Beckett showed up at Half-Moon Yoga fifteen minutes early wearing gym shorts and a scowl. As soon as he’d left the ribbon cutting, he realized Gianna had manipulated him into agreeing to take a class.

It was sneaky and underhanded. Which rankled him as much as her initial suggestion that yoga would be too much for him. He didn’t like that kind of manipulation from anyone, not even a beautiful woman.

He wasn’t into the whole OM-ing, stretching deal, but wouldn’t dream of saying that to a woman who made her living that way.

He could have cancelled, had even considered it when he got back to his office. But that would give her the false sense of satisfaction that she had scared him off. A redheaded pixie and her downward-facing dogs weren’t going to rattle him.

He had run track in high school. He hit the gym for early morning workouts five days a week and ran just as often. He had a protein shake for breakfast every day. He was in shape — great shape — and no bendy yoga guru was going to insinuate otherwise.

It was quite the eclectic crowd in the studio tonight. He recognized four of the starters from the high school football team taking up spots in the front row. Maizie from Peace of Pizza was brushing her white blond bangs out of her eyes while her boyfriend, Benito, stretched.

In the corner by the window, Beckett spotted resident pothead and poker champion Bill Fitzsimmons sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed. His lips were moving, but no sound came out. He was wearing sweatpants that looked like they had lived through the seventies.

Beckett was just noticing how warm the studio was when Fitz stood up and took off his pants, revealing embarrassingly small spandex shorts. It took all his control not to start laughing … or crying.

Gianna, in cropped tights and a strappy tank top that showed off some spectacular curves, smiled from the front of the room. That was going to be distracting, he thought.

“Welcome,” she called to him, with a hint of friendly cockiness in her eyes. “Let me get you a mat.”

Beckett followed her to the shelving unit that held rolled up mats in purples and greens as well as a dozen foam blocks and soft blankets.

Gianna handed him a green mat. “You can set up anywhere. Just face the front of the room.” She stood on tiptoe and grabbed one of the blocks off the shelf. “Here.”

“What’s this for?”

“It helps with modifications for some of the poses.”

Beckett eyed her. “I doubt I’ll need to modify anything.”

“Suit yourself,” she said with a wink and sauntered back to her mat.

Beckett took a spot in the back row and pulled off his sweatshirt.

The woman next to him smiled at him and he recognized her as the reigning women’s champ of the Blue Moon Five-Miler for the past four years. She also managed to kick his ass every time they met up on the running trail.

“Hey, Taneisha. How’s the training going?”

She greeted him with a toothpaste commercial-worthy grin. “I should be Boston-ready for next year. What brings you to yoga?” She flowed forward over her extended legs, reaching for her feet.

“Just supporting the small business community,” Beckett answered evasively.

“What other mayor would willingly walk into a hot power flow class to show his support? Blue Moon is lucky to have you,” Taneisha said, gliding back up and stretching her arms over her head.

“Hot power flow?”

Gianna cut off any response to his question from the front of the room. “Okay, everyone. We’re going to get started. If you’re new, don’t worry.” Her green eyes locked on to Beckett’s face. “Just follow your neighbor and I’ll be around to help. So let’s start in child’s pose.”

Four minutes into the class, and Beckett had a steady trickle of sweat working its way down his back and a growing concern that he wasn’t going to survive the class. Gianna wandered around the room calling out instructions in a soothing voice that belied the fact that she was basically asking her students to work themselves up to and past death on their mats.

Beckett gritted his teeth and rolled forward, triceps shaking as they dipped into a low plank again. Hadn’t they already done like fifty of these? This constant flowing — or vinyasa, whatever the fuck that was — wasn’t awakening his body as she claimed it would. Instead it was drawing his attention to body parts that screamed in agony.

He was in great shape, wasn’t he? Why did he feel like the Tin Man clunking around in shorts?

He shoved back to down dog again, a brief respite, before kicking one leg forward. He rose up, a second behind his neighbors, and reached for the ceiling, praying for a meteor to strike the studio.

