A few days later, I wake to the sound of grunting. It takes me a few seconds to remember where I am and that I don’t live alone.

I sit up and grab my robe from the end of the bed, flinging it on as I go. The instant I step out of my bedroom, I realize I made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Nixon is in the living room exercising. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. Probably something on his feet, I just can’t make it down that far. Rather, I’m held hostage by the miles and miles of glistening, golden skin on his back as he pumps out pushup after pushup.

I stand in the doorway staring at him for what probably amounts to an inappropriate amount of time before I clear my throat. His head snaps right, and he springs up onto the balls of his feet, as agile as someone who’s not six and a half feet of hard muscle.

He puts his hands on his slim hips and smiles over at me, his ripped abs contracting with each heavy breath he takes.

“What are you doing?”

“I would think that’s fairly obvious.”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“I do. Do you?”

“Yes, it’s six forty-five. Way too early to be up exercising and grunting.”

“Early mornings are the best time to grunt. And exercise, too, for that matter.” He gives me a wink that nearly blows my robe open.

“Well, if you’re going to do it so early, mind taking it outside?”

“If that’s your preference, I’d be happy to do it outside. Doing it in nature is…inspiring.” He’s still smiling, his feathers plainly unruffled by my mood. Me, on the other hand? I’m grouchy. Probably because I spent the better part of last night, and every night since I got home, fending off fantasies involving my new roommate rather than sleeping. His ability to turn everything into a sexual reference isn’t helping.

“Yes, that’s my preference.”

Before I can make my way safely back to my bedroom, he taunts me with, “Maybe you should consider getting up and doing it outside with me. I promise it’ll be an utterly unforgettable morning.”

I send a withering glare over my shoulder and duck into my room.

Cold shower it is.

By the time I get out, skin wrinkled and freezing, my disposition is greatly improved. I feel prepared to ignore the determined flirtation of Nixon Holt. Right up until I set out across the yard toward the main house. That’s when I see him washing down one of the horses. I stop dead in my tracks and watch him for a few seconds. He’s at least wearing a shirt this time, but his jeans… Jesus! They fit him like he’s being dressed for a Wrangler commercial. His powerful thighs stretch the denim tight as he bends and moves and his butt…well, it’s probably the stuff prose was made of back in the early days of woman. I bet Eve didn’t care about Adam’s apple. She was obsessed with his ass.

Nixon moves around the horse, working as he goes, until he’s facing me. And facing me means that another interesting body part shifts into view. The denim does nothing to hide the impressive bulge behind his zipper. It’s with a shiver that I remember what that felt like grinding against me that night in his hotel room.

Heat pours into my core.

I don’t know how long Nixon has stopped moving when I finally notice that he’s still. My eyes trail lazily up his abdomen, perfectly outlined beneath his wet white T-shirt, over his broad chest, and along his thick neck until they rest on his face. A face which is smiling wickedly at me.

My gaze snaps to his, and I know immediately that he knows. He knows what I was looking at. He knows what I was thinking of. He knows. It’s right there in the sparkle and shine of his onyx eyes.

I’m about to scurry off in humiliation when he calls out to me. “Change your mind about the outside thing?”

I say nothing. I drop my head to hide my burning cheeks and pretend I don’t hear him. But I do. I hear every word, every silky syllable, as well as the laugh that follows me all the way to the main house.

I practically launch myself through the back door and into the kitchen, leaning up against the door once it’s closed. As I rest there, panting, I realize I haven’t felt this way since I was a horny teenager, and that didn’t end well at all.

“What’s wrong with you?” I jump at the sound of Hannah’s voice, clamping a hand on my chest over my racing heart.

“Oh, God! You scared the shit out of me.”

“I hope not. I’d hate to leave you shitless.” She strolls into the kitchen, licking something from a spoon. “Breakfast?” She holds out the spoon.

“What is it?”

She turns it over in her hand, examining the empty surface on both sides. “Well, nothing right now, but about three minutes ago, this was a spoonful of the most delicious pecan butter you’ve ever tasted. I’m making a seven layer cake, and I needed something sweet yet nutty to tone down the—” She stops abruptly.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Because I get the same look from Harper and Hope when I talk about my recipes.”

“What look? I didn’t give you a look.”

“Maybe not intentionally, but I could see your eyes glazing over.”

“Glazing,” I say with a snort. “It really is all about food with you, isn’t it?”

“Ha. Ha.” She makes her way around to the fridge and pours herself a glass of milk. “So, you want?”

“Sure, I’ll try it.” I pull out a chair at the cozy little table in the breakfast nook. Momma always insisted that we enjoy a close, intimate family meal at least once every day, and this is where we had it. We laughed and argued and lived and loved over more meals here than I can count. And I loved every one of them, especially now that she’s gone. It feels familiar and oddly foreign to swing my legs under the table after all these years. It feels like home, but it also feels like I’ve been gone too long. Everything changed while I was away; yet, nothing has. Bittersweet.

Hannah pokes around and eventually carries over a tray containing two small dishes, two spoons, and two glasses of milk. She sets one of each in front of me. The dish has four of what look like toast points stabbed into a dollop of the pecan butter. I take one up immediately, sinking my teeth into the firm wedge. It melts on my tongue like cotton candy.

“Oh sweet God, what is this?” I wipe the corner of my mouth. “I’m literally drooling.”

