Sexy is as sexy does. And in Plum Orchard, sugar, it does!

Emmeline Amos is sick of her ex saying she’s boring and prissy. After all, she works for a phone-sex company! (As general manager, but still.) On a rare girls’ night out, fueled by blender drinks and bravado, Em accepts a shocking dare—to handle a call herself. But it’s tipsy Em who gets an earful from an irate single father on the other end of the line. Awkward.

But not as awkward as discovering that same mad dad is Call Girls’ gorgeous new programmer. Jax Hawthorne is still upset that his daughter called the “girlfriend store” on his behalf, but he can’t deny he’d choose a hot-librarian type like Em if he were looking for love. Which he’s not.

Em wants to do more than just talk the talk. So she makes a bawdy bargain with Jax. They’ve both been burned before—this time, they’ll keep it strictly physical. Except as soon as they settle on no strings attached, things start to get tangled.…www.DakotaCassidy.com

Something to Talk About

Dakota Cassidy

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To my amazing sister-in-law, Laura. Without the peace and quiet of your beautiful mountaintop, and the bedroom that overlooks it, this book would have never been done. Thank you, thank you for the respite, the peace of mind while we house-hunted.

For my BFF, Renee George, honestly, is there anyone else who could talk me down in the middle of shipping my son off to college, downsizing my house, writing five books in a year, and moving across country, like you can? Methinks not. :) You’re an amazing friend, and I treasure you so.

And my youngest son, Cameron, my well-adjusted, funny, super smart, way more mature than I’ll ever be college kid. I miss you, son. I miss your chubby cheeks as an infant. Your haughty glare of disdain as a tween. Your grunts hello as a young adult. Your amazing conversations just before you left for college to take the world on. You are, and will always be, one of the brightest moments of my life. To say I’m simply proud of you will never, ever be enough.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

One

“Hellooo,” Emmaline Amos growled comically slow into her cell phone. “This is Mistress Taboo. Are you worrrthy?” The infamous line her best friend Dixie Davis had perfected during her three-month stint as a phone-sex operator bounced off the walls in the offices of Call Girls Inc., sounding ridiculous coming from her lips.

As a follow-up, Em looked in her best friend Dixie’s direction, and attempted to mimic her famous sultry gaze. Or what their group of mutual friends had all officially dubbed the “Dixie Smolder.”

The smolder was a combination pack—one part come-hither glance, one part dreamy half wink of her eyes. When Dixie did it, all the men fell at her feet in a big pile of redneck limbs and puddles of drool.

When Em tried it on for size like she had tonight during girls’ night out—it was as though she’d invented the unsexy.

From behind her reception desk, Nella Carter, Call Girls’ new operator in charge of assigning calls, began to giggle until she had to hold her stomach and cover her mouth.

When she caught her breath, she pointed at Dixie. “You,” she snorted, “were Mistress Taboo, boss? I still get calls for her. Seriously, you?”

Dixie rolled her eyes at the mention of her former phone-sex operator nom de plume. “Em’s had too much wine. I absolutely never, ever sounded or looked like that,” she protested, sipping her glass of wine with a giggle, knowing full well she had.

Em reached for the bottle of wine between them on Nella’s desk and nodded her head, the giddy buzz in her brain making her mouth work overtime. “You did, too. You sounded just like that, all sexified and naughty.”

“Then we can all thank heaven Mistress Taboo is officially retired from phone-sex operatin’ and instead became the owner of Call Girls, ’cuz that was plain painful to my ears.” Dixie mocked a shudder.

Em poured herself another glass of wine, the fluid sloshing in time with her liquid-filled stomach. “Do not deny the win that encompasses Mistress Taboo, Dixie Davis. Just look what that very naughty name, and winning this crazy phone-sex contest Landon thought up for you and Caine, got you.”

Nella adjusted her headset, her hazel eyes wide with surprise. “You won Call Girls? In a contest?”