Beckett was thinking about collapsing on the floor and taking a breather when he felt hands on him straightening his arms.

“Lift through your arms,” Gianna said quietly. “That’s right. Now extend through the spine like you’re reaching for the ceiling through the top of your head.” She ran her hands up his sweat-soaked spine in a sweeping motion that made his skin burn.

“Perfect,” she said when he complied. He was acutely and uncomfortably aware of her hands leaving his body.

He had to admit, the pose felt better with her corrections. But it only lasted another second before she had them plunging through the sequence on the other side. Over and over he careened toward the floor praying his arms would hold him. The sweat was flowing so freely it was tickling his legs. A drop gathered on the tip of his nose and splashed to the mat as he swooped down.

Are my eyeballs sweating? he wondered.

He chanced a glance to his left. Taneisha’s flawless skin was dotted with beads of sweat and she was smiling her way through another sun salutation. Next to her, Fitz had stripped off his shirt and was now only wearing his ridiculous briefs.

There’s a picture he wouldn’t be unseeing anytime soon, he thought. But maybe the skinny hippie had the right idea in this situation. Beckett used the thigh-quivering chair pose to yank his t-shirt over his head. It landed with a wet thwack on the floor behind him.

Gianna had returned to her mat and flowed with the class on another round. She moved with ease and grace, as if she’d been born flowing through yoga poses. He hated her gorgeous, graceful guts.

* * *

Something was nudging his foot.

Beckett opened an eye and swiped at the sweat that rolled into it.

Like a siren, she appeared in his line of vision. A shimmering mirage of evil beauty. Gianna grinned down at him.

“What was that?” he groaned, flopping his arms out to the sides.

“That was hot power flow yoga,” she answered, sinking down next to him in a move as graceful as ballet.

“How do you move like that?” Beckett asked, studying her. She had a dimple in her chin and mischief in her eyes.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re dancing. Everything you do is like dancing.”

She was starting to look concerned. “How about we get some water into you?” she suggested.

Beckett rolled to his side and slowly worked his way into a seated position. The studio was empty except for the two of them. He vaguely remembered everyone bowing and saying “nama-something,” but he didn’t really recall the mass exodus.

Gianna handed him a bottle of water and a towel. “How do you feel?”

“Like I was steamrolled, wrung out, and hung up to dry.”

She laughed then, a husky music. She patted his shoulder. “That’s exactly how you’re supposed to feel.”

“You win,” Beckett sighed and drank deeply.

“You hung in there for the entire class. I’d say this one ends in a tie,” Gianna decided. She rose to her feet and reached a hand out to him.

Beckett debated not taking it, but worried his legs would betray him. He let her pull him up to standing and glanced down at the mat.

“You’re going to have to burn this one,” he said, eyeing the body-sized sweat stain.

She grinned up at him. “Don’t worry about it. I think I’ve got some industrial cleaner in the back somewhere.” She headed over to the shelves and Beckett picked up his still-sopping t-shirt.

Gianna returned with a spray bottle and another towel. “I don’t think you’re going to want to put that back on,” she said, wrinkling her nose at his soggy t-shirt.

“Yeah,” Beckett agreed, pulling on his sweatshirt instead. He picked up the block that he had ended up relying on like a lifeline and put it back on the shelf.

“Is this your last class tonight?”

She glanced up from his newly laundered mat, eyes trailing a little slower over his bare chest. “It is. You are free to go shower and drink several beers.”

“Is that what you do after class?” he teased.

“Shower, yes. One beer and usually a giant dish of mac and cheese or something equally unhealthy.”

Beckett’s stomach growled in response. A shower beer and dinner were in his future, he decided.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Beckett offered. Now that he was recovering some of his energy, he was reluctant to leave her. Especially since he’d be leaving her with the image of him barely conscious drowning in a pool of his own sweat. He could do better and perhaps recover a bit of his pride.

“Thanks, but I walked,” Gianna told him, grabbing her bag from one of the cubbies along the back wall.

