Chapter 1
Valona
“Oh my goodness, these cookies are incredible!” Pippa gushed over my cookies, and even though she was very pregnant and hungry all the time, I sat a little taller with pride. “I’m definitely a chocolate chunk convert.”
“I thought you might be,” I replied with a hint of smug satisfaction. “How are you feeling?”
Pippa blushed prettily and finished chewing her cookie. “Sorry, I’m just a ravenous beast this past month. Were you like this in the second trimester?”
“Are you kidding? I was pregnant with twins, I’m not sure I stopped eating the entire thirty-six weeks. And I was younger than I am today.”
Pippa narrowed her gaze in my direction. “Low blow, Berryman.”
I laughed and shook my head. “True. Have some more almond milk,” I told her as I poured another tall glass.
“Thanks. Now let’s get back to the topic at hand.”
My brows dipped in confusion. “Was there a topic at hand, other than my delicious cookies?”
“Damn right there was,” she punctuated her statement with a smack on the kitchen table where we sat and chatted over cookies and milk for her, cookies and coffee for me. “I want to know about your new neighbor. What do you know?”
It was the one topic I’d hoped my eagle eyed best friend wouldn’t bring up, because my new neighbor was gorgeous. Not good-looking-for-his-age kind of hot either, no Trey Fine was an incredible specimen of a man. Too incredible for my peace of mind. “You met Keri earlier. Her uncle bought the house next door for them to live in.” Pippa’s blue eyes missed nothing, and as happy as I was to have her back home in Carson Creek, it was impossible to hide things from your best friend when you saw her every day. “What?” Her knowing stare was hard to ignore. It was like a living, breathing thing, a third person in the kitchen with us.
She tried her best—and failed—to look innocent. “What do you mean, what?”
“You’re looking at me weird.”
Pippa giggled. “That’s because you’re blushing like a school girl, and acting weird. So tell me what’s going on. Does he have a third eye? A pot belly? Tattoos on his face?”
Any of that would have been preferable to the overall hotness and sex appeal of my new neighbor. “No,” I sighed. “He’s gorgeous. Incredibly and stupidly gorgeous.”
“No! Seriously?”
I nodded gravely. “It’s annoying.”
She laughed again. “Oh come on, he can’t be that hot. Maybe you’re just horny because you need to get some.”
“I wish that’s what this was,” I told her honestly. “The truth is Pippa, that gorgeous doesn’t even do him justice. He’s young first of all. With over six-feet of muscle, all long and lean hotness. Then there’s the chestnut hair that’s always perfectly disheveled like he just rolled out of bed, and that hair annoyingly makes his blue eyes an even deeper shade of blue. Like if sapphire and royal blue had a baby and added a dash of glitter.”
“Holy hotness, are you for real or just trying to get a rise out of a pregnant lady?” Pippa eyed me skeptically.
“Sadly, I’m for real. It’s pathetic, Pip. I feel like an old woman ogling a kid. It’s sad. I’m sad.” He was too young for me to be drooling over and I knew that, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. “Every time he’s around, I stumble over my words, I stare like a freak and I get so embarrassed I just turn and walk away before I really humiliate myself.”
She struggled to get up out of her chair, but I put a hand on my best friend’s shoulder. “Let me up, woman. I have to see this mythical creature for myself.”
“I’m sure you’ll see him around town. Eventually.” The longer I could keep her from setting eyes on the masterpiece that was Trey Fine, the easier my life would be.
“Okay,” she agreed and relaxed into the chair. “When you say young, are we talking nineteen young, or thirty young? Because there’s a big difference.”
And that was exactly why I didn’t want her to know about Trey. “It doesn’t matter, because finding a man isn’t high on my list of priorities, my career is. I already paid for six months of rent for the studio space, Pip. I have to make this work.” Not that me or my twin girls were hurting for money, because the one thing my dead husband Rodney had done throughout our marriage was make a lot of money, and some really good investments. He was also preparing to leave us with all that money when his bad ticker caught up to him.
“I thought things were going well? You’ve been so busy lately.”
I nodded, because that much was true. “I have been, you know how Carson Creek is.” This was a small town and we took care of each other, even if we did it with an intrusive, gossiping and meddling kind of love. “But it’s been wedding photos and homecoming. The high school principal even asked if I was available for senior photos.”