* *
GRAY NARROWED HIS EYES, but the vision didn’t change. Big brown eyes locked on his. Those sweet, lush lips parted. Color filled her cheeks.
It was her, but an all-new version of her. A softer, sexier version, though how that was possible, he didn’t know, because every night for a freaking month he’d remembered her as so damned sexy, he felt obsessed.
Neither of them spoke. Hell, he didn’t know what to say.
Let’s go for round two didn’t seem appropriate.
Shohn Hudson and Adam Sommerville, cousins he’d met before, suddenly flanked her.
Cocking a brow, expression cautious, Shohn asked, “Problem?”
Yeah, about a hundred of them. Gray didn’t know her name, didn’t know why she was here, didn’t know if she remembered him or was horrified at seeing him again or if, God willing, she’d like to get reacquainted.
Adam slipped his arm around her and, yeah, that was another problem. Don’t let her be married. Or even involved. In any way.
“You’re new,” Gray finally said, regaining his voice, rough and low as it sounded. His interest must’ve been obvious given how both Adam and Shohn looked at her again, almost as if they’d never seen her before.
She cleared her throat, worked up a very bright, false smile, and stepped away from the two men with her hand extended. “Hello. I’m Lisa Sommerville. Adam’s sister.”
Related? Now that she’d said it, he could see it. She and Adam shared similar dark eyes. And if they were siblings, that’d make Hudson her cousin. Nice. Only related, not involved. He could work with that.
Tucking a small box of candy bars under his left arm, Gray accepted her hand and held on. “Gray Neely.” Her hands were as small and soft as he remembered, her skin just as warm.
Her scent every bit as stirring.
She tugged, and he had no choice but to let her go. “Actually,” she said, now a little breathless, “I’m local. You’re the new one.”
An accusation? “So you live here?” That’d be too much of a coincidence—the first good luck he’d had in a year.
Her chin lifted. “Yes.”
A slow smile growing, Adam looked between them. “Lisa’s a shark, usually away wheeling and dealing with the big dawgs in business.”
“She’s settling back in for a spell, though,” Shohn added.
“Maybe just the summer,” she was quick to say.
Tipping his chin, Shohn asked, “You two know each other?”
Gray waited, and sure enough Lisa—pretty name—said too quickly, her voice a little high, “No.”
Okay, he got that. Their time together wasn’t really the sort you discussed with a brother or cousin.
“Not yet,” Gray corrected, and watched her face go warm. He nodded at the hat she held. “Good idea. Going to be a scorcher today.” And with that he continued on his way, restocking the candy bars on the shelf.
He heard whispering, curiosity from the guys, insistence from Lisa.
Damn, he really liked that name. It suited her.
Nice that he could now add it into the repeat fantasy that played in his head every other minute. That fantasy had been his recent salvation.
He’d met her on a desperate night during a time when nothing made sense and he hadn’t known which way to turn. She’d been fighting her own demons and things had just...happened.
Scorching-hot things that had burned away his indecision and the pain of forced changes. For the remainder of the night they’d stayed tangled in erotic activity. He’d finally passed out, exhausted, sated, his brain blessedly clear of guilt and anger, her slim body held in his arms.
When he woke in the morning, she was gone.
But he’d tackled the day with a new outlook on life, and ended up in Buckhorn.
Now she was here, in the flesh, close at hand.
Glancing up, he saw the guys were teasing her and felt safe approaching again. “So how many of you are there in the area? Your family is large, right?”
Lisa moved on, pretending to consider the healthy snacks, but Adam and Shohn remained. “There’s a bunch of us,” Adam said, launching into a recitation of the many relatives, some of whom Gray had met, some he hadn’t.
They were an impressive lot, and from what he could tell, they influenced a lot of the town. “I need to take notes to keep you all straight.”
“Amber could help you with that. She’s Garrett’s sister.”
“Met her,” Gray said. Amber Hudson was beautiful, with dark hair and bright blue eyes and a smile that’d win over the darkest heart.
She also scared the pants off him. She had a bold manner and a controlling streak that kept him two cautious steps away. Not that two steps had been far enough. Within five minutes of meeting him she’d managed to get more info out of him than the rest of her relatives combined.
When Lisa looked up at him, he felt it. Her brows were slightly pinched, her expression uneasy. Because he’d met Amber?
Needing her to understand, to know his intent, he stepped away from Shohn and Adam and approached her. “If you stay, what will you do?”
She breathed a little faster. “Do?”
Yeah, he liked the way her mind worked. Suppressing a smile, he said, “Jobwise.”
“Oh.”
Now she just looked flustered, and that was so different from the confident woman she’d been with him before that he had to feel his way carefully. “You are staying, right? That’s what your cousin said.”
She snatched up a granola bar, stared at it and put it back.
Indecisive? That, too, was different, but he didn’t mind. He took a step closer, near enough to inhale the scent of her sun-warmed skin and hair. God, he remembered that scent, how it had mingled with his own when he’d moved over her, both of them naked.
“I’m not... I don’t know yet.” She licked her bottom lip, glanced past him to her relatives, saw they were chatting up some other customers and stared up at him with those big, soulful eyes.
“Shh,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”
She swallowed.
“Far as anyone knows, or will ever know, this is the first time we’ve met.” By sheer force of will he kept his hands to himself when what he really wanted, what he needed, was to touch her, to pull her small, soft body in against his—again. “You have my word.”
She released a tense breath. “Thank you.” As her cousin and brother drew near again, she added, “I haven’t left my job. I mean, I tried to. I gave my four weeks’ notice, but they countered with another promotion. I declined and they requested that I take the summer to think about it. So I guess I’m on a hiatus.”
That night in the dim hotel bar in Chicago, she’d been teeming with restless energy. But here, now, he could see the remnants of exhaustion. Bone deep. The type of tiredness a person learned to live with.
He understood that, since he’d felt it himself many times. “They must appreciate you.”
She nodded.
“What is it you do?”
Before she could answer, Shohn bragged on her. “She’s a top-notch troubleshooter.”
“Meaning she goes to businesses that are in trouble,” Adam explained, “and analyzes