He felt a pang when she tugged a hoodie over her tank top. She had a beautiful body. One that demanded attention, even from the near dead. “I’ll walk with you.”

She eyed him for a moment. “Okay. That would be nice.”

Beckett waited by the front door while she turned off the studio lights and together they exited into the cool October evening.

“Which way are you?” he asked.

She slid her key into the lock and pointed to the left.

“Me, too. We must be neighbors,” Beckett commented, as they started down the sidewalk.

“Imagine that,” Gianna said, with an amused look.

Beckett threw his sweaty t-shirt over his shoulder. “How do you like Blue Moon so far?”

“It’s wonderful,” she said. “Everyone’s so warm. I love that my kids will grow up knowing their neighbors and walking to school.”

“You have kids?” Beckett immediately looked down at her left hand. No ring.

She shot him an amused look. “Two kids and an ex-husband. You?”

“Zero kids and no ex-husbands.”

Gianna laughed. “Any wives? Current or past?”

They walked past Karma Kustard and Beckett waved to Pete the owner who was manning the counter.

“None. The Pierce brothers take our bachelorhood seriously. Well, we did until recently.” He thought of Carter with his Summer.

“How many of you are there?” Gia asked.

“Three. I’m the good-looking one.” He winked.

She rolled her eyes and tugged the hair band out of her thick, auburn curls letting them tumble down her back. “You must be the middle child.”

“How did you guess?”

“Like recognizes like.”

“You’re the middle, too?”

She nodded, tossing her hair over her shoulder and he caught a whiff of lavender. “I’ve got two sisters.”

“Are you close?” he asked. He wondered if they looked like her. Gianna was a head turner. He couldn’t imagine two more of her.

“Not geographically, I’ve got one bouncing around South Carolina and one in L.A., but we talk and email constantly. How about you and your brothers?”

He thought of Carter and Jax. Close was a good word for his relationship with them, especially now that they were all back home and starting a business together. “We’re pretty close. So two kids, huh?”

Gianna nodded and stuffed her hands in the front pocket of her hoodie. “Yeah, they’re pretty great. I’m hoping to be half the parent my dad was while I was growing up. If I can accomplish that, I can do anything,” she sighed.

“How about your mother?” Beckett asked.

Gianna shrugged. “She left us years ago. My sisters and I were in our early teens, so you can imagine what gems we were then. But Dad hung in there and figured out how to fill both roles. He never once let us feel like it was our fault or that what we wanted wasn’t important.”

“He sounds like a good man.”

“As close to sainthood as you can get,” she nodded. “Your parents?”

Beckett caught a glimpse of his disheveled, sweat-soaked hair in the next storefront window and scrubbed a hand through it. Next time he saw Gianna it was going to be in a suit after a shower, he promised himself.

“My dad was great. He put his heart into everything he did. He was never too busy for anyone who needed help.” Beckett could still call up a hundred memories of his dad setting aside everything to have a conversation, to lend a hand, or just answer his incessant questions as a five-year-old.

“He sounds wonderful,” Gianna said, guiding them off of Main Street.

“He was. He died five years ago.”

“Still miss him.” It wasn’t a question, but an acknowledgement.

“Every day,” Beckett nodded. It was true. There wasn’t a day that went by without his thoughts turning to John Pierce.

“And your mother?” Gianna asked.

Beckett felt the familiar warring emotions of love and frustration that bubbled to the surface every time he thought of his mother the past few months.

“She’s great,” he said, keeping it at that.

They turned down another tree-lined street where the streetlights were spaced further apart. “Do you live on this street?” he asked her, frowning.

Gianna nodded and smiled. “I do. It’s such a great neighborhood.”

“I know. It’s my neighborhood.”

“Well, this is me.” Gianna stopped on the sidewalk, her eyes sparkling.

“This isn’t you. This is me. I live here,” Beckett argued. The realization hit him as the words came out of his mouth.

“Hi, neighbor,” Gianna said, cocking her head to the side.

