back the curtains that Reena and Alice had helped her sew. The seams weren’t exactly straight, and the lengths were a little mismatched, but Katie told herself that it only gave them charm. After all, wasn’t shabby chic supposed to be all the rage?
Her neighbor, the enigmatic Brian Williams, was mowing the grass. The man obviously thrived on a schedule. He cut the grass every Thursday morning like clockwork. And every Thursday morning, Katie set her alarm for six am so that she wouldn’t miss the six-foot-four piece of man meat out in his low-slung basketball shorts and little else.
There were tattoos on his chest and shoulder that she guessed were from his time in the Marines. Katie wasn’t embarrassed to admit she had run a background check on the man. After all, he was her new neighbor, and the girls, Alice and Reena, seemed to dote on him.
It was her civic duty as the new deputy.
Guilt pricked at her veins. Her duties hadn’t consisted of swiping one of the pictures of Brian and bringing it home to drool over whenever she had a free moment.
The man was drop-dead gorgeous and about as friendly as a porcupine. Katie had taken him a plate of cookies when he moved into the bungalow next to hers. How was she to know that she misread the recipe and accidentally left out the sugar? It wasn’t like she baked often.
He turned, and she caught a glimpse of his six-pack. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to fall from her perch at the sink. Katie wasn’t quite tall enough to see him unless she climbed up onto the counter. A sacrifice that, clearly, she was willing to make.
He wiped his brow, and the muscles in his chest and arms rippled with effect.
Damn, all she needed was some music, and it was almost as good as porn.
Visions of Brian doing naughty things to her made Katie a little absentminded. So when she looked up again and saw that he was staring directly at her, she screamed, and the office cup in her hand went flying as she fell backward onto the kitchen floor.
Brian took clothes to the cleaners on Monday, paid bills on Tuesday, laundry was relegated to Wednesday, and Thursday was yard work. Organization had always been his strong suit. Growing up with a single mother, he had often been left on his own.
He felt antsy unless he had a plan or a mission. Perhaps that was why he did so well with the Marines. One’s schedule was always set in place, with standards and precision. He executed it beautifully.
He ran his business the same way. Brian knew that people thought his business was a small, American-made PI firm, and Brian worked hard for this impression. However, the truth was that through his contacts and with his brilliant business skills, he had made the company into a multi-million, soon to be billion, dollar venture.
The thing was that Brian wasn’t about a life of wealth. His natural father had never claimed him. Money and his position in this world far more important to him than his flesh and blood. Money wasn’t a driving force in Brian’s life.
The only reason he had decided to make Otterville Falls his home was that his half-brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces were here. When Brian’s mom passed away, this was all the family left in the world. That was what mattered to him.
He didn’t drive a fancy car, and he didn’t build a fancy house. In fact, the home he bought recently was a 1945 bungalow that needed restoration, much of which Brian wanted to do himself. He liked working with his hands and seeing the fruits of his labor.
What he hadn’t bargained for was the sexy new neighbor.
Just the thought of Katie McCleary had his dick twitching in his boxers. The woman was small and fiery, with red hair and a temper to boot. She had these amazing tits that had to be real. At the very least, he was dying to find out. And she had an ass that wouldn’t quit. She was also in law enforcement and strictly off-limits.
Katie McCleary had ‘wife and children’ written all over her.
Brian was a PI and dealt with the shittier parts of life. Spouses cheating on each other, swinger couples gone wrong, murders, theft: you name it, and he had uncovered or exposed it. Brian wasn’t husband-and-father material.
He saw the way that his brother Mark was with Sutton. The two of