“Rachel?”

I bolted upright and snapped my childhood diary shut. Hastily, I locked it and pushed it to the back of my desk drawer. “I’m working,” I called back. Or at least I had been until I’d had the urge to read about my youthful thoughts on the boy next door. They were decidedly tame compared to my current thoughts about the man next door. I’d thought about him—and his towel—all night. Consequently, I was tired and cranky today. Neither of which lent itself well to writing.

“Rachel!”

“I’m trying to write.” But my mom didn’t see my writing as real work. Sure, when I’d first moved back home in January, she’d understood that I had to finish my thesis. But once I’d graduated in May, she didn’t understand that my new project was actual work, too. She and my dad interrupted me all the time. That’s why these past few months I’d written over at Mrs. Craig’s house. She’d let me use her spare bedroom as an office, which was enormously helpful to me and made it easier for me to get her lunch or take Lulu out.

“Rachel!”

Sighing, I saved my work and switched off my laptop. “I’m coming.”

Downstairs, I smelled the rich, delicious scent of Italian. Suddenly, I didn’t mind the interruption as much. But when I got to the kitchen, mom was covering the pan of lasagna with aluminum foil.

“I need you to take this over to Alexander.”

A flash of both excitement and nerves made me shiver. “He goes by Xander.”

“All right, take it to Xander then.”

“But… we don’t even know how long he’s staying.” Though I sure wished I did.

“He’s a big strapping man. He’ll finish this up in no time.” Damn. The only thing in the world that could make my crush on Xander more embarrassing was if my mom had one, too. “Just take it over to him. It’s not like he’s a stranger. He used to babysit for you.”

“That was one time!” My mom had asked him to watch me once when my dad broke his ankle, and she had to drive him to the hospital. Hopefully Xander didn’t remember that—if so there was no way he was ever going to think of me as anything other than the little girl next door.

“Just take it over to him. He’s your neighbor, and his mom just passed away.”

That much I knew. I’d felt guilty a few times last night. Mrs. Craig had been a sweet old lady. I probably should’ve been thinking about the time I spent with her instead of lusting after her son. But his showing up in a towel had killed all chances of that.

Grumbling, I put on oven mitts and picked up the pan. It’s not that I didn’t want to see Xander, but I was a little anxious, too. What if I embarrassed myself in front of him—again? What if he said something else to make me feel like I was ten years old, wanting to see him in his football uniform? He was never going to see me as an adult if my mom sent me over.

But my mom wasn’t the type to take no for an answer.

So a minute later, I was hitting the doorbell of the Craig house with my elbow. When Xander opened the door, the shock of seeing his bare chest again nearly made me drop the dish. My mouth dropped open.

He took in my reaction and laughed. “Well, at least I’m wearing a little more than yesterday. I was working upstairs and it’s about a million degrees up there.” He pushed open the door and I squeezed past him, very conscious of the fact that he was wearing faded blue jeans and what appeared to be nothing else. Or at least no shirt and no shoes.

I carried the dish into the kitchen and set it on the counter. “For you,” I said unnecessarily. Turning, I found him pulling on an olive green tee shirt. Unfortunately.

He lifted the edge of the foil. “Looks delicious. Did you make it?”

“No. My mom did.” And that made me feel like I was five. I should’ve made something for him myself.

“Please give her my thanks.”

“I will.” And that reminded me of something. I’d never actually gotten to talk to him at the service yesterday. And then last night I’d been too distracted. “I’m really sorry about your mother. She was a really sweet lady.”

Some sort of look passed across his face. Was it sorrow? Regret? I really couldn’t tell, but it made me want to hug him. If he were a less intimidating man, one of the average Joes I went to high school with, I would’ve.

“I hadn’t seen her in almost a year, but it’s still hard to believe she’s gone.” His voice was low and quiet.

“I’m sorry.” Now I really did want to hug him, but I just couldn’t make my limbs move. He was just so larger than life. “But you talked on the phone a lot, right? And Skyped.”

“Thanks to you. You set that up on her laptop, right? There’s no way she could’ve done that on her own.”

“Yeah, that was me.”

“And you took care of her. And Lulu. I can’t thank you enough.”

My blush this time was for an entirely different reason than last night. “I enjoyed helping her. And she helped me, too.”

Xander set out two plates and then opened the fridge. “Looks like we have water, milk, or diet soda.”

Wait, were we having lunch together? When did that happen? “Soda, please.”

He frowned as he took out two cans. “I didn’t think mom drank this kind of stuff.”

“Those are mine. I hung out here a lot. That’s what I meant before about her helping me. She let me use the room upstairs for my writing.”

Xander set the sodas on the table and then cut two humongous portions of lasagna. He brought our plates over and sat down next to me. “Is that your stuff up in the guest bedroom? Or, it used to be the guest bedroom when I was a kid.”

“Yeah. It was easier to help her if I didn’t have to keep running over from my house. Plus it got me away from my parents.”

Caught in the middle of taking a sip of soda, Xander choked a bit as he laughed.

“That bad, huh?”

And now I felt like a kid again, complaining about my mom and dad. “They’re just… loud. And they interrupt constantly. It’s not very easy to write over there.”

Xander took a huge bite of lasagna, and suddenly my mom’s phrase, that he was a big strapping man, came to mind. It was an appropriate description even though it felt a little weird coming from her. After draining his soda and getting another one, he asked, “What are you writing?”

I picked at my food for a minute, wondering if he’d think it was stupid. It was hard to have an appetite for anything except him when he was around. Plus I was wearing a white tee shirt today—this time with a bra—and I didn’t want to get lasagna on it and embarrass myself again. “Well, before I was working on my thesis.”

“Before what?”