“You’re my new tenant.” He was a dumbass. A complete and total dumbass and Gianna had the pleasure of witnessing his idiocy over and over again.

She nodded. “I knew you’d figure it out eventually.”

He had literally walked her to his own doorstep before realizing it. He was slipping. Yoga must have destroyed his brain.

“Ellery took care of the paperwork and your check while I was out of the country,” he said, slowly piecing it all together.

“She did. She’s a pretty amazing asset, by the way,” Gianna said.

“She is.” And his amazing asset had probably assumed he introduced himself to his new tenant when he came home. In fact, if he hadn’t been daydreaming about the redhead before him he probably would have heard Ellery telling him Gianna was his tenant. Her “good fit” comment suddenly made a lot more sense.

“How long have you known?” he winced.

Gianna looked like she was enjoying herself. “Since you introduced yourself at the ribbon-cutting. What kind of tenant would I be if I didn’t know my own landlord’s name?”

Shit.

“You’re my tenant.” He said it again as the implication settled. It didn’t matter how attractive he found Gianna Decker. They had a professional relationship that must be maintained.

“This is —”

“Complicated,” she finished for him. “You’re lucky, Mr. Pierce, that I’ve sworn off complications and mistakes. Because, otherwise, I would have found you irresistible.”

“Irresistible how?” Beckett asked before he thought better of it.

Gianna stood on her tiptoes and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for walking me home, Beckett.”

She turned away from him and followed the walkway around the side of his house to the backyard.

Beckett touched his cheek and frowned after her. It was the second time she had kissed him and he wasn’t going to lie. It wasn’t enough.

* * *

“What’s with the dopey grin?” Evan demanded when Gia let herself in the front door.

“I don’t have a dopey grin. I have a self-satisfied grin. That’s totally different,” she corrected him.

“Whatever,” he sighed, and went back to his homework at the dining table.

“How’s it going?” Gia asked, settling in next to him.

He shrugged his shoulders and frowned at the book in front of him.

“What do you think about school here so far?” Gia opened her water bottle and drank deeply.

Evan shrugged again. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“Is it a lot different?”

“There’s a girl in my class named Oceana,” Evan said, refreshing the screen of his tablet. He scrolled through some pictures and opened one. “This is her.”

Gia peered at Oceana’s school photo on the screen. In any other town in America, the perky little blonde would have been a cheerleader. In Blue Moon, she wore a hand-crocheted vest and lived on a sheep farm.

“This town is weird,” Evan announced.

“I agree. Weird good or weird bad?”

“Mostly weird good. I guess. Like the teachers don’t make us sit too long and stuff. They make us take stretching breaks, kind of like your classes. But the lunches are weird bad. At my old school we had pizza and nachos and stuff. Here they have this quinoa casserole crap.”

Gia swallowed a laugh. “Maybe we should look at packing your lunch a couple days a week?”

Evan nodded. “I think that would be for the best.”

“Your dad call tonight?” Gia asked, taking another drink of water.

“Nope.”

She automatically squashed the annoyance and the desire to make an excuse for Evan’s father. She and Paul had worked out a call schedule that promised the kids reliable, consistent communication with their father so he could stay up on what was happening with them.

And as was typical with her ex-husband, he continued to flake out on them, blissfully unaware of the damage that his inconsistency and lack-of-presence did to their little family.

Gia changed the subject. “How was Rora for you tonight?”

“She was good. She only made me watch two episodes of that dumb whiny cartoon.”

Gia rolled her eyes heavenward. “She has to grow out of that show eventually, right? Every time it’s on I want to put a frying pan through the TV.”

“Yeah.” Evan rewarded her with a small smile.

“So, listen. This was my last Friday night class. I have another teacher who is going to take over the time slot. So that means just Tuesday and Thursday night classes for me. How do you feel about being Aurora’s official, compensated guardian on those nights?”

Evan leaned back and crossed his arms. His hazel eyes narrowed. “What kind of compensation are we talking?”

