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“Chrissy!” a woman shrieked in horror.
He landed with a teeth rattling crunch on Mrs. Wilson’s front lawn.
Chrissy.
That was She of the Tequila’s name. She landed hard on top of him, knocking the air out of his lungs. Blonde hair was blinding him and the jeans were digging deep up into his junk. He lay there, stunned. “Little warning next time,” he wheezed.
Chrissy pulled back, using his internal organs as a brace to shove herself off of him. “I thought you were going to catch me.” Then she frowned as she pushed her hair out of the way. “Do you have a boner?” she asked in astonishment. She wiggled a little in his lap as if to confirm she was right.
He did, only it was for all the wrong reasons.
“Raging fires turn me on,” he told her.
She reared back even further. “I’d like my jeans returned to me,” she said, her enthusiasm from earlier clearly cooled.
“I’d be happy to give you your jeans back,” he said. “Just give me a minute to remember how to breathe.” Or twelve. He didn’t feel like moving. The grass had embraced him in its soft hold and he wanted to just lay there and watch the tendrils of smoke float across the stars in the dark night sky. He could sleep out here. That sounded relaxing. Soothing.
Maybe he’d hit his head too hard.
“Get off my lawn,” Mrs. Wilson said, glaring down at him from behind Chrissy’s right shoulder. “You’re a disgrace, Sullivan O’Toole.”
The beautiful stranger appeared on the other side of Chrissy.
Suddenly, there were a lot of women staring down at him.
Mrs. Wilson’s expression was pure disgust, like he was sullying her blades of grass with his touch.
Chrissy was eyeing him with both concern and fear.
The brunette was harder to read. Was that… pity?
Maybe he was dead and they were the hookup ghosts of his past, present, and future meant to teach him a lesson. Not that he’d ever hooked up with Mrs. Wilson (that was a terrifying thought), but as a metaphor.
Though for what, he wasn’t sure. He was suddenly very confused.
Sullivan closed his eyes.
“Is he dead?”
That was Mrs. Wilson’s voice and she sounded excited by the prospect.
Nope. He wasn’t dead. And he wasn’t seeing ghosts.
Just the truth for the first time in years.
Chapter2
Edwina Hunt’s phone dinged repeatedly as she stepped out of the shower. A quick glance showed work was blowing up her phone as usual. The notification indicated it was a voicemail from Juanita, the head of the accounting department.
It was never a good thing to hear from accounting. She could already feel her blood pressure rising. There were aspects to her career that she loved — sourcing the lingerie products, making customers feel confident and happy, promoting the brand message that every body was a sexy body. But the businessy business stuff made her feel anxious and overwhelmed.
As she quickly dried off and wrapped a towel around herself before reaching for her phone to defuse whatever situation was brewing back at the office, there was a knock on her door. It had to be her father. For a man who had begged her to come to town to help him recover from breaking his leg, he seemed to maneuver his way across the backyard to the apartment she was staying in over the garage with relative ease.
It had become obvious almost immediately he had used the injury as an excuse to see her. Which a lot of daughters would find annoying. She thought it was a little manipulative, sure, but in the sweetest sort of way. Which basically summed her father up, and were the very things her mother had grown to despise about Eddie. Edwina actually found her father incredibly easy and comforting to be around, unlike her mother, so she had jumped at the chance to spend time with him and work remotely from Beaver Bend.
It hadn’t stopped the rat race, but at least she had fresh air and a lake to gaze at here in Minnesota.
She also could acknowledge that her sense of responsibility ran strong and if her father had just asked her to come out for a visit she probably would have put the trip off because of the business and Nigel, her boyfriend and business partner. He worked twenty-four seven and as a result, she always felt like she should as well. So even if her dad had exaggerated how much help he needed as a ploy to see her, she was glad to be there.
