I bit back a laugh. “What’s up with the socks?”
He tossed the towel to the floor and glared in my direction. Ignoring my question, he asked, “What do you want?”
My temper flared, and I remembered how angry I’d been while cleaning up the mess downstairs. “You’re a jerk,” I said.
Pressly’s brother stood from the bench and began loading on more weights as if I hadn’t spoken. My eyes dropped over his chiseled torso in a slow perusal, and all the blood rushed from my head. I felt dizzy, as if I’d forgotten to eat. His voice had sent a tingle of awareness straight to my belly, and even the smell of his sweat heightened my senses.
He didn’t spare me a glance as he finished loading the weights and lay down on the bench. He grunted his way through another set, counting under his breath.
Up, down, up, down went the heavy bar. Up, up, up went my temperature. The flex and strain of his bulging biceps hypnotized me. He could easily pick me up without even straining. Toss me onto the bed, the floor, the weight bench…I bit my lip.
“I’m the jerk?” he asked. “You’re the one setting off my alarm, interrupting my work, and insulting my style.”
I glanced at at his socks again. The ducks were wearing sunglasses. A guy who wore socks with ducks on them couldn’t be all bad,could he?
“You left Aslan out. He can’t be left out.”
He sat up and swung his leg over the bench. “Who are you?”
“I’m the dog walker, Lacey Donovan.” Not for the first time, I wished my parents would have given me a more serious name. Something literary like Zelda, or Isobel, or even Matilda would have suited me much better. Lacey sounded like something my grandmother set on her coffee table so cups of tea wouldn’t leave a mark…or someone who slid around on a pole.
He reached for the bar again, his muscles rippling. “We done here?”
Blindsided by my physical reaction to him, it took a moment for his words to sink in. I’d thought I was immune to good-looking men, but one look at him had me shocked to the core. It wasn’t as if I never saw handsome men. They came into the bookshop all the time, but I never felt a glimmer of interest. I usually liked my boyfriends between the pages of a book, but I wanted this man between the sheets.
I cleared my throat and tore my eyes away from his gorgeous form. “Yeah. That’s it.”
He grabbed his phone and tapped the screen. With a swipe of his finger, music filled the air. He nodded behind me in dismissal. “The door’s that way.”
Too stunned to say anything, I backed out of the room and closed the door. A moment later, I heard the whirring sound of mechanics as he locked the door.
Chapter 5
“Everyone’s gone,” I called to Thatcher, who was stacking books into a box behind the front desk.
“You deserve a raise, Lacey,” he said. “Only you can charm Dr. Underwood. She’s been coming into this shop for years and has never opened her purse for a purchase. Although she did hit me over the head with it one time.”
I laughed, picturing Dr. Underwood’s huge satchel flying through the air. “She’s just lonely.”
“You’re good with those lonely types.”
For some reason, people opened up to me. I was a magnet for drawing out people’s personal stories, even the ones they didn’t want to tell. Pressly had told me all about her marriage and divorce the first time I’d met her, and Dr. Underwood had told me all about her illustrious career as one of the first female doctors in the area. I should have been a therapist instead of a bookshop clerk and dog walker.
“You want a drink?” I asked Thatcher, on my way into the café.
“Coffee.”
“Again?”
“Lay off, Lacey.”
Thatcher was renovating his family’s historic house, intent on making it livable after decades of neglect. Lately he’d been working all day at the bookshop, then staying up all night doing manual labor.
“You need sleep,” I said, pointing a finger at him.
“Yes, Mom,” Thatcher grumbled. “Heavy on the cream. I’ll sleep after I get the cabinets finished.”
Although Thatcher tried to keep his tone light, he didn’t fool me for a minute. His lack of sleep had less to do with his renovation project than with his nightmares. Thatcher never talked to anyone about his time in the Army, but he’d let a few things slip with me.
