Sassy Blonde - Stacey Kennedy Page 0,10

eyes, and yet, she understood, having been so lost herself.

The beautiful, expensive property that Hayes bought when he moved back to River Rock had been gorgeous when she’d come for the spreading of Laurel’s ashes on the weeping willow hanging over the creek. Now, without him mowing the lawn or tending to the property, everything was overgrown. The three-bedroom house had no furniture. Hayes slept on a camping mat on the floor, the curtains on the windows were drawn. The darkness of the place was near stifling.

She’d been right where he was. Until her sisters’ love brought her back to life.

Determined to get Hayes there too, she moved to the curtains and whisked them open, letting the sunlight spill inside. She turned back, finding Hayes lying curled on his side, looking thin, his hair long, his beard far past scruffy. “You’re getting up,” she told him. “We’re going outside.”

When he didn’t move, she dropped to her knees next to him. He rolled onto his back and she placed her hand on his chest. “Laurel would be devastated if she saw you like this. You’re going to get up and face each day, with me here, until we both have some kind of life worth living.”

Tears welled in his eyes. His fingers wrapped around her wrist tight. “I’ve got nothing left.”

“That’s not true,” she said, hearing the raw emotion in her voice. “You’ve got me.” She grabbed the blanket and yanked it off, paying no attention to the fact that he was naked. She tossed him the jeans that rested in a heap on the floor next to him. “Get dressed. I’m making you breakfast.”

Maisie blinked away the memory of the day Hayes had become her friend, instead of just Laurel’s husband. They’d come through dark times together, and they had history together. So much history. Some good. Some bad. Some unimaginably painful. But this new thing that had sprung out of nowhere over the last few months made her cheeks hot, and she averted his gaze. What was once friendly between them had become taut with tension that seemed to get tighter every day. This man staring at her wasn’t broken anymore. Hunger lived in his eyes. “You need to stay here,” she told him. “Let them look you over.”

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice lower than before.

Not wanting to, but knowing she had to, she slowly took her hand off his chest, watching her fingers drag against the hard muscles, feeling like touching him wasn’t all that friendly anymore. “I’ve been here all day,” she pointed out. “You can endure getting looked over.”

He held her stare. “Fine, I’ll get looked over. But there”—he glared at the nurse—“is no way in hell I’m staying the night.”

The nurse turned away, but even Maisie saw her roll her eyes as she left the room.

Beckett laughed.

Maisie nudged Hayes’s shoulder. “Be nice. You’re really annoying her.”

Hayes snorted, lying his head back against the pillow, staring up at the ceiling, that muscle in his jaw twitching again. “Believe me, the feeling is mutual.”

Hayes counted the tiles on the ceiling to calm the erection he sported from Maisie’s touch. Maisie smelled like sunshine and wildflowers, and he hadn’t realized how much he liked that smell until one day a couple of months ago. The day that changed everything. His eyes shut as that pleasing scent wrapped around him, bringing him back to the day he realized Maisie was breathtakingly beautiful.

“Right there,” Maisie said, standing in Hayes’s living room, watching as he moved the couch against the wall across from the big window. “Yup, that’s perfect.” She smiled and approached. “Dare I say, you actually have a gorgeous living room?”

He laughed. “Yes, I think you can.” For the last six months, she’d been helping him shop for furniture. He’d put it off for over a year, but slowly, she helped make his house a home. When he’d moved from Denver, he sold his house with everything in it, except for one box holding all his memories with Laurel. He couldn’t go back in the house, not after Laurel’s murder.

Maisie plopped down on his new dark gray couch, and the movement caused her cleavage to bounce. His cock, he thought long dead, twitched. “Come on,” she said. “We must celebrate with a movie.”

His mind went to thoughts of celebrating on his couch…but doing something else entirely. He shoved the thought from his mind and grabbed beers from the fridge before he returned to her, finding her settled back