By then, it was already too late to reach him.
Tammi tucked a towel around Fontana’s neck. “He’s different. We’ve seen each other here and there when he came back to town, a drink, nothing more.” Another tuck, an unnecessary bit of handling. “Maybe you’re why he’s changing. Kismet. One of those bizarre instances when you meet a person at just the right time. Neither looking, and boom! Two pieces of a puzzle fitting together perfectly.”
“There’s no kismet. No puzzle.” Noperfection. There was only a flaming-hot attraction. A sexy guy, a curious woman. Lust.
Anyway, Fontana didn’t believe in fate.
She believed in hard work. Discipline. Cautiousness. Preparation. She would have stuck her head in an oven years ago if she thought her past was her fate—a predetermined path she was set to follow instead of the wild ramblings of a fanatical man. Her father, tied to her in some spiritual way, like she could never,everget away from him.
She needed to give Tammi something to chew on or risk this conversation straying into territory she had no intention of entering.
“Campbell’s attractive. Talented.”Complicated.Fontana unfurled a twist at the neck of her cape because it was strangling her. “I’m not immune. I’d have to be blind not to noticehis appeal. But it’s not”—she hesitated—“we’ve just found…common ground. That’s all. Kit, for one.” She peeled her back off the seat, her gaze meeting Tammi’s in the mirror for a beat before skidding away.
The traitorous area between her thighs heated like Tammi had aimed a hair dryer straight at it.Dammit.“Just things,” she said, as the image of his hard body sliding over hers—his mouth, hungry and urgent, consuming her, devouring her—rippled through her like his touch.
If only she could forget those talented, wicked fingers of his.
Tammi wound a timer in the shape of a hatching egg and plunked it on the table. “I just wanted to tell you he’s kinder than he comes off. Tender underneath all the bluster.” She twirled her scissors like a gunslinger with a derringer, then slipped them into the apron tied around her waist. “Don’t give up, if you were thinking you might.”
Fontana made sure to avoid the mirror this time, truly afraid of what her gaze might reveal.
Tammi smiled, a wistful cant to her lips. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
“How long?” Fontana asked, pointing to the chemical mess on her head.
“Perfect, stubborn fit,” Promise’s stylist extraordinaire answered with a laugh. “Twenty minutes. If it’s not turning fast enough, we’ll move you under the dryer.” She touched Fontana’s shoulder, then hesitated. “Darling, don’t discount how special it is—how specialyouare—if he’s sharing his past with you. I’m telling you, it’d be a first.”
Fontana ducked her head, suddenly fascinated by the seam edging the cape, wondering if this could possibly be true.
chapter
seventeen
Joey –Concrete Blonde
FONTANA
The power went outbefore dinner.
Two brilliant flashes, then total darkness.
A storm rolled in with promised ferocity, tearing at limbs and sending rain pelting the windowpanes like pebbles. Fontana lit candles and fretted over the cedar elm she and Jaime had planted last week by the gazebo. By midnight, shivering beneath two blankets, she realized her cottage had grown cold and a little eerie.
A knock startled her, uneven thumps that sent her racing to the door, blanket trailing behind like the train of a dress. She peeked through the lace-edged curtain and found Kit standing beneath the portico, a yellow rain slicker nearly swallowing him whole. He held a flashlight before his face, but all she could see in the beam was the glint of metal on his teeth.
Campbell stepped into view, crowding Kit against the door.
He wasdrenched. Inky strands slicked to his glisteningcheeks, a soaked T-shirt clinging to the muscular ridges of his chest. The urge to run her hands over his jaw, slide them into his hair, and let him dampen her to the core was powerful.
Her pink, Jaime-encouraged underwear went up in proverbial flames.
With a trembling hand, she opened the door as the boys laughed and danced on the narrow landing, shaking themselves off like dogs.
“We have a generator! And guest bedrooms!” Kit shouted, spinning the flashlight around her kitchen like a disco ball. “And we know you don’t.”
“I have candles.” She gestured behind her.
“Hear that, kiddo? Light but no heat.”