“Before I graduated. I moved back home in January.” My head drooped with this admission.

“It’s not a crime, Rachel. What was your thesis about?” His smile was designed to cheer me up, and it did—or at least enough continue.

“It was about Fairview, actually. And other nearby small towns. I researched how they’d changed—the population, the employment, the family life.”

“Sound interesting.”

“It wasn’t,” I said. When he looked like he was going to object, I hurried on. “Usually a graduate thesis isn’t. But it was really interesting interviewing the people who’ve lived in small towns all their lives. About how it was different when they were a kid. How their children grew up and moved away. How hard it is now for them to make a living here. So after I graduated, I decided to stick with it. I started re-examining my interview notes. Came up with more questions to ask people. Only now my goal is to make it into a book.”

Xander’s blue eyes were steady on mine, and I was grateful his initial reaction hadn’t been skepticism like my parents’. “Nonfiction?”

“Yeah, mostly. Or maybe it could better be described as creative nonfiction. I wrote up people’s stories truthfully, but I tried to make them as interesting to read as possible. I’ve got eight done, and I’d like maybe fifteen or twenty in all. I don’t know if anyone would ever want to read them, but small towns are this country’s past. Once upon a time, most of us were from one, not like today. So the story of small towns is sort of the story of America. But maybe people will think that’s boring.”

“It doesn’t sound boring to me.”

Was he just saying that? I had a moment to think about it while he got up to get more lasagna. My mom had certainly been right about his appetite.

After popping the top on another soda, he sat back down. “It sounds a little like what I do.”

That startled me. “But your pictures are online and in magazines and newspapers.”

“Yes, but most of them are of small communities. Or the historical evidence of small communities. It fascinates me, too. I may have left Fairview almost fifteen years ago, but it’s home. It’s in my DNA. I’d definitely read your book.”

Wow. I didn’t know how to respond to that unqualified support. Afraid that I might tear up, I distracted myself with a few bites of lasagna. Fortunately, I managed not get it all over me.

When Xander seemed to have finally tamed his powerful appetite, he leaned back in his chair. “So, have you got a publisher yet?”

For a moment, I was speechless. No one else in my life had accepted my plans so easily. My parents thought I should take a waitress job at the diner down the street. There wasn’t a whole lot of employment opportunities in Fairview. That’s why most of the people I’d gone to high school with had moved away.

In spite of everything, I loved this small town. I loved the people in it—even more so once I’d gotten to know them better through the interviews I’d done. And I wanted other people to know them as I did. This was my chance to share their stories with a larger audience. I didn’t expect it to bring in a ton of money, but I wanted to do it anyway.

I cleared my throat. “I figured I’d wait until the book was finished before submitting it somewhere.” Though I wasn’t sure where. Books about small towns were not exactly something publishers were fighting over.

“You don’t have to wait. You can polish up the first few chapters and send them to an agent.”

An agent? I hadn’t thought of that. “What if they think it’s no good?”

“Then you send it to another one. Then another. I’m not going to lie; I’ve heard that it can take a long time. All the better to start sending stuff out now.”

Staring down at the table, I thought about it. Sure, it was the plan to get it published eventually, but to send something now seemed so… daunting. I felt excited yet nervous—which was ironic because that was also the way Xander made me feel.

“You think about it.” He took his plate over to the sink. I had a few more bites and then did the same. “And in the meantime, you’re welcome to keep writing over here if that works out best for you.”

“But what’s going to happen to the house? I mean, thank you, that’s a really nice offer. But are you going to sell it or—”

“I’m going to stay here for a while. For the summer, actually. I made some calls this morning. Arranged for some time off. This place needs a lot of work before I can put it on the market.”

My breath caught in my throat. “You’re going to be here for the whole summer?”

He leaned against the counter and smiled down at me. “Yep. I was overdue for a break. Plus I like this kind of stuff. Carpentry. Fixing things.”

“I remember,” I said, and then I blushed. Many times I’d watched him from my window as he worked in his backyard, sawing pieces of wood, painting bookcases, fixing broken furniture. He’d even built the treehouse in the huge oak out back. I’d never been in it, but it looked impressive from the outside.

His smirk made me wonder how much of my thoughts had shown on my face. “So, for the summer at least, you’re welcome to work upstairs. I can’t promise It’ll be quiet, but I’ll try to keep the distractions to a minimum.”

Somehow, I didn’t think I’d mind interruptions from him as much as the ones from my parents. “Thank you. That would really help me out. But… if I’m here too often, feel free to kick me out, okay?”

He laughed. “Deal—but if I’m going to kick anyone out, it’s Lulu. She still hates me.”

I snapped my fingers and smiled when the little dog trotted over from where she’d been curled up in the corner.

“Show off,” Xander said. The sexy wink he shot me made my insides melt. “Anyway, you can come over to work anytime you want. Well, anytime except tomorrow night.”

“Thanks,” I said, wondering what he was doing tomorrow night. It wasn’t my business. I shouldn’t ask. Don’t ask, don’t ask, I chanted to myself. “What’s tomorrow night?”

“I’m going out to dinner.”

“Oh.”

“With you.”

“Oh?”

He laughed at the expression on my face. “As a thank you. Seriously, I owe you big time. You made my mom’s last few months far more pleasant they would’ve been otherwise. I can’t thank you enough.”

“You just gave me lunch.” Wait, why the hell was I arguing against him taking me out to dinner? What the hell was wrong with me?

“A lunch your mother made. That doesn’t seem like much of a thank you. Of course, if you’d rather not go out to dinner—”

“No, I’d love to.” I said it so fast that he grinned that smug, superior grin at me, but at least my brain was working again.

Which was good because I only had about thirty hours to figure out what the hell I was going to wear.