Page 31 of The Woman By the Lake

But it hit him when her expression turned instantly confused, as it would. “How long have you lived in your house?”

Fuck.

“Three years.”

Her chin shot into her neck. “No one’s been in this cabin for that long? How long did it take to renovate?”

Fuck.

“Six weeks.”

“But…I mean, when did you renovate it?”

Fuck!

“Before I moved into my house. Renovating here, I saw my place was on the market. I bought it while I was doing up this pad.”

Sluggishly, her head turned to look at the back door, and he knew why, because he’d done the work, and he prided himself on doing solid work. The best. One of the reasons why he was so busy, because that was his reputation.

Brenda’s décor might alienate half the population, but it was still nice, and the reno was fantastic, and because it was hard to rent—or hard to keep rented—the rental fees were rock bottom. The same could be said for his house, though he didn’t tell her that. But he’d gotten it for a song.

Which would of course make Nadia confused.

When she came back around, she put her wineglass to her lips, but she didn’t take a sip.

She spoke into it while staring at the moonlight on the lake. “I haven’t spent much time in town, but it looks like a cute place. My understanding is, it’s pretty touristy. I don’t get it.”

Riggs shifted uneasily.

Her gaze went from the lake to him, and she surmised, “There’s a reason.”

“Nadia—”

Her brows drew down and pinched at the bridge of her nose, “Please tell me you didn’t run off all of Dave and Brenda’s tenants so you could throw wild parties.”

He busted out laughing.

“I’ll take that as a no,” she said through his laughter.

“I like my lake, Nadia, but I like Dave and Brenda too, and I’m not that much of a dick.”

“Well, I should say at this juncture, even though it behooves me to do so…”

Fuck.

She said behooves.

He fought busting out laughing again.

She kept speaking.

“But perhaps I was in a wee bit of a bad mood when I forbade you to run through my yard. And Dave left me your phone number. I could have called and told you how I felt about your party and not, erm…woken you post-in flagrante delicto.”

And now she was saying in flagrante delicto.

This woman.

“We were post-coital, not post-in flagrante delicto,” he disputed. “Courtney’s not taken.”

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