I could hear KC’s laughter in her next words, “She lies.”

I then heard a car approach and I looked from my wool to the drive.

I lived in a wooded area about a five-minute drive from town that looked half-Colorado, half-someplace else. This was because my Dad planted a bunch of trees all around, so we had conifers, we had aspen and we had everything else under the sun that would take in the arid climate. We also, which meant that now I also, owned an acre all around.

So with trees and land, my two-story, three bedroom, two and a half bath farmhouse was cozy, isolated and quiet.

Exactly the way I liked it.

Except for right then as I was sitting on a porch swing, having taken off my white going-into-town outfit. I’d put on a pair of red knit shorts that said “USC” in yellow across the butt (my brother’s alma mater) and a shelf-bra camisole that left little to the imagination. My face was clean of makeup. My hair was in a messy knot on top of my head. And my wits were partially washed away as I was well into my third glass of wine.

But I was going to need them.

And I was going to need them because a hunter green Jeep was approaching my house.

“Holy Moses, KC,” I whispered into the phone. “I’m watching a green Jeep drive up to my house.”

“No shit?” she whispered back.

She knew what this meant. Every girl in town, I figured, knew that Jeep.

“None at all.” I was still whispering.

“Ohmigod, is it him?” she asked.

The Jeep stopped close to my front walk.

I could see through the windshield.

This meant I stopped breathing, so I had to wheeze out my, “Yeah.”

“Holy f**k!” she shouted.

Raiden swung out of the Jeep.

My heart flipped over.

“I think I gotta go,” I told KC.

“You think?” she asked.

I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t.

Raiden Ulysses Miller and his big gorgeous body were walking up to my house.

“Report back the minute he leaves,” KC ordered.

“Righty ho,” I muttered the instant his boot hit the first step up to my porch.

I beeped the phone off and watched him climb the next four steps. Then I watched him saunter five paces to me where he stopped.

He did not speak.

I didn’t either.

His eyes moved from my hair to my feet to my hair again.

My eyes stayed glued to his eyes.

He turned his head around a bit and took in the porch.

I kept my head stationary and took in him.

Then his eyes came to mine. “Are you shittin’ me?”

I blinked.

“Sorry?” I asked.

He crossed his arms on his chest, making the muscles in his biceps bulge and the veins in his forearms pop. I was concentrating on taking in all this fabulousness so I might have missed the full orgasm, but I was relatively certain I had a mini one.

Then he smiled.

There it was.

The full orgasm.

It was a wonder I didn’t moan.

“Honey, you look straight out of a chick flick,” he remarked.

Again, I blinked.

Then, again, I asked, “Sorry?”

“Cute outfit. Glass of wine. Sexy, messy hair. Cute house that looks out of a magazine. Not a lick of makeup and you look prettier than any woman I’ve seen for over a year. Gabbin’ on the phone like you look this good, in a place that looks this good every day when that shit’s impossible.” He paused before he concluded, “Chick flick.”

Did he say sexy, messy hair?

And that I looked prettier than any woman he’d seen for over a year?

“Sorry?” I repeated yet again.

“Say that again, I’ll kiss you.”

Oh my God!

Did he say say that again, I’ll kiss you?

Kiss me?

I stared.

Then I swallowed.

What I did not do was speak.

Raiden was silent. So was I.

When this went on an uncomfortable while, I broke it.

“Can I ask at this juncture what you’re doing here?”

His lips twitched and he answered, “Yeah, baby, at this juncture, you can ask that.”

He said no more.

But he called me baby.

I didn’t look to confirm, and I was glad he didn’t either, seeing as I was relatively certain my ni**les were now hard.

Cripes!

When he remained silent, I asked, “What are you doing here?”

“You doin’ anything for your grandmother tomorrow night?” he asked back.

“Uh… no,” I answered.

“You hangin’ with that pothead and his pothead girlfriend?”

My head jerked at the way he referred to Bodhi and Heather, not to mention his knowledge of them and me spending time with them, but I replied, “No.”

“Then you’re free to go out to dinner with me.”

My chest compressed like Spot was lying on it and my lips parted.

Raiden’s eyes dropped to my mouth and his lips muttered, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Uh…” I mumbled, then stopped mumbling.

“I’ll take that as a yes, too,” he declared.

“I—” I started to say something. I had no clue what, but got no more out.

“I’ll be here tomorrow, six thirty. Not f**kin’ around with all the cute that’s you, we’re goin’ to a steak place, so you’ll wanna dress nice.”

All the cute that was me?

“I would request that white blouse you crawled around the pet store in,” he went on, and I felt my face start to heat at the reminder of my idiocy, which, clearly, Raiden didn’t recall as idiotic. “But everything I’ve seen you in since then is far from disappointing,” his eyes swept my chest and legs before coming back to my face, “so I’m lookin’ forward to the surprise.”

Was I asleep?

Was I dreaming?

How was this happening?

I said nothing because I feared, if I did I’d wake up, and I most certainly did not want to wake up.

His head cocked to the side. “You gonna be ready for me at six thirty?”

That required a response so I tested the waters.

“Yes.”

His eyes got lazy, my heart did a somersault and he murmured a rumbling, “Good.”

Then he turned, sauntered down my porch, my steps and to his Jeep.

He swung in, reversed at an angle and drove away.

I stared into the trees where I last saw him for minutes that seemed to last for hours.

Then I lifted the phone still in my hand, hit redial and put it to my ear.

Five minutes later, KC shrieked, “Seriously?”