Beckett gave Gianna until the following afternoon to cool off before attempting his apology again. He knew she was avoiding him. That much was obvious from her skilled brush-off the night before. But the longer he waited, the worse he felt about it. Not only had he accused her father — a man she held in the highest esteem — of taking advantage of and intruding on the Pierce family, but he had then shown no qualms about dragging Gianna into the midst of a dispute with his brothers and making her settle it.

He thought about flowers as an apology accessory, but decided it would send the wrong message. A houseplant, however, was an unromantic, friendly gift, wasn’t it?

He swung his SUV into the parking lot of Every Bloomin’ Thing after his last appointment of the day. The tiny florist shop, tucked between a hair salon and handmade pottery studio, worked in partnership with Gordon Berkowicz’s seasonal garden center on the edge of town. While Blue Mooners flocked to the garden center for all their spring and summer landscaping needs, they came to Gordon’s younger sister for year-round blooms.

Stepping inside the shop always made him think he was entering a rain forest. The air was thick with the scent of hundreds of blooms. A bubbling indoor water garden provided a peaceful backdrop of noise and color just inside the front door.

From the ceiling hung dozens of planters spilling over with greenery and color.

He found Elizabeth, wearing a lime green smock, behind the counter arranging orange roses and succulents into a glass vase. She wore her curly hair pinned up under a wide paisley headband. Chunky bronze earrings dangled from her ears.

Her make-up-free face brightened when she spotted him.

“Well, hello there, Mr. Mayor. What brings Blue Moon’s fearless leader into my shop today?”

“Hey, Liz,” he greeted her and leaned against the counter, content to watch her work. “I was in the market for a houseplant.”

She efficiently snipped off the ends of the stems before tucking the shears back into her pocket. “Is this a green friend for you or a gift?”

“A gift.”

He watched Liz snake a royal purple ribbon around the neck of the vase with deft fingers. “And what is she like?”

“How do you know she’s a she?” Beckett countered.

Liz arched an eyebrow at him. “Would you buy a man-friend a houseplant?”

“Good point.”

“So, what’s she like? Classical, romantic, studious, serious, playful?”

Beckett brought the image of Gia collapsing out of her handstand and laughing to mind.

“Playful … and romantic.”

“A free spirit?” Liz tucked a blank card into the arrangement she’d just finished.

“Definitely. She likes to laugh. She’s very … warm.”

“And what’s the occasion?”

An apology for being an asshole, Beckett thought.

“Housewarming,” he said instead.

“I’ve got the perfect thing,” Liz said, wiping her hands on a towel. “Come with me.”

She led Beckett through a tangle of hanging plants and potted ferns to a corner display of glass globes. “This is what I’m thinking,” she said, holding up one of the globes. Tucked inside were tiny airy plants and mosses.

“A fairy garden,” Beckett said, lifting the globe higher. “It’s perfect. It’s exactly her.”

“We’ll make one just for her,” Liz said, collecting plants and opening drawers.

In the end, Beckett settled on an open globe that was flat on the bottom. They selected tiny tufts of moss and delicate stalks of greenery and tucked them into the globe on a foundation of rich earth.

“Any fairy accessories?” Liz asked.

After a considerable amount of deliberation, Beckett chose a delicate bench made out of twigs and two river rocks with the words family and home etched into them.

“You’re very good at this,” Liz said, leading him back to the cash register. “Any time you want to give up mayoring and the law, you come see me. I’ll put you to work.”

“Thanks, Liz. I’ll keep that in mind next time the town meeting runs amuck,” Beckett grinned.

* * *

Prize in hand, Beckett didn’t even bother going inside when he got home. He marched down the driveway and around the garage to the backyard.

He hopped up onto the front porch of the guesthouse and rapped on the door.

“Come in.” He heard Evan and Aurora call out together.

Beckett pushed open the front door and stepped inside. Aurora was sitting on the stairs, her little chin in her hands. “Hi, Bucket,” she said sadly.

A dejected Evan was frowning at the laptop on the dining table and reluctantly making notes with a pencil and paper.

