerked in his direction and I narrowed my eyes on him. To know that, he had to have done some digging beyond the limited bio I provided for the back of my books and my author website. I had purposely used a general “New York” location instead of the more localized one of Long Island when it came to where I resided. But nowhere in that bio indicated I was gay. Nowhere in that bio stated I’d been married and was a widower. And definitely, nowhere did it say I had lived in Jericho.
That was information my readers didn’t need to know. My personal life and relationship were no one’s business, so where did he…
Fuck!
The obituary. That had to be it. He had found Thomas’s by using my real name.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I should’ve used a fake name when I came to Eagle’s Landing, but I never would’ve guessed someone in this town would actually google me.
I stared at the man who would.
Not only would, who did. “Why?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Why what?”
I pressed my lips together, clamped a hand around the back of my neck and ground it back and forth. I closed the distance between us, keeping our gazes locked so he knew I meant the warning I was about to tell him. “Keep whatever information you dug up to yourself.”
“I—”
I raised a palm to stop any excuse he’d try giving me. “Don’t even. To be honest, it’s a bit creepy.”
Rett huffed out a, “Like you’ve never googled anyone.”