My sister grins. “That’s the offspring of a shortbread cookie and some sweet bread that I let sit out too long. You know, one of those oopses that turned into penicillin type things.”

I stop chewing for a second. “It didn’t actually mold, though, did it?”

She rolls her eyes. “No, Haley. Like I’d feed you moldy food.”

I resume chewing, saliva pouring happily into my mouth. “Sad thing is, if it tasted like this, I’d probably eat it.”

Hannah beams. “Really?”

I nod, scarfing down the sweet, nutty confection. “I’d risk food poisoning for this. No lie.”

“I hope some of my clients feel that way.”

“If they don’t, they don’t deserve taste buds.”

“So,” she begins, nibbling her own cookie slash cake slash toast point. “What brings the prodigal child home?”

I send a dry look across the table. “Don’t act like we haven’t talked once a week for the last ten years.”

“And yet you never mentioned coming home. Why is that?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t want anyone to talk me out of it. Or into it.”

“I wouldn’t have done either.”

“You’d have had some kind of opinion about it. All Brandt women have an opinion about everything.”

“I’d have kept it to myself. I know how hard it was for you to come back.”

“But it was time.”

“What made it time?”

“All the stuff with Trevor I guess.”

She nods. “You aren’t the first woman to be sent home by a cheating ex, that’s for sure.”

“It wasn’t just that. I think finally realizing, really realizing, that he never really loved me, that he only wanted me because I looked good on his arm, hurt me worse than the affair. How can you be married to someone for that long and care so little about them?”

“Do you still care about him? Did you ever?”

“Of course I cared about him, but…” I take a moment to think about my marriage. I scroll through a decade of memories, most of which are perfunctory events rather than intimate moments. Parties I hosted, luncheons I planned, fundraisers I arranged. I organized and attended them all with a smile on my face and never a hair out of place. Because that’s what was expected of me. And for a long time, I was too weak to leave. But that truth is, our marriage was a sham. I was simply too deluded to recognize it until I’d burned ten years of my life.

“But?”

“He never allowed it to grow any deeper than that. Maybe early on, I could’ve learned to love him, but… He had a role for me to play, and emotions were never a part of it. He was using me to fulfill a need, nothing more. Like a secretary or a personal assistant. It just took me too long to see it. So, do I care about him? Well, I don’t want to see him hurt, I suppose, but I don’t ever want to see him again either. After all I did for him, day in and day out… For him to betray me for another nineteen year old in need of rescue, for someone who looks better on his arm and doesn’t require as much maintenance, is unforgiveable.”

Hannah’s eyes round. “Is she really nineteen?”

“Or twelve.”

“Twelve?”

At her shocked expression, I amend. “She’s just built like she’s twelve. She’s actually twenty-one. Not much better, but at least she can legally have a glass of wine, which she’ll need after about a year of hearing him talk about himself like he’s the headline news of the day.”

“I only met him those two times, but I always thought he seemed like an arrogant peacock.”

“Oh, he was. Good eye, sis.”

“Is that why you never brought him around here?”

“No, I…” I trail off to think about my answer. “I think I wanted to keep my new life as far from my old one as I possibly could, no cross-contamination.”

“I hope you mean Jason, not us.”

I sigh. “Of course I mean Jason. I missed y’all like crazy. Even though I talked to everyone pretty often, it wasn’t the same as being with you here. Here.”

At our table. In the house where we grew up. In the places we shared with Mom.

Home.

Hannah doesn’t comment, doesn’t speak at all for a long time. Her mind isn’t quiet, though. She always gets this little frown when she’s thinking. “How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know yet. I was…I was thinking of staying for a while.”

Hannah’s head jerks up. “How long is a while?”

“I don’t know. A while. What difference does it make?”

Again, she makes no comment. “So what sent you in here like such a terror this morning?”

“A terror? I wasn’t—” I stop when I realize what she saw. “Oh, right. That. That was just me running from my libido.”

“What do you mean?”

I glance over my shoulder and lower my voice. “Nixon. You’ve seen him, right?”

“Of course I’ve seen him. Why?”

“Why? Oh my God! He’s… Oh my God!”

“He’s good-looking, but…”

“But?”

“There’s something off about him. Don’t you think?”

“Not really.”

“It’s probably just me then. Maybe because I have my eye on someone else.”

I gasp. “You do? Spill!”

I lean in, as does my sister, and we dish like we did when we were in high school. All the hot boy talk, all the latest gossip, all the giggling and whispering. It’s the best hour and a half I’ve spent in a long, long time.

By the time I walk back to the cottage, my mood is calm and light. So much so that when I come through the front door and see Nixon standing in the little kitchen, I meander over to the stove and lean around him to see what he’s cooking. There’s a small, flat basket of eggs on the counter beside a neatly wrapped cut of bacon.

“Nice package,” I whisper near his ear before turning to walk away. Before disappearing toward my room, I glance over my shoulder and find that he’s watching me. “I love me some bacon.”

After a few seconds, Nixon’s lips curve into a wolfish smile. “You just declared war.”

It feels inexplicably good to flirt with him. Maybe a little harmless fun will be good for me. What could it hurt?

I laugh. “Don’t forget. Two can play this game.”

“God, I hope so.”

“We’ll see if you still feel that way in a few days.”

I don’t let my smile break free until I’m safely in my room.