Em slapped her hand on the desk. “You bet she did. Not only did she win a multimillion-dollar phone-sex company, but she won a house the size of Atlanta, with that camel you pass by every day in the backyard, no less. She got Sanjeev, the personal assistant from heaven above. The whole shebang, lock, stock and flyswatters posing as floggers. To boot, she also found her way back to the arms of your other boss, Caine Donovan, a man so divine, angels weep with longin’ for him.” She waved a wobbly hand around the lush guesthouse office where Call Girls was headquartered and grinned. “And she talked me into running it all as general manager. This wasn’t just a win, it was an epic win.”

Dixie grinned. “Who better to keep us all in line when Cat and Flynn ran off and got married and are now preparin’ for their first child than you, Em? If you could keep me and Caine on the righteous path, you could keep Satan himself honest.”

Nella gave her lush surroundings a fresh eye. “So Call Girls Inc. belonged to Landon Wells, right? The one everybody’s either callin’ richer than God or crazier than a bedbug?”

“Uh-huh. Rest his soul. And now it belongs to Dixie here.” Even two months later, Em still hadn’t quite digested the situation.

Nella frowned. “I don’t get it. How do you win a phone-sex company?”

“You have the most amazing best friend ever, who even on his deathbed, knew what was good for you. Landon was both Dixie’s and Caine’s best friend. Dixie and Caine were engaged ten years ago, but they had a fallin’-out to beat the likes of World War Three, broke up and left town.”

Dixie shook her head of red curls with a giggle. “Your general manager exaggerates. It was not like World War Three.”

But Em disagreed. “Hah! Lest you forget the fire and rain... Anyway, Landon, in all his wisdom and hilarious sense of humor, knew they belonged together. So when Dixie and Caine came back for his funeral, he left this very company to them in his will—with one stipulation. They had to become phone-sex operators and work the phones. Whoever collected the most calls at the end of two months won the company.”

Nella suddenly grinned. “So that’s what all the talk about the Phone-sex Hunger Games is? I hear the rumblin’s in town all the time about you and Caine and how you two got back together. I ignored the bad and focused on how romantic it was under such a crazy set of circumstances.”

Yeah. Em sighed and nodded at Nella. “The most romantic set of circumstances ever. Friends like Landon don’t come along often. He loved these two so much, he meddled from the afterlife.”

Dixie’s smile was misty-eyed and blissful at the same time. “I’ll always wish Landon was here to see it—see us finally together. Maybe walk me down that aisle now that Caine’s proposed. And see you and I such good friends after a long spell of resentment.” She patted Em’s hand, tipping the glass she held upright to keep more liquid from sloshing out.

“Oh, I heard all about you and Em from that Essie Guthrie. My, she can talk,” Nella confided.

Em waved a finger. “Never you mind what that Essie tells you. She’d just as soon Call Girls was banished from Plum Orchard for good.”

The Mags, Plum Orchard’s generations-old society of women of prominence, had really given running Call Girls out on a rail their best efforts. They’d made all sorts of pleas to the mayor and the county—even the state of Georgia, and in the process, they’d attempted to make everyone’s life associated with Call Girls miserable.

Landon had done his homework when he’d moved the company here, and so far they’d been lucky, but Em still worried those bunch of gossipmongers might come up with a way to shut them down.

Dixie wrinkled her nose. “Just you forget about those awful Mags, Em, and let’s focus on the good stuff. Like how I also got LaDawn, Marybell and Cat as the best employees and friends a girl could ask for. For that, I’ll always be grateful. So a toast to Landon?” She raised her wineglass toward the ceiling in silent salute to her best friend.

“Hear! Hear!” Em cheered. Though her sigh, hot on the heels of her good spirits, was forlorn and wistful.

Nella leaned forward on her desk, folding her hands. “If you don’t mind me askin’, how did you become involved in all this, Em?”

“I don’t mind at all. I worked for Landon’s lawyer, Hank Cotton, at the time. So I spent his last days with him, doing all sorts of things he needed taken care of, and that’s when he asked me to oversee Dixie and Caine if they decided to stick around and accept the terms of his will. He said it was time Dixie made an ally here in Plum Orchard. I thought it was the throes of death talkin’, knowin’ how Dixie and I didn’t get along in school, but how could I say no to a man I’d come to love and respect in the course of our dealin’s? He was dyin’. I’d rather have died myself than say no to him.”