The mood was definitely somber.

“What’s going on?” Beckett asked.

“We’re being punished,” Evan sighed heavily.

“I’m in time out,” Aurora piped up.

“And Gia’s making me write a 100-word essay on the poetry of some guy named Rumi.”

“Where’s your … Gianna?” Beckett asked.

“In da shed,” Aurora answered. “Can you ask her if I can be done in time out, Bucket? Please?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised. “Evan, if your essay goes by word count, make sure you copy and paste some of the poems. That’ll make it longer.”

Evan perked up. “Nice! Thanks!”

Beckett headed back outside to the shed in the corner of his fenced in lot. He’d never used it and had thrown it in with the rental of the guesthouse for additional storage. He was a little curious to see what Gia was storing in the shed. She didn’t seem like the years of paperwork kind of woman. Maybe she had a secret crafting hobby. Scrapbooking, perhaps?

Nope.

A wooden tug on the door revealed his little redheaded fairy whaling on a heavy bag.

She was still dressed for class in a tank top and tights, he watched the muscles in her shoulders and arms ripple with each punch.

Gianna was in the beat down zone. Her hands were wrapped, her feet were bare, and earbuds prevented her from hearing him open the door.

The bag, suspended from one of the shed’s rafters, was the only item inside the shed.

Beckett crossed his arms and watched. The longer she beat on the bag, the madder she looked.

She spotted him as she swung around for a spin kick and bared her teeth.

Spoiling for a fight, he thought. Gianna yanked the buds out of her ears and rounded on Beckett. “I suppose you’re here to pile on, too? Maybe tell me what a horrible man my father is again? Or accuse me of stalking you? Or how about you just jump on the bandwagon and try to drive me insane, too?”

He instinctively put his hands up. “Whoa.”

“I am not a horse!” She drilled a slim finger into his chest and glared up at him. She let out a hiss of exasperation and turned back toward the bag. “Get out!” Her small fist plowed into vinyl, making the chains above jingle.

Beckett decided to take his life in his own hands. He stepped further into the shed and nipped her around the waist.

Swinging her around, he pushed her back against the plywood wall and held her in place by the shoulders. “Take a breath,” he ordered.

“I’m a yoga instructor. I know how to breathe,” she hissed.

She was spectacular. Her flaming curls escaping their confines to frame her face. Those green eyes crackled with energy and anger. A flush tinged her ivory skin. Her chest heaved with every breath.

“Now I know what ‘she’s beautiful when she’s angry’ means.”

She growled at him.

Beckett had meant to keep those words to himself. But having the spitfire in his arms was making him careless.

Gianna tried to shrug out of his grasp, but he merely tightened his hold. When he saw the glint in her eyes, he stepped in closer so she couldn’t kick him.

“Talk,” he said.

“Why should I talk to you? Dr. Jekyll Mr. Pierce.” She struggled against him and then stomped her foot. Gianna closed her eyes and took a deep breath and then another one. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I shouldn’t be taking my mood out on you.”

“I came here to apologize to you. Not the other way around.”

“Still, I shouldn’t be venting negativity on anyone.” She paused and frowned up at him. “Even you.”

He thought it wise to contain his laughter. “That’s very kind and mature of you. Now, I’d like to apologize for being a horrible ass the other day at the gym. I was upset and I targeted you unfairly. I’m very sorry for what I said and the way I treated you.”

“Apology accepted.”

“Just like that?” Most of the fight seemed to have left her. But it had been replaced with resignation.

Gianna tried to shrug her shoulders under his hands. “It’s fine. It happens.”

“It’s not fine and it shouldn’t happen. And I want you to know that I’ve felt like crap about it since Monday morning.”

Her lips quirked. “That does make me feel slightly better.”

“I also want you to know,” Beckett said, leaning in slightly to look into her eyes, “that it was completely out of character for me.”

“I know,” she sighed.

“How?” he asked, brushing a curl back from her face and tucking it behind her ear.

“I know you.”

“We just met,” Beckett argued.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t know you,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Are you trying to convince me that you’re not the good, solid, thoughtful man I thought you were?”

