Troublemaker Read online

  Morgan, however, looked rested and alert and completely comfortable. It wasn’t fair.

  “Good morning,” he said, going to the coffeemaker and punching the brew button. It began hissing and spewing, and coffee was streaming into a cup for her by the time she reached it.

  He leaned against the cabinet in what she had come to realize was his habitual position—he was a lounger—and said, “I’m sorry about last night.”

  Thank goodness she wasn’t holding the cup of coffee yet, or she might have dropped it. Of all the things she’d imagined him saying, that wasn’t on the list, not even at the bottom. She sighed in relief and said, “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t intend to put you in an uncomfortable position. I’m a guest in your home, and I want you to feel safe with me here. No matter what a great little ass you have, whether or not anything happens between us is your call, not mine.”

  If three sentences could have been better constructed to shatter her thought processes, she didn’t know how. A reassurance, a—he thought she had a great little ass?—and then another reassurance. All she could think was: he liked her ass.

  She reached for the coffee, halted, glared at him. “Don’t notice my ass.”

  “Too late. I’m a man; of course I noticed your ass.”

  She backed said ass against the cabinets to protect it from being stared at and finally got the cup in her hand. “So much for reassuring me and making me feel comfortable.”

  “Well, hell, I figure you have to know you have a great ass, unless you’ve spent your life in a convent.”

  Truthfully, she’d never considered her ass. She mulled over what he’d said as she swallowed some coffee and finally realized—“You’re flirting with me.”

  A tiny smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “Guilty as charged. I figure you could use a little flirting. Want me to take Tricks out?”

  Jerked back to Earth by the question, she looked at Tricks, who was standing by the door staring at both of them as if they’d lost their minds because no one had yet taken her outside.

  “Crap,” she muttered. “No, I’ll take her.” She needed away from him for a few minutes, and Tricks wasn’t the only one who liked routine. Routine would ground her, give her a break from feeling jerked first one way and then another.

  She stepped out into the cool, bright morning and stood sipping her coffee as she watched Tricks. Okay, now what? The subject was officially out in the open, and disarmed, so to speak. He said it was her call, and then he flirted with her.

  She felt like a teenager, though that wasn’t quite accurate because even as a teenager she’d been wary. But she’d still been excited by the possibilities opened up by flirting; if she hadn’t been, she would never have gotten married. Since that bad decision, though, she’d deflected any male attention with a bland indifference, and she’d been so good at it that she couldn’t remember exactly when she’d last been on a date. Perhaps she hadn’t had a real date since her divorce, and that was years ago. She hadn’t missed it, hadn’t worried about it. She liked how her life was. She liked her privacy, the calm, the sense of control.

  So why was her heartbeat getting all fluttery at the idea of Morgan flirting with her? Because she was attracted to him, that was why. Her brain knew he was temporary, but her body and hormones didn’t.

  The way she saw it, she had two options: she could keep him at a distance, or she could have a fling with him and wave good-bye when he left. Keeping him at a distance would be less wear and tear on her emotions, while having a fling would make her physically very satisfied.

  Hands down, she’d opt for protecting her emotions, every damn time.

  Tricks finally did her business and got tired of sniffing around, and was ready for her breakfast. When Bo opened the door to let her back inside, the smell of bacon frying hit her in the face and almost made her drool. Really, were there any smells on earth better than bacon and coffee? Well, maybe the new car smell, but that was debatable. She stopped dead, staring at the scene in the kitchen. Morgan had a towel slung over his shoulder while he stood at the cooktop using a fork to flip the strips of bacon sizzling in a skillet. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “I was hungry, so I thought I’d get started. I can do bacon and eggs and throw some bread in the toaster. That okay with you?”

  “Wow, you’re really trying to get on my good side, aren’t you? Yes, thank you, bacon and eggs sounds great.”

  He pointed the fork at her. “You could have been gracious enough to leave off that first sentence.” Then he flashed a grin at her. “Even though it’s true.”

  That grin was a shock, transforming his face with roguish charm. Morgan being charming was also a shock, though she’d seen a bit of it when he’d kissed Miss Doris’s hand. In his real life, he probably had to swat the women away. Again, she felt as if he was letting her see more of the real Morgan—or maybe the real Morgan was feeling well enough to make the effort.

  Nevertheless, she appreciated both the effort and the food. Cooking wasn’t something she enjoyed, though she did enjoy the end result. It was nice to have a hot breakfast that she hadn’t cooked, nice to work together in comfortable silence. She fed Tricks, then set the table and got everything ready while he dealt with the food. Within ten minutes, they were sitting down at the table.

  Last night, she wouldn’t have thought she would ever feel comfortable with him again, yet here she was, sitting beside him and making small talk as he asked what was on her agenda for the day, when the kids would be taking Tricks for another practice ride before the Heritage Parade, how the Emily/Kyle situation was shaping up.

  She was wary and on guard, but that morning set the pattern for the days that followed. April slid into May, and the days began warming in earnest, with the cool mornings and evenings becoming only fond memories. Bo stayed as busy as possible when she was at home, working like a fiend on the tech-writing projects and stopping only to take Tricks for walks or to prepare meals. The best thing she could do for herself was keep her interactions with Morgan to a minimum, which wasn’t easy considering they were living in the same house—and, despite everything, they were becoming friends.

  How could they not? If friendship had been impossible, if he’d been a jerk, she couldn’t have tolerated having him around all the time even though she was being paid to house him. But he wasn’t a jerk. They talked about various things; he’d been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things. He had a different take on almost any item that was on the news, and conversations with him were simply interesting.

  When she was in town, all the goings-on kept her distracted. The Emily/Kyle situation was on track to being resolved. Mr. Gooding had agreed in principle to the town’s conditions, though Kyle was reportedly pissed off about the whole thing and his sister Melody was going out of her way to say nasty things about Emily. Emily kept her head and ignored Melody, and her lawyer was getting the papers ready to be filed.

  There were also the parade practices with Tricks, who still refused to ride without Bo also being present. She resigned herself to being in the parade. The kids promised they’d figure out a way so she could sit mostly hidden, and she had to take them at their word. Any more practices were impossible because now the kids were tied up with decorating their float and they had no spare time.

  Sometimes Morgan went with her to work when he got too bored staying at the house. She could only imagine how that must be wearing on him; he was accustomed to living a high-adrenaline life, jumping out of planes and getting into firefights. He seemed to enjoy the small-town quirks, such as the parade and the divorce drama. Whenever he was at the police station with her, visitors would appear, usually bearing food as the whole town seemed to be on a mission to fatten him up. For whatever reason, he was getting acquainted with a surprising number of the townspeople, somehow becoming part of the warp and woof of local life.

  One afternoon when she collected the mail there was a letter addressed to Morgan Rees, plain white envelope,