Dixie rubbed Em’s arm. “But he left her a letter to open once things settled down with Caine and I to explain everything, didn’t he, Em?”

Now Em’s smile was wistful. “He did, and once I read it, it all made sense. But to think, he’d appoint prim and proper Emmaline Amos, once Dixie Davis’s biggest target in high school, the mediator of her phone-sex contest... Well, everybody thought it was just crazy. They still talk about it now, almost three months later.”

They talked because she was the most unlikely suspect. Who’d believe good-girl Em knew much of anything about sex?

They talked plenty about how scandalous it was that an actual phone-sex company was housed in the middle of their quaint little town, and how horrible Dixie was for talking dirty.

They talked. That’s what Plum Orchard did, and though Em loved her small town and almost everyone in it, faults and all, they’d forgotten the core of what Landon had intended with all those machinations.

The purpose, the driving force behind Landon making Dixie and Caine play his game—the reason he’d gone to such great lengths to see his two best friends happy, had been lost in the mire of gossip Dixie’s return had created.

Love. Landon’s love for his friends, their love for each other—one that even after almost a decade, hadn’t died.

The kind of love Em found herself feeling a pang of yearning for as of late. One that lasted—one that filled her soul. One that didn’t want to divorce her because he wanted to cross-dress and become Miss Trixie LeMieux and he’d been too ashamed to tell her...

She cupped her chin in her hands and sighed again, listening with fondness to the music of the chirping phones from the back offices, where the on-duty operators took their calls from clients. They’d hired four more operators since she’d taken over as GM. Business was good, even if her jump back into the dating pool wasn’t.

She was certain she wasn’t destined for the kind of love Dixie and Caine had fought so hard for. You only bore witness to something like that once in a lifetime, and if what Clifton said about her was true, she was too conservative and prissy to ever find that kind of passion.

But she had her new job here. She didn’t care what the people of Plum Orchard said about it, either. Working for Call Girls made her happy—gave her purpose. “Look how far we’ve come, huh?”

Dixie grinned, twisting a long strand of her red hair around her index finger in dreamy satisfaction and sighed. “I can’t even believe what’s come to pass in the past few months since I’ve been back from Chicago, Nella. For both of us. Did you know, not four months ago, Em was in the middle of divorcin’ that cheater Clifton, I was up to my britches in debt, Caine and I were at each other’s throats trying to beat each other at phone sexin’, and everyone here in good ole Plum Orchard, Georgia, still hated me because of my mean-girl high school days—Caine included. So much has changed,” she marveled.

Em’s smile was wry. It was true. But Dixie still wasn’t very popular. She’d tried hard to put to rest her wrongful ways since she’d returned, but some just couldn’t let go of the past. She popped her lips with a smack of a reminder. “Well, not everything’s changed.”

Dixie flapped a dismissive hand at the implication Em made in reference to her archnemesis. “Thank you for reminding me Louella Palmer still sniffs the air when I walk by as though I’ve been dipped in cow dung.”

No one wished Dixie more ill than Louella. Dixie’s old high school rival still held her responsible for allegedly stealing Caine Donovan out from under her nose.

For the past few months since she’d become such close friends with Dixie, Louella and her fellow group members, the esteemed Magnolias, had outright shunned Em for forgiving Dixie and her jaded Plum Orchard past.

A burp threatened to escape Em’s lips. She swallowed the acidic bite back with a wince before saying, “I just want you to know your enemies. I can’t have Louella sneakin’ up behind you when you’re not lookin’. Remindin’ you of the people that wish you ill is my duty as your person.”

Dixie cocked her head, her pretty blue eyes playful. “This person thinks your person’s had too much to drink tonight. I know your theory is Jesus drank wine, and that’s supposed to make it okay to indulge—and usually, I’d roll with it. But He didn’t go out on girls’ night with you tonight—and I’m pretty sure He never had a hangover. So, it’s my duty as your person to tell you, you might suffer one come mornin’.”

