"Okay, kiddo. Have fun."
She skipped over toward Bitsy, who told everybody Kirstie's daddy sold drugs so they better not play with his daughter or people would think they were doing drugs, too. She stopped behind Bitsy's mama and glanced over her shoulder at Uncle Seth. He waved once and turned away.
Bingo.
She veered off from icky Bitsy before the meanie could say something nasty. Kirstie ran really fast through a group of people and out the other side, away from where her uncles could see her. Panting, she looked around, searching until she found bushy-eyebrow man.
She would have to remember to ask him his name this time.
She folded her hands behind her back and stared up. "Hi."
He jerked, sort of surprised-like and not very nice looking, then he smiled and everything was okay again. "Hello, Miss Kirstie Adella. Are you having fun?"
"Not much."
"It's a shame your mama can't be here, too. But at least she's having a good time in Charleston with her new friend."
Her friend. Bo. Kirstie's stomach felt funny, and she hadn't even eaten a doughnut yet.
"Yeah, she is." She held out her hand. "Wanna go for a walk and talk about my daddy?"
"I like your new friend." Sister Nic held an unsmoked cigarette between two fingers with reverence.>Chapter 13
He would never look at an ice cube the same way again.
Paige arched her arms over her head until her knuckles skimmed the headboard, but kept her eyes closed to avoid morning a few seconds longer. A post-sex stretch was without a doubt the best stretch ever. And when that came after the best sex ever? She wanted to keep right on arching as long as possible in case this weekend with Bo was all she would have.
At least she had her body back again after fears her past with Kurt would freeze her forever. She sagged on the mattress and rolled onto her side, clutching the sheet, eager to make more new memories to replace the old. They could stay in bed all afternoon and picnic naked. As soon as she found him.
The scent of coffee and bacon in the air answered her question about the empty space beside her. Gliding her hand along the bare spot as if to capture a remaining hint of the man, she let her mind drift through possibilities of...
A long-distance relationship? Telephone calls and trips crosscountry. And he was considering leaving the military. Maybe he would return to teaching, which enabled him to live anywhere....
Yeah, right. Like he would relocate to North Dakota to hang out with a woman he'd known two weeks, and she couldn't even believe she was considering this. Incredible sex must be scrambling her brain. She needed to accept this pocket of happiness and quit thinking about tomorrow.
A rustle sounded outside the window. A squirrel?
Paige wrapped the sheet tighter. The purse-snatcher incident and break-in had her imagining boogey men behind every tree. She snagged her glasses off the bedside table for a clearer view of the window and the overgrown wisteria bush blocking most of the yard from sight.
Had Bo relocked the window after pitching the phones outside?
"Bo?" she called softly, inching to sit up.
The bush rustled, swaying as if swept aside.
"Bo!" She scrambled back toward the edge of the bed, nerves snapping to attention.
A body filled the window. Or rather shoulders and a face. A handsome and hot face.
"Bo." She slumped with relief, staring at her new lover standing outside, a phone in each hand.
He tapped on the pane with his cell phone.
Laughing at her own jitters, she secured the sheet around her and shuffled across the room. A quick look confirmed. . .yes, he'd locked the window, and his attention to her safety even when they'd been about to jump each other touched her. How could it not, when she'd lived too long with a man who put her and her child at risk?
She flipped the lock and nudged the window up, no easy task while struggling to keep a sheet modestly tucked around her, which elicited a fresh twinkle in Bo's eyes.
"Morning, gorgeous." He leaned inside to drop the phones onto the carpeted floor, the reach placing his face right at her waist for a lingering kiss that tickled as well as aroused.