“For watching your sister from 5:30 to 7:30 I’m prepared to offer you five dollars.” She purposely low-balled him.

“Fifteen,” he countered.

“Ten.”

“Deal,” he said extending his hand.

She shook it solemnly. “And if you need a night off to do school work or hang out with friends or build creepy robots — whatever it is kids your age do — let me know and I’ll have Grampa watch Rora.”

“Robots? Seriously, Gia?”

Gia held up her hands. “Hey, whatever floats your boat. No judgment.”

“You fit right in with the rest of these weirdos,” he told her.

She jumped out her chair and put him in a headlock and covered the top of his head with noisy kisses. “I’m totally changing your name to Compost Heap Decker,” she told him. He put up a struggle, but his laughter prevented him from wiggling free.

His sandy hair needed a trim, Gia noted. But they had worked out a deal back when he turned ten that he was in charge of haircut decisions.

“Hey, I was going to make an appointment to get my hair trimmed. I saw this crazy place called The Grateful Head. Let me know if you want an appointment. That’s a play on a band, by the way.”

Evan leveled the haughty gaze of a twelve-year-old at her. “I know who the Grateful Dead are.”

Of course Paul Decker’s son would know the Grateful Dead. Paul’s finest gift to his children was a deep and abiding appreciation of music.

“Good, then I don’t have to tell your dad that your brains are being consumed by pop artists and you want a life-sized One Direction poster for Christmas.”

Evan had the good sense to shudder. “Dad would disown me.”

“I’m going to grab a shower and warm up some mac and cheese,” Gia said, rising. “You want any?”

“I guess I could go for some.”

“Awesome.” She started for the stairs. “Heavy carb date in ten minutes and you can show me how to use the calendar app on my phone.”

“Again?”

“It’s not ‘again’ if it’s a brand new app. I didn’t like the other one. This one has cool colors and alarms that sound like the ocean.”

“I’m changing your name to Too Many Calendar Apps Decker,” Evan called after her.

Once in the bathroom, Gia turned on the shower and reached for her phone. She dialed, took a deep, cleansing breath, and brought her phone to her ear.

“Hey, Cinnamon Girl.” The sound of her ex-husband’s voice simultaneously brought a smile to her lips and irked the hell out of her. It was the story of their relationship, being repeatedly charmed and disappointed by a man who refused to grow up.

“Hey, Paul. Did you forget something today?”

“Oh, man! Is it Friday again, already? I was so amped about this new gig I totally forgot.”

“A new gig?” she asked, immediately regretting it.

“I’m filling in with this band at the casino for the next few weeks. Their drummer’s having some legal troubles.”

“Legal troubles?”

“House arrest for possession,” Paul amended. “His loss, my gain. Can you put the kids on? I’ll say hi now.”

“Aurora’s been in bed for half an hour,” she reminded him.

“Right, right. How about Ev?”

“Listen Paul, I don’t want to just hand him the phone and tell him it’s you. He needs to know that you care enough to remember to keep your word when it comes to him.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

She was losing him. She could feel it. He was getting sucked into whatever video game or YouTube video he would obsess over until something shinier caught his attention.

“I need you to hang up with me and call Evan on his phone. And don’t tell him I called you first.” She said it slowly and carefully, as if instructing a toddler.

“Gotcha.”

“And make it a video chat this time. It’s been a while since he’s seen you.”

“Sure. No problemo.”

She could envision him nodding into the phone.

“Okay. I’m hanging up now and you’re going to call Evan on his phone.”

“I got it, G. Consider it done. Oh, listen. The support payment is going to be a little light this month, okay? Things are going down at work.”

Gia closed her eyes and took another deep breath. If his child support payments dried up again she was going to have to look for a second job. Again.

“I can hear you doing your ‘don’t freak out breathing’ thing,’” he teased her.

“We’ll talk about the support some other time, okay? Call your son.”

“I’m on it. Good talking to you.”

“Bye, Paul.”

Gia waited until she heard Evan’s phone ring downstairs before pulling off her clothes and stepping under the steaming water.