But Em wouldn’t hear of hangovers and Jesus. She’d spent two minutes too long thinking about disapproval and Plum Orchard when there were other things to attend. Like learning to smolder—it was what brought all the boys to your yard, or so she’d heard.

She focused on watching her reflection in her phone as she tried once more to perfect this thing Dixie did with her eyes while men lined up for her.

It would be nice to have just one man stand in a grocery line, even if it was just next to her. Like the man she’d shared the longest, most breathtaking stare with in the square the night her life had almost fallen apart. The night when she’d accused Dixie of something so deplorable, she still couldn’t breathe from the horror.

She’d overheard the man’s name was Jax, but in her mind, when she daydreamed about him, he didn’t have a name. To use his name was too intimate—too personal. Attaching his name to her fantasies was akin to writing him personalized love letters. Once you knew a person’s first name, next you were inquiring about their well-being, and that always led to personal details you were better off not knowing. Fantasies didn’t have morning breath or scratch their unmentionables.

So the man on that night in the square was simply him.

And she hadn’t seen him in well over two months.

Em “smoldered” again at Dixie, putting her back into it and rolling her shoulders, pretending she was seducing him. “How’s this?”

Dixie patted Em’s hand, wrinkling her nose. “When you smolder at me, do it like you’re thinkin’ about doin’ the do, not like you’re squinting because the sun’s in your eyes, honey. More Marilyn Monroe, less like you have bug guts in your eye,” she teased lovingly, pulling Em to her office and waving back at Nella to carry on with her calls.

Em gave her a pouty expression, plunking her phone down on Dixie’s desk with a sigh. “I guess you’ll just have to stay the Smolder Queen, Dixie. I try and try. Practiced all week for girls’ night tonight, but I just can’t seem to look anything other than a darn fool. Just ask that poor man at the bar who thought I used those drops you get at the ophthalmologist to dilate my eyes.” She batted her eyelashes for effect, only to have them stick together from the extra mascara she’d applied.

She was officially a girls’ night out failure. Maybe everyone saw what Clifton saw, and trying to change that perception of her was a waste of time.

Dixie brushed Em’s hair from her face with a chuckle of sympathy, her slender fingers gentle, her blue eyes warm. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the business of smoldering, it’s all about the subtle at first. Stop trying so hard to be someone you’re not. You’re beautiful and funny and sweet all on your own. You don’t need the smolder or anything other than just you to do the talkin’. Turn down the volume on the sexy, Em.”

“Way down,” LaDawn Jenkins, fellow employee, friend and the best fetish-related phone-sex operator Call Girls had, advised, strolling inside from the guesthouse pool area.

Marybell Lymen, another operator and friend, followed behind, handing an open bottle of wine to LaDawn, who slugged back the liquid straight from the bottle.

Catherine Butler-McGrady, now retired after handing her Call Girls GM position over to Em, nodded her agreement, letting Marybell help her perch awkwardly on the end of a purple velvet chaise.

She rubbed her small swollen belly with a content smile. “You’re plenty sexy without the smolder, Em. Flynn said so just the other day. He said, ‘The longer that sad sack Clifton’s gone, the prettier Em seems to get.’”

Em snorted. “He did not.” She was not.

“Did, too,” both LaDawn and Marybell said, dropping into the chairs on the other side of Dixie’s large, white oak desk.

“And it’s true,” LaDawn confirmed. “You’re much less stuffy since divorcin’ Mr. Shady, honey.”

She wrinkled her nose at her friends. “Flynn doesn’t count. He’s my cousin, for gravy’s sake, and I might not be as stuffy, but I’m definitely not any sexier.”

Marybell and LaDawn oozed sexy, and they certainly weren’t afraid of the opposite sex. If she could just have an ounce of whatever it was they had that made talking to anyone other than old and deaf Coon Rider easier...

