Page 20 of Beg, Borrow, or Steal

Suitably clothed, flashlight in hand, I’m off to storm across the front yard. We’re still a few days away from June and already the humidity is oppressive, licking at my neck and making the baby hairs around my temples curl up.

When I make it to the front of the house, I sail up the three front porch steps (feeling thankful I didn’t fall through from how rotted they look) and knock on the door. And when Jack doesn’t stop hammering immediately, I knock louder, my knuckles stinging a little against the wood.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he was purposely ignoring my knocks.

Sweat gathers on my back as I wait and wait and wait until I reach the conclusion that he’s not coming to the door, and he’s not stopping the racket anytime soon either.

I leave the porch and walk around to the side of the house and face the window of the room where the construction seems to be loudest. There’s a light on, but I can’t see Jack. And because of the way the house was built up off the ground, I can’t reach the window either. There’s got to be a way to get his attention.Oh…hello, water hose.

A minute later, after unwinding the hose and turning on the water, I aim it at the window, click the nozzle to firehose-level pressure, and let her rip. The sound of water crashing into the window is so loud that even I jump.

The hammering immediately ceases.

Some primal instinct insists I turn tail and run before I’mcaught, but I hold my ground and continue blasting the water, waiting until Jack surfaces at the window so I can properly tell him what I think of his construction after dark. He never shows, though, and my shoulders hunch in disappointment as I cut the water off.

“Are you finished watering my window?”

I squeal, drop the hose, and whirl around, raising my hands in the air at the sound of his voice behind me. And then when I realize it’s just him and not the sheriff coming to take my ass to jail—although I would kindly remind Tony that I bought eight boxes of his daughter’s Girl Scout cookies this year and it would probably get me off the hook—I drop my hands to my hips.

“What do you think you’re—”

He frowns and holds up a finger, cutting me off. I watch him remove an earplug from his ear.So that’s how he can stand the noise.

Unfortunately, it’s at this moment that I take in the full state of him. Jack—the second-grade teacher who has worked across the hall from me for the last three years in trousers and colorful sweaters and button-downs—is wearing nothing but black slim-fitting athletic shorts, a colorful beaded necklace, too many abs to count, glasses, and a cocky smirk. I’m incapable of doing anything but stare. Gawk. Ogle.

Dear lord. Heavens to Betsy. Good gracious.

I am unwell.

And this is completely unacceptable. His skin is so smooth and taut. He can’t look like this under his clothes. My greedy eyes are incapable of doing anything besides sliding across his chest, over his sculpted shoulders, and down his tattooed muscular arms to where his right hand is clutching a hammer. He’s a salacious film waiting to happen. Someone’s pipes have burst and he’s here to fix them. I always knew Jack was well-built and attractive—but this…this is a new level.

Once again that terrible thought hits me: Jack is single. And there’s no amount of memories or moral obligation to look away out of respect for his fiancée that can keep me from feeling a tug of attraction to him. To keep me from noting how his body is ripped but also somehow very natural and genetic. I don’t think he had to work too hard to look like this. He probably woke up one sunny morning and looked in the mirror and thought,Good God, I’m masculine.

He’s…perfect.And to top it all off, sweat is clinging to the ends of his hair and dripping down the center hollow of his chest.

How can he be so relaxed and casual about being this exposed in front of me right now? It’s some sort of HR nightmare I’ve stepped into. Or fantasy. No…ah—nightmare.Jack is your nemesis.

Nemesis, nemesis, nemesis.

The look of enjoyment on Jack’s face snaps me out of my trance. “What was it you wanted to say to me,Emily Stalker?”

Chapter Seven

Jack

I’m not surprised to find Emily Walker outside my house. I am, however, surprised to find her dressed likethis.A cream-colored silk top and matching tiny shorts, trimmed with lace—neither covered up enough by the jean jacket—and those damn cowboy boots. The same ones that I was staring at when I had to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of soup from the market and then drive an hour to drop them at a food bank.

Red.The boots are red. They match her nails.

“Why are you out here without a shirt?” she asks, sounding like an indignant debutante and making me wonder if her head is in a similar space as mine.

We are standing in front of each other as a man and a woman—not teachers. This is…new.And the surge of attraction racing through my system is also new.

“Does it bother you?” I ask with a taunt.

“It’s impolite.” I think she’s blushing.

“But coming over to your neighbor’s house in absurdly thin satin pajamas is better?” Oh, judging by her narrowed green eyes,she did not like that. Emily loves to dish it out but can’t stand to have her own morality confronted.

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