Beckett frowned. “No. I just expected that I’d have some proving to do to make you believe me.”

“What does it matter what I think of you?” Gianna asked, tilting her head to the side. The skin of her neck was dotted with tiny beads of sweat. Some joined together to trickle lower, winding their way down her chest to the valley between her breasts.

“I don’t know, but it does,” Beckett told her. He gave in and traced that delicate line from her neck to her shoulder before brushing a finger over her collarbone.

She didn’t stop him, merely watched him curiously.

“I knew something — besides me on an elliptical — must have upset you Monday,” she said, drawing his attention back to her face, her mouth.

“It was my father’s birthday, and, at the time, I thought I was the only one who remembered.”

He saw it then, the rush of compassion in her eyes, the softening of her face. “Oh, Beckett. I’m so sorry. That must have hurt.”

“It was a false assumption that had me remembering how lucky I am to have my family. Now, let’s talk about you. What brings you to the shed today? And don’t think that I’m going to let the irony of the yoga instructor beating the shit out of a punching bag slide by.”

Gianna sighed again. “If I were a camel I’d be covered in straw.”

“An interesting way of saying lots of little things upset you?”

“Leading the witness,” Gianna teased. Her wry smile loosened some of the knots he’d carried in his gut for the past few days.

“I’m a good listener. You can tell me and I won’t judge — because I can’t, I’m just a lawyer. I won’t tell anyone either, because I think this counts as attorney-client privilege.”

She took another deep breath and he thought she might be brushing him off again, but she surprised him by relaxing in his arms.

“I was upset already by a conversation with the kids’ dad this afternoon. And when I brought them home, Aurora announced that So-and-So’s mommy lets her have a cellphone and an iPad and by that logic I’m mean and she hates me because I’m not running out to the store to buy expensive technology for her five-year-old self. Then I get an email from Evan’s teacher who tells me he hasn’t bothered turning in his homework two days in a row. And this is after he’s told me that he finished it in school and that ‘everything at school is going fine.’”

“Monsters,” Beckett said, shaking his head. She rewarded him with a small smile.

“So I put Aurora in time out and gave Evan a homework assignment that he has to do for me before he can start on his school work, which I will now be checking every night. And then I came out here to release my aggression so I don’t maim my children.”

“Do they know they have a heavy bag to thank for a life free of maiming?”

“They think I’m meditating.”

Beckett chuckled. “Do you want to talk about your conversation with your ex?”

Gianna shook her head. “It will all work out. It always does.”

She closed her eyes and took another slow, deep breath. Beckett was so close he could see the freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose.

“Ready to go back in?” he asked her.

She shook her head again and kept her eyes closed tight. “No.”

“What if, as part of my apology, I order pizza and you and the kids can join me for dinner?”

He glimpsed green through her lovely, long lashes as she opened her eyes and studied him. “You’re lucky that I’m avoiding complications for the foreseeable future, because you’re very tempting right now,” she told him in a husky whisper.

“Temptation is bad,” Beckett said, stepping in until his shoes brushed her bare toes.

“This would be such a bad idea,” Gianna said, bringing her hands to his chest. But instead of pushing him away, her fingers gripped the lapels of his jacket. “I have kids.”

“I’m your landlord.” He lowered his face to hers stopping just a millimeter above her fully, rosy lips.

“Our parents are —”

He cut off her reply by bringing his lips to hers. Softly, sweetly, he felt her mouth come to life under his. Experimenting, tasting, teasing.

Beckett brought his fingertips to her neck, cupping her face he tilted her head back. She opened her mouth for him on a sigh and he took advantage of the invitation. His tongue swept in to taste her and the second it touched hers, the playfulness disintegrated.

He was hungry for her. Starving. Beckett didn’t realize he was shoving her back against the plywood wall, didn’t know that the hands that gripped her slim, strong arms were bruising.

Those sexy little whimpers Gianna was making had him fully hard in the space of a heartbeat. She tasted exotic, dangerous. Addicting. He flexed his hips into her, and groaned as she instinctively pressed back against him.

Beckett felt a growl rumble low in his throat and pulled back. He had to hold Gianna against the wall to keep her from following his mouth. Her hands were fisted in his jacket. Her lips were swollen from the aggressive assault on her mouth. And those eyes with all the depths of the oceans were glassy and dazed. Even more tendrils had escaped the hair band to hang down, tempting him.

He was honest enough to admit that he wanted her more than he could ever remember wanting any woman.

“What was that?” she whispered, trying to catch her breath.

“That was a mistake,” he said, dropping his forehead to hers. A shed. He’d kissed her in a shed. Where had his moves gone? He was king of the seduction. But with Gianna he was dissolved into a man with a hard-on in a garden shed.

A man with a hard-on in a garden shed kissing a woman he had no intention of seducing, he reminded himself.

“We can’t do this,” Gianna said, shaking her head to clear it.

“No. We can’t.”

He would have stepped back, would have released her from his grip, but she brought her mouth to his. Again, twin passions ignited and flared. His hands traveled from her shoulders to her hips. Cruising over those dangerous curves, they moved higher, skimming her ribs to rest under her soft breasts.

He was losing himself in the heat. “Baby,” he whispered against her busy lips. “We have to stop.”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, stealing his breath without backing off.

“Gianna.” Beckett brought his hands to her face and gently forced her back.

“I’m sorry. What were we talking about again?” she asked breathlessly.

Beckett yanked her against him for a hug, crushing her to him. “We were talking about how we aren’t going to do this.”

“Right. I forgot,” she said, snuggling into his chest. “I have kids that I need to think about. I’ve made too many mistakes already and they’re depending on me to make this work.”

“Too many complications for both of us,” Beckett agreed, dropping a soft kiss on the top of her head. Her hair smelled like eucalyptus and lavender. “I’m not looking for anything serious.”

“And two kids means serious. They’d get attached.”

“The town would be booking wedding space if we started dating. Blue Moon would take it harder than the kids if we didn’t work out,” Beckett sighed.

“And it wouldn’t work out. I’d do something stupid or —”

“I would say something stupid and then we’d end up seeing each other all the time and it would be horribly awkward and —”

“I’d have to break my lease with you so I wouldn’t have to watch you mow the lawn shirtless, because that’s what you do in my fantasies. Plus, you don’t like my father and that’s a deal breaker.”

“I may have slightly misjudged your father, but that doesn’t mean I like him dating my mother.”

“That makes us practically brother and sister,” Gianna said. “That’s gross.”

“Really gross,” Beckett agreed.

She sighed and tilted her head back to look at him. “This doesn’t mean I’m not insanely attracted to you,” Gianna clarified.

“Right back at you, Red. If those two kids weren’t next door, you’d already be naked.”

“Well, that’ll keep me up tonight.”

Beckett leaned down and gently kissed the tip of her nose. “You should probably get back in there before they decide to see who can fit in the microwave. They looked pretty miserable when I stopped in.”

“It’s a trick. Don’t fall for the puppy eyes. Especially Rora’s. She’s got them down to a science.”

“I’ll say. I felt like my guts had been ripped out and then trampled.”

“I’m suddenly in a much better mood,” she said with a slow grin.

“Happy to help. I’d say anytime, but if we do this again it won’t stop at kissing.” It was a dark promise.

He turned her around and pushed her through the door in front of him.

“What’s this?” she asked, spotting the glass globe on the ground.

“I forgot. It’s your housewarming slash apology-for-being-an-asshole gift,” Beckett said, picking it up and handing it over.

“Beckett!” She peered through the glass. “It’s a fairy garden. I’ve always wanted one — how did you know?” She looked up at him, wonder and surprise written all over her beautiful face.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said gruffly.

“Like what?”

“Like you want to go back in the shed.”

Her face transformed to a wicked temptress. “Oh, but I do,” she said with a slow wink.

“Gianna, get in your house, now,” he ordered.

“Thank you, Beckett. For everything.”

“Bring the kids over in half an hour. And for God’s sake, please wear something baggy.”