Cat waved a hand and scoffed. “You are, too. You’re sweet-sexy. Makes all the boys want to know what’s goin’ on under all that prim and proper. Peel away your layers and such.”

Em threw her hands up, frustrated with the lack of interest she stirred in the male population. “You make me sound like an onion. And where were all those boys who like onions at, I ask you? I can tell you this, they sure weren’t out tonight.”

Cat sighed. “Oh, honey, they just weren’t the right men. Nobody said dippin’ your toes back into the dating pool would be easy.”

LaDawn bobbed her head. “Peelin’ onions isn’t for the faint of heart, Miss Em. When the right one comes along, he’ll peel you raw.”

Em’s cheeks went hot. “Why is it so easy for you to say things like that and when I try, I sound like a bad actress in one of those dirty movies?”

Marybell threw her head back and laughed. “Because, silly, we do this for a living. We’re paid to entice men. We know all the tricks of the trade.”

She eyed the women who’d become some of her closest friends these past few months. “So teach me.” There. She’d said it. Maybe if she took a few lessons in flirting from the experts, she wouldn’t look like such a darn fool come next girls’ night.

Dixie’s eyes went wide with surprise. “You mean like teach you to talk dirty to men?”

Em smiled and nodded. Since she’d left her job as Hank Cotton’s legal secretary after Dixie offered to make her general manager of Call Girls, she’d spent a lot of time listening to LaDawn, Marybell and the other operators talk about all manner of “making the business” as Dixie called it—and she was sometimes horrified.

But most times, especially lately, she was intrigued by the things men wanted the operators to talk about.

Each day, while she monitored call stats and reports and kept the office running smoothly, she overheard conversations that made her blush the color of her mother’s red velvet cake. Yet, they also left her insatiably curious.

Maybe it had to do with what Dixie had called her molting process. She was shedding her old married life skin for a new single one, and hearing all the sex talk all day long left her secretly wanting to explore some of those things.

It was an about-face almost no one would understand. Maybe not even Dixie. Em was everyone’s good girl, well mannered, almost decorous to a fault—and dull as dirt. No one would believe the thoughts Emmaline Amos was having as of late.

She found her dull was slowly chipping away to reveal a shinier Em. Though she definitely didn’t feel very shiny after her failures tonight. Not even with the added shine of her semisexy new dress and the jellylike cutlets she’d stuffed in her bra to see if having larger breasts would keep her from repelling men like mosquito spray.

So Em nodded her head again—more sure than ever her alcohol-dipped brain was sending her a subliminal message that she was on the right track. “You heard me. I want to talk dirty. Bring it on.”

Her friends frowned at her as though she’d just told them she wanted to have relations out in the middle of the square on the steps of the gazebo.

Em dunked her fingers into the top of her lower-than-usual cut dress and pulled out one of the offensive gel breasts, slapping it on the desk with disgust at their wide-eyed surprise. “Stop lookin’ like I just confessed to a murder. Why does everyone think I’m such a priss?”

LaDawn scooped up the gel breast and shook it like a raw chicken breast, making it jiggle. “Because you are?”

With alcohol came fearlessness. “I am not. I quote the Lord, yes. But that’s only because Jesus analogies are all I have to make comparisons to real life. My mama was a true Southern Baptist, and it just so happens Bible verses are what stuck. So while I might be conservative on the outside, I don’t buy into it all the way you think I do. I like sex. I like it a lot.”

LaDawn reached out and patted her hand, her tone a little condescending, a little amused. “Good for you, honey. You still shouldn’t be playin’ with the big girls.”

“Em, talking dirty to some stranger on the phone isn’t like practicing to flirt with a man in real life,” Dixie reminded her. “I’m not sure how you’re connecting the dots here.”

“She connected them with wine.” LaDawn barked a laugh at her own joke.

Which only infuriated Em further. She raised a finger and swished it around. “Let me tell you a thing or two, Miss LaDawn, I could do it! I hear you naughty Nancys take calls all day long—I’ve learned some things from you.... I’m not sayin’ I want to talk to the men LaDawn considers herself ‘companionators’ to—that might be rushin’ things, what with the latex and flogging, but maybe something tamer. Who knows, maybe it’ll help me get better at talkin’ up the opposite sex—free me from the chains that bind or something.”

Or something. Anything to loosen her up and help her forget there were days when she felt like she was nothing but a stale loaf of day-old bread. There were days when Clifton’s words, even after almost a year, still stung. “How was I supposed to know, someone like you, conservative and nigh on prissy, would entertain the idea I liked to wear women’s clothes?”

Conservative and prissy.

She wanted to be a new Em. Open to owning her sexuality and leaving the buttoned-up perception of her behind.

Marybell snickered, swirling her glass of Pinot. “Very dramatic, Em, this freein’ of your sexuality. Next you’ll want to read the Kama Sutra cover to cover and pose nude for Playboy.” Marybell chuckled. “Taking calls isn’t like flirting in real life. We openly have sex using our words—we don’t just suggest it. Don’t confuse the two, pretty lady.”

“Girl, you are somethin’ else when you an’ libation join hands in holy alcohol, ain’t you?” LaDawn squawked, slapping her hand on her thigh. “Two glasses of Chardonnay and all of a sudden you’re Em the Emasculator.”

Em felt the office chair she was sitting in wobble. Or was she wobbling? She couldn’t be sure. She giggled on a hiccup, one that jolted her so hard, she fell into Dixie, who stroked her hair with a soothing palm.

She took a deep breath and waved a finger at LaDawn’s lithe form in a “fooled you, didn’t I?” fashion. “It wasn’t Chardonnay, FYI. I had four drinks at the bar. The ones with the orange swirly stuff and the pretty umbrellas in them. Four.” Take that, conservatism.

“Four?” LaDawn and Marybell chirped their surprise in unison.

“Okay, who was on Em duty while I was off two-steppin’, LaDawn?” Marybell asked, casting a glance of aspersion LaDawn’s way.

LaDawn popped her heavily lined lips, brushing her platinum hair off her shoulder with a scoff. “Oh, no. I told you I was gonna take second shift. That means before 11:00 p.m. you were babysitting.”

Marybell shook her head, the pointy spikes of her red-and-green Mohawk beginning to sag after a long girls’ night out. “Nope. Dixie was supposed to take eight to ten. I was ten till 12:00 a.m. We let Cat take the night off, seeing as she can’t keep her eyes open for more than twenty minutes at a time.”

Cat, now sprawled across the chaise, snored to prove their point.

All eyes went to Dixie, who shot them a sheepish grin, full of dimples and sunshine.

LaDawn grabbed the bottle of Chardonnay and poured her and Dixie another glass to share while Marybell dug a blanket out to cover Cat, tucking the edges under her chin. “You were textin’ with that confounded dreamboat of yours again, weren’t you? It’s not girls’ night if you’re textin’ with your man, Dixie. Then it’s girls’ night and Caine,” she admonished with a stern tone, but a smile she couldn’t hide crept across her lips.

Dixie wrinkled her nose. “But he’s so cute when he texts me,” she defended her schoolgirl behavior.

“If you can’t spend twenty minutes without contact with one Mr. Caine Donovan, you can’t be a girl out on a girls’ night. Then you’re just pathetic and maybe should be textin’ someone about obsession therapy,” LaDawn teased, poking Dixie’s arm with a glittery, purple nail. “So I’m callin’ it now, next time we all give up our cell phones at the beginning of the night so we don’t lose track of Em and her newfound love of spirits. Because look what happens when we do that. Four drinks and she gets to thinkin’ she should be learnin’ the tricks of the trade instead of just running the place.” She leaned forward and ruffled Em’s mussed hair with a chuckle.

Em stuck her tongue out at LaDawn.

LaDawn popped her lips at Dixie, ignoring Em. “While you’re off moonin’ over that man, it doesn’t mean Em doesn’t need lookin’ out for. She’s new to the single scene. Especially in a place called Cooters where every horn dog from here to Johnsonville goes to ladies’ night ’cