Page 25 of Every Little Kiss
“From what I understand, he was too busy eyeballing you to even notice the sun bunnies,” Avery said.
“He wasn’t eyeballing me. He was just making me laugh, flirting with me to get a reaction.” And her body had reacted all right. Revved up as if it had never seen a half-naked man before.
Not like him,her girly parts whispered. Because while Sam had been handsome in a distinguished doctor way, he’d never looked as if he lifted logs for sport. Sam was a surgeon with a one-track mind and a soft touch.
There was nothing soft about Ford. Even his name suggested molded steel and firing pistons.
“According to Ty, the only thing Ford was interested in making was moves on you.”
“God, I wish someone would move on me,” Grace said. “It’s been so long I don’t know if my body would know how to move back.”
“How would Ty know if he was making moves?” Liv asked with an exaggerated eye roll, even though something about Ford making moves her way sent her stomach into a free fall.
“He was paddleboarding with Ford, doing his male-bonding-with-the-new-team-member thing,” Avery said. “He claims he waved to you, but you were too busy drooling over Ford to wave back.”
Good God, had she been that obvious? And in front of his new teammate?
Tyson Donovan wasn’t just Avery’s husband. He was also head of the technical rope team for Sequoia Elite Mountain Rescue. He was the coordinator for the local team and ran most of the searches in the area. He was on the fast track to coordinating the entire Sierras.
And Liv was on the fast track to developing a serious crush on his newest coworker. Not all that unexpected when one came eye to pec with somethingoh sotempting three times in one day. Plus, Liv hadn’t been tempted by another man since college when she’d met Sam, so the attraction had caught her by surprise. “Making moves is like breathing for a guy like Ford,” Liv said. “Trust me, he isn’t interested in anything more than a little flirting with a cougar.”
Grace snorted. “If you’re a cougar, then I’m a saber-toothed tiger.”
“Half my age plus seven is the cougar equation,” Liv pointed out, reciting one of the dozen or soCougar Lifeblogs she’d stayed up late reading.
“That only works if you’re over forty, and last I checked you weren’t anywhere near the big four-oh.”
“Maybe not, but I’m closer to cougar than coed,” Liv said, trying to remember the last time she’d had the energy to paddleboard after a full shift at the hospital. The closest she’d come was lifting the couch to find the remote. Had it not beenBachelorMonday, the only heavy lifting she would have done was with the Costco-size bag of Red Vines licorice hidden in her bedroom.
“Before you start checking the mail for your AARP magazine,” Avery teased, “I will have you know that Ford is twenty-eight.”
“Twenty-eight?” Six years’ difference wasn’t so bad, Liv thought as she took a sip of her lemonade. Twenty-eight meant they were almost in the same decade.Almost.
“And he’s sexy, single, and a stand-up guy,” Avery added, as if she were reading his profile off a dating website.
“He looks more like an up-against-the-wall kind of guy to me.” Grace shrugged. “But what do I know? I’ve been divorced for more years than I was married.”
Avery considered this for a moment, then scrunched her nose. “He looks like more of a kitchen-counter guy to me, but that could be last night coloring my opinion.”
Liv could picture him as both, but what had her heart going thump-thump was that he’d also be a sweet lover. She could see it in the way he looked at her, how gentle he’d been helping her at the craft store. Ford would be considerate and thorough and—oh my God, did she just moan?
“Even though he’s older than I thought, he’s still six years, one marriage, and thirty-six hours of labor younger than me,” Liv said, feeling the wrinkles set in.
“There’s always Chuck from Bunny Slope Supermarket,” Grace offered, and Liv shivered—and not in the same way she shivered when she thought of Ford.
Chuck was balloon-shaped, balding, and the town butcher. He was also fifty and convinced that Liv needed a man to bring home the country-cut bacon.
“Ford is looking better and better,” Avery teased. “Plus, he’s on loan from Reno and leaves at the end of August, making him the perfect summer fling.”
Liv’s heart stopped, and she choked on a piece of ice. “I don’t think so.”
“What if you give him a kiss and see how you feel after?” Grace asked, eyes wide with excitement at the idea.
“Because the last man I kissed was Sam,” she said, a wealth of conflicting emotions churning in her belly. “And kissing someone else would change that forever.” And when something had the power to change forever, Liv had become gun-shy.
“Plus, I have my hands full with work. Paxton’s still taking in stowaways, only this time it wasn’t a stray. Carolyn is in town, her helicopter-grandma blades going a zillion rotations per second. And Ford and I are in completely different phases of our lives.”
He was living life single and fancy-free, and she was a single mom who had lived more lives than she’d ever hoped to.
