She balanced the plate of brownies in one hand, rang the doorbell and pasted on a bright smile.
That faded second by second as no one came to the door.
Dammit. She’d missed him again.
She kicked the door in frustration and turned to leave.
Her foot hit the top step when she heard the door behind her open.
Yes!
She pivoted quickly, fake smile firmly in place, with one foot on the porch and one on the top step.
The move wobbled her in her high wedges and she felt herself tipping and the brownies sliding. She was about to end up on her butt on his porch with chocolate down the front of her when a strong, warm hand grasped her elbow and another grabbed the plate.
“I love making your knees weak, but let’s not hurt anyone, okay?”
That voice. That deep, sexy, teasing voice…
She’d know it anywhere.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” She glared up at Tyler Bennett as he helped her stand, get steady on her feet and up on the porch before letting go of her.
Except, he didn’t let go of her.
He continued to hold her elbow. And stand way too close.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
Well, she’d meant to demand it. Her voice actually sounded a little breathless to her ears.
Probably from the near fall.
“Saving your…brownies,” he said with a smile.
No, not a smile. The smile. The one that made her stomach flip.
The one he wasn’t supposed to ever give her in Sapphire Falls.
She pulled her arm from his grip and stepped back. She smoothed her skirt, ran a hand over her hair and wet her lips. She’d known he was in town. She’d seen him just last week out at his brother’s house. He’d been visiting a lot this summer, but she had stubbornly refused to ask him why.
Now she knew why he was in town this time. “You know the guy who bought this house.” It wasn’t a question.
Of course he did. In spite of living in Denver, Ty had an unreal amount of knowledge about Sapphire Falls and what went on here.
Ty nodded slowly. “I do.”
She put her free hand on her hip. “And you didn’t think to mention that to me any of the times I’ve talked about not knowing who was moving in next door to me?”
Dammit. They’d been together three weeks ago. They’d been naked together three weeks ago. And he hadn’t thought about telling her he was friends with her new neighbor?
“I couldn’t mention it,” he said.
God, he looked good. Hailey tried not to be distracted by his lean, muscular body that swam, biked and ran for a living. But it was impossible. There was no way she couldn’t think about how great he looked when her entire body felt as if it was straining toward him.
He was in a simple T-shirt and jeans today and, having grown up around denim and cotton in all shapes and sizes, Hailey had to admit that blue jeans seemed made for showing off asses like Ty’s, and T-shirts were meant to cling lovingly to wide shoulders and flat abs.
His hair was longer than usual and looked windblown—which fit a guy who spent most of his time outdoors. He also hadn’t shaved today. It seemed that she shaved nearly every inch of her body, but she was a born-and-raised country girl, and scruff, tanned skin and big work-roughened hands did it for her.
She knew exactly how that scruff and those hands would feel rubbing over her—
“Hailey?”
She focused on his eyes. He was giving her a knowing grin.
She hated when he did that. When he knew things about her that she didn’t want him to know. It made him smug. And it made her aware of the things he didn’t know. The deal breakers. The reason she preferred ogling him and losing her mind over him in Denver.
She needed her mind and her pride when she was here in Sapphire Falls. She sighed. “Who is it?”
He chewed on the inside of his cheek, simply watching her as several seconds passed. She waited.
Finally, he seemed to make a decision. “Me.”
She expected him to grin or go on and explain that he was house-sitting for her new neighbor until he could move in. Or something.
But he didn’t say anything else.
Tyler Bennett teased her a lot. He gave her a hard time. He loved to rile her up just to rile her up.
But he didn’t look like he was kidding now.
No.
Her stomach knotted, dread trickled through her, and she started shaking her head. No. No. Ty lived in Denver.
Tyler was a triathlete who competed on the international stage. He’d left home for Colorado right after high school to train. He’d been entering and placing in the top three in races all over the world ever since, including a silver medal in the Olympics.
But it wasn’t gold, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had one of those too.
His training and constant striving for that number-one spot kept him in Colorado. Talk about personal space. She had five hundred and two miles of personal space. Oh, sure, he thoroughly invaded that personal space the second she set foot in Denver—and she loved every minute of it. But then she could retreat back to Sapphire Falls and breathe deep and recover and live her life.
While he lived his life.
In Denver.
“You?” she finally asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m your new neighbor.”
His grin was gone. His smugness was gone. In their place was a confident, direct gaze that told her he meant it. And that she was in big trouble.
This was not the teasing, fun-loving Ty who visited Sapphire Falls. This was the intense, I’m-in-charge Denver Ty who made her do things that…well, that she’d never do in Sapphire Falls.
That meant he wasn’t kidding.
And that meant they had to break up. Or she had to move.
