I thud my official US Postal Service stamper on the envelopes in front of me in time to Elle King’s “Love Stuff” playing over the post office radio. With each postmark, I rock my hips, like I’m in the video dancing in the desert among upside-down semi-clad men.

Wouldn’t that be something.

But maybe it would be better if the men were standing. I imagine the men on their feet, handsome faces all turned in my direction.

Mmmm. Much better.

I mentally flip my golden brown hair, miraculously curl and frizz free, and run my hands down my not-so-curvy curves. Much can be achieved with a little imagination, including adding a few inches to my height. Maybe one of them should be wearing a suit—I do like a well-dressed man. Well, I did until my husband, Chris, lost his job as an accountant and traded in his suit for worn jeans, work boots, tight T-shirts, and a safety vest, and I discovered a whole new meaning of the word hot.

After watching Chris spend six months on the couch in a depression, my brother, Mike, offered him a job with his construction company, building the kind of houses we will never be able to afford. Six months of outdoor labor has bronzed his skin and toned up the muscles that had gone soft after years of shuffling papers around a desk. Gone are the love handles and belly that caused him so much grief. Now he has a real, honest-to-goodness six-pack and pecs that beg to be licked. Not that he would ever let me have a little taste. His libido died the day he was fired and it hasn’t come back.

Still, my imaginary men fade away until there is only one man. My man. The man I have loved for fifteen years and whom I think I’ve lost.

“Good afternoon, Lily.”

I look up only to stare into the face of a different kind of fantasy come true. Beautiful blue eyes set in a broad face, dark hair, chiseled jaw, and four days’ worth of stubble on a firm chin. Elle King, eat your heart out.

“Uh . . . ” My tongue flaps uselessly in my mouth and the stamper slips from my fingers. My lust-soaked brain struggles to register the gorgeousness that is Revival, Montana’s new dentist, Dr. Aiden Steadman.

I might be married and still love my husband, but I’m not dead, and Dr. Steadman ranks high on the fantasy list of pretty much every one of my friends—single or married.

Dr. Steadman smiles. I give up any hope of coherent conversation and raise my eyebrows in query.

“I saw Chris today for his annual checkup.” His voice is a soft, sinful rumble that whispers over my skin. Why couldn’t he be cursed with an ordinary voice, stained teeth, or thinning hair? Why couldn’t he have an over-fondness for beer, wings, and Sunday night football instead of spending his weekends playing soccer, running through Revival’s mountain trails, and lifting weights at the gym? This I know through Revival’s gossip queen, and my good friend and work colleague, the recently divorced Alexis Morales.

“I suggested he book an appointment for you, but he didn’t know your schedule, or even where you were working today,” Dr. Steadman continues.

My face heats and I drop my gaze to the abandoned stamper, lying forlornly on its side. How embarrassing. Now Dr. Steadman will know there’s trouble in our marriage. How many husbands don’t know where or when their wives work?

“My schedule changes every week.” I force a laugh. “Even I don’t know what it is half the time. I’ll give your office a call tomorrow to set something up.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

He’ll look forward to it? As in, he’ll make my appointment personally instead of shunting me off to his effervescent twenty-year-old receptionist, Gina, who doesn’t seem to have a single shirt with buttons above her naval?

I am immediately swept away in a torrid fantasy of Dr. Steadman seducing me after he’s cleaned and polished my teeth.

“Beautiful,” he whispers as he runs a thick finger over my gums. “Nothing is as sexy as a woman who takes care of her teeth.”

“I have a good incentive.” I give him a flirtatious wink, and he walks quickly across the room and opens the door.

“I won’t be needing you anymore, Tina,” he calls out. “Lock up on your way out.”

“Her name is Gina,” I remind him.

“Tina. Gina. I can’t think straight when I’m with you.” He locks the door behind him and prowls across the room to the chair, where I am lying languid after my cleaning. I hear a buzz and the back of the chair goes down, down, down until I am lying in a zero-gravity position looking up at his handsome upside-down face, which is now looking distinctly like Chris’s face.

“I guess I should get going,” I say innocently, although there is nothing innocent about the bulge behind his dentist’s coat, or the way my breasts have escaped my bra and are almost touching my chin.

“Lily.” He swallows hard and his Adam’s apple bobs in a sexy way. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Yes?”

“I think you have a package for me.”

“What kind of package?” I lick my lips and give him a sultry smile, realizing only when his face smooths to an expressionless mask that I am no longer in Oz.

Silence.

Kill me now.

“Uh . . . I meant, do you have a slip?”

He hands me a parcel slip. “Actually, there might be more than one.”

I stare at the paper in my hand and pray for the ground to open up and swallow me.

“May I have them, Lily?”

“Of course.” I crush the claim slip in my hand and through force of will alone manage to back up into the storage room, one painful, humiliating step at a time.

As soon as I am out of Dr. Steadman’s line of sight, I thud my fist against the shelf. Why does this always happen? I’m thirty-five and not eighteen, and my days of acting like a moron in front of drop-dead gorgeous men were supposed to be over when I married the love of my life.

After checking the package numbers against the codes on the crushed claim slip, I stack them four high and carry them toward the door. Dr. Steadman receives a lot of packages, all in identical unmarked brown boxes. Alexis figures they are supplies for his new dental office, but I like to imagine they contain something more exciting. How can a man as handsome and single as Dr. Steadman have nothing in his life except inspecting cavities and teeth? He has to have some dirty secrets.

Whirrr.

“Oh. Dr. Steadman. What are you doing?”

“This tool does more than polish teeth, Lily. The natural bristles are perfect for concave anatomies and the handpiece maintains a slow and steady 2500 rpm. It was a special order just for you.”

“Lily? You in here?”

Alexis’s voice pulls me out of yet another fantasy, and I shake it off. I have to stop my mind from wandering, but my fantasy life is so much more exciting than my everyday world that consists of working days at the post office and nights as a waitress at the local western-themed bar. I took the second job at ReTox Bar when Chris was laid off to pay the bills. Now I do it to get away from the sheer and utter loneliness of being in the house with Chris in the evening, knowing he doesn’t see me. It’s my childhood all over again.

“Behind the boxes.”

I recommended Alexis to my boss when my colleague, Jen, went on maternity leave. After her husband ran off with his secretary, Alexis needed a job to help pay the bills while she got her new bakery off the ground. Her position became permanent when Jen decided not to come back, but, with everyone communicating by email and the big stores handling their own deliveries, fewer and fewer people are using the postal service, and we know her days are numbered.

“You want some help?”

I catch a glimpse of Alexis out of the corner of my eye. Small and slim, with deeply tanned skin, her long dark hair dyed with purple streaks, Alexis has been my friend since fourth grade. Lacking in any kind of athletic ability, we bonded in the D squad in track and field and have been together ever since, save for the few years she went to college to study to be a chef.

Alexis is an amazing cook, but she never did anything with her Culinary Arts degree. Instead, she put her career on the back burner when she got pregnant, and put her skills into making incredible birthday cakes and treats for hockey away games. As soon as the ex was out of the picture, however, she used some of the settlement money to buy the town bakery from the retiring owners and she’s planning to reopen in just a few months.

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

“You can’t see over the boxes.”

“That’s the point. They’re for Dr. Steadman and I don’t want him to see my face. My brain shut down when he came up to the counter and smiled his Ken-doll smile. It’s like Rex Morgan all over again.”

Rex. The high school bad boy. I wanted him from the moment I saw him walking down the hallway of Revival High School with his shaggy blond hair, black trench coat, and Anarchy T-shirt stretched tight around his starving-musician frame. Unfortunately, I was rendered mute anytime I found myself in his presence, and the one time he did speak to me at a high school dance, I dumped a cup of punch down the front of my dress, slipped as I ran for the door, and spent a few hours in the ER with a mild concussion and a major case of humiliation.

“Actually, I heard Rex is back in town,” she says.

“What?” My head jerks to the side and I miss the small step between the back room and the front desk area. I stumble. Catch myself. But the boxes unbalance and scatter all over the floor. Instinctively, I cringe, waiting for the shout that doesn’t come, the mocking laughter, the cruel comments about my incompetence, and how I’ve got my mother’s lying, cheating, stupid, useless genes. No wonder my dad signed away his parental rights when I was nine years old.

“I’m sorry, Lily, but I can’t deal with you. I don’t want to be your dad. I don’t want to see you and be reminded of that bitch.”

“I’m so sorry.” I crouch down and gather the boxes in my arms under the amused gaze of Dr. Steadman, who is fortunately saved the embarrassment of crawling across the floor to retrieve his parcels by the counter between us. Over the years, I’ve learned how to be careful, to think about every step I make, and to keep my feelings buried deep inside. But something about Dr. Steadman rattles me, and when I’m around him, everything spills out. Just like it used to be with Chris long ago.

“No harm done, Lily.” His voice flows over me like liquid caramel, and I almost wish I had a cavity for it to fill.

“Actually, harm was done.” I place the packages on the counter and hold up the box that was on top of the stack, the corner dented and torn.

Dr. Steadman inspects the damage and shrugs. “It’s nothing. Probably happened en route.”

Although I would love to take the out, I’m an honest kind of gal. “I’m pretty sure it was me.”

“En route,” he says firmly.

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure. Don’t worry about it.” He pats my hand. “Did you know your eyes change from brown to green when you’re anxious?”

“Actually, they’re hazel. I think the color change is just a trick of the light.”

“Whatever it is, you have beautiful eyes, Lily.”

My cheeks heat to what feels like one thousand degrees. Dr. Steadman thinks I have beautiful eyes. Did I hit my head during the fall and wake up in an alternate universe? I can’t even remember the last time Chris complimented me.

“Um . . . thank you.” I pull a return slip from under the counter. “If you want to return the package to the sender in exchange for a new one, you’ll need to fill in one of these. I’m happy to cover the cost. After all, it’s my—”

“Why don’t you keep it?” He slides the package across the counter. “I think it’s something you and Chris might enjoy.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Something naughty.” He gives me a slow, lazy, suggestive smile and my knees go weak. Once upon a time, Chris looked at me like that, but those days are long gone.