Buck Naked Read online

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  To Opal, for introducing me to Rose and for being a wonderful friend

  One

  “This isn’t right. This can’t be happening. What the hell is going on?”

  Sadie Becker stood in front of the mirror on her fortieth birthday and stared at her reflection in disbelief.

  Her boobs were getting firmer.

  There was no doubt about it—it was true. She’d been noticing subtle differences ever since her divorce had been finalized about a week ago, but she’d put it down to the new diet and exercise routine. Now that her ex, Jeff, was out of her life, she was determined to start a whole new lifestyle. But no diet or exercise routine in the world completely erased stretch marks and molded your breasts back to where they’d been when you were in your twenties.

  “Just look at them,” Sadie muttered to herself. “They’re actually perky.”

  She wiped at the steam on the bathroom mirror and then decided she wasn’t getting a good enough look. What she needed was a full-length view. Luckily, there was an old-fashioned freestanding mirror in her bedroom. The mirror had a carved wooden frame and claw feet, matching the rest of the antique furniture in the cabin she’d inherited.

  The heavy carved oak furniture wasn’t much to Sadie’s taste but she wasn’t complaining. The cabin with its outdated furnishings and decorations had been a godsend—an inheritance from her mother who’d been dead for twenty years. Sadie hadn’t even known the cabin existed until after her divorce, when her mother’s lawyer had handed her the deed.

  She still missed her mom, even after all these years. She’d almost cried when she found out she had someplace to go. Someplace she wouldn’t have to see Jeff and his new, much younger girlfriend making a spectacle of themselves back in her hometown of Tampa. The only person she missed was her twin sister, Samantha—Sammie for short, but only to Sadie. No one else was allowed to call her by the cutesy nickname. But since Samantha was a busy trauma surgeon at Tampa General, it wasn’t like she had much time to hang out anyway.

  Speaking of Samantha, she ought to call her twin—it was her birthday too.

  I’ll call her in a minute, Sadie promised herself. First I need to figure out what in the world is going on with me.

  Wrapping herself in a towel, she padded from the bathroom to the bedroom and stopped in front of the ancient freestanding mirror. There wasn’t quite enough light in the dark bedroom and the bedside lamp only made more shadows. With a sigh, Sadie dragged the mirror, creaking and protesting, over to the window and opened the curtains.

  She wasn’t worried about anyone seeing her—the cabin was located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about ten miles north of the tiny town of Cougarville, North Carolina. It was quiet and isolated with only one road going in and out and a single neighbor—a surly giant of a man named Mathis Blackwell who had wild, tangled black hair, a close-clipped beard, and shoulders at least twice as broad as her own. Sadie had only seen him twice and both times he’d only grunted at her greeting and gone stumping off into the woods that separated his property from hers.

  At night she could faintly see firelight flickering from his cabin windows, which looked warm and cozy and reminded her that it was cooler here in the mountains than it had been back home in Tampa.

  No, this is my home now, Sadie reminded herself, frowning. Good old Cougarville.

  The actual name of the town she’d moved to was North Lewiston, though there wasn’t any South Lewiston that Sadie could see. Scrawled in looping graffiti on the green welcome sign that led into town were the words, Welcome to Cougarville!!! The name had apparently stuck since everyone she’d met since she’d gotten here had welcomed Sadie to Cougarville, rather than North Lewiston.

  Sadie was happy to be here—even if her new home was out in the sticks. In fact, she rather liked the solitude. It was different from the constant crawl of traffic on Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa. Also, where else could she feel free to walk around naked if she wanted to and not worry about anyone seeing her? Couldn’t do that in the city!

  As if to prove the point to herself, Sadie dropped her baby-blue bath towel, letting it puddle around her feet, and took a really good look at herself in the mirror.

  Sure enough, her breasts were definitely perky now. Perky like they hadn’t been since she’d breast-fed her twins almost twenty years ago. Graham and Anna—fraternal twins ran in Sadie’s family—had both gone off to college just a few months ago. Graham to MIT and Anna to Baylor, where she hoped to get into med school and become a doctor like her Aunt Samantha. Sadie was immensely proud of both of them, though having two at the same time hadn’t been easy. How many times had she joked about her crazy twins giving her gray hair?

  Speaking of gray hair . . . Sadie leaned forward, frowning at her face in the mirror.

  “Where is it?” she muttered, turning her head from side to side. “Where’s my gray?”

  The silvery strands that had begun showing up in her long dark brown hair around her mid-thirties were somehow gone, even though she was certain they had been there the night before. She’d been planning to go into town to pick up a box of dye, meaning to cover them as usual. But now, if her mirror was to be believed, there was nothing to cover.

  Not only that—her wrinkles were gone too! Or at least, they were fading. She could still see some tiny laugh lines around her eyes but the really deep line—almost a furrow—that had crept up between her eyebrows over the years was magically erased.

  What the . . . Sadie turned in front of the mirror, trying to see what else had changed. Well, for one thing the little pooch of her belly was nearly flat and the old pregnancy stretch marks had been smoothed away. Her ass looked higher and firmer too. And her thighs were cellulite-free!

  How could this be? How was it even possible?

  Sadie took a step back and weighed her breasts in her hands, checking to be sure she wasn’t dreaming or imagining it. Nope—as firm as could be. She’d always been a full C cup when she was younger, but after having her kids and breast-feeding both of them, that C had become more of a droopy D. Now she was back to where she’d been in college, before she met Jeff and let him talk his way into her panties one night, ending her dreams of being a high-powered attorney when she found out she was pregnant with the twins.

  What could be causing this? It was as if her body were magically reverting to where it had been in her early twenties. But that was impossible—right?

  Just then she became aware of a movement outside her window. There was so much wildlife here—deer and birds and squirrels. Just last night she’d been sure she heard a wolf howling and maybe some kind of wildcat screaming. It was—

  Sadie’s thought was cut off abruptly when she turned her head and saw it was no bird or squirrel looking in her window.

  Her surly neighbor, Mathis Blackwell, stood about fifty yards away by the line of trees that separated their properties. He had an armful of firewood and a surprised expression on his face as he stared at the extremely naked Sadie, who was still juggling her boo