“You’re the best.”
She smiled briefly. “Don’t jinx me, Jim.”
“Whatever you come up with will be great. But can we meet to go over the details, please? You know I need the face to face interaction.”
Her attention honed in on the house across the street where her neighbor sat on his front porch, bare feet propped on a chair, laptop across his thighs. He lifted a hand to his mouth and took a bite of food while poking at the keyboard with his other hand.
“I’m in the middle of unpacking,” she told Jim. “I’m a complete mess.”
“I’ll come to you. Please?”
She reminded herself if Jim walked away happy, any referrals he sent her way would help pay for her new home. This particular arm of her business was all based on word of mouth. “All right. I’ll text my address once I’ve got everything set up.”
They disconnected, and she dialed Alex—the jumbotron guy, and also her ex-brother-in-law. Thank God Glory had had an amicable divorce.
She didn’t even realize she was staring across the street until her neighbor tossed a crumpled green napkin on the table beside him, downed half a glass of milk in a couple swallows, and then lifted another chunk of food to his mouth.
Cake. He was eating the extra pieces of cake that he’d taken home from the wedding last night. Her cake.
Honor smiled as a light bulb flicked on in her head. Ha! It was so obvious. The way to this man’s heart was definitely through his stomach.
Well, not that she actually wanted to get to his heart, but she did want to be friendly with all her neighbors. And if he loved the marble wedding cake with butter cream frosting, he would roll over panting for her sea salt caramel and triple chocolate pudding cake.
Oh, God, no. Get that image right the hell out of your head.
“Hello?”
Alex’s voice on the other end of the line snapped her back to reality. She had a proposal to rescue before she could even think about making her neighbor pant.
Geezus. Rein it in, Honor!
“Hey, Alex. I need your help.”
CHAPTER 5
A sher hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Honor Hartman since he walked away from her last night. Then he did the same thing again this morning. It had been a shitty move, but he was having a hell of a time keeping himself from picturing someone else’s fiancé baking cakes naked—even if she was two-timing the guy.
The redhead had haunted his dreams, trailed along on his ten mile bike ride, and was waiting for him out on the curb when he got home. One touch on her leg confirmed her skin was as soft as it looked—and he was in trouble.
Especially when the chemistry sparking between him and the sexy cake baker nearly had him leaning in to kiss her right there on the lawn—with her fiancé probably watching from inside. After Brie’s betrayal, he wasn’t about to knowingly be that scumbag of a guy, which meant his best bet was to avoid the attraction by staying the hell away from her.
Out on his front porch after lunch, he started preliminary work on Shawn and Miesha’s wedding album, only to discover way too many shots of the woman he needed to stay the hell away from. Grimacing with annoyance, he switched over to his shoot from the nature preserve for Colorado Conservationist magazine. They’d requested proofs for a number of articles, as well as for their website.
Once he completed the magazine contract, he still had to sort the shots from his whitewater rafting trip the previous week, and plan his shot list for the Pike’s Peak climbing school the week after this. He had more than enough to keep himself busy, so why was he so damn restless?
Asher glowered through his lashes at the house across the street as his cell phone vibrated on the table. He nearly dove on the distraction. “Afternoon, Rox.”
“Afternoon, Ace. Did you have sweet dreams of your new neighbor?”
The too-perceptive question of the subject he was trying to ignore deepened his frown. Maybe he shouldn’t have answered the phone. “I’m not talking about my neighbor with you, other than to ask what the heck were you spazzing out about last night?”
“I was letting you know to be nice to her.”
He scrolled through a couple of pictures of a fox and her kits to find the right one for the magazine article. “And I was supposed to get that from your freaky psychic sign language?”
“Yeah, sorry, sometimes I forget you’re normal. Turns out she’s the one who bakes those cakes that give you mouth orgasms. How convenient is it to have her right across the street?”
“Not convenient at all,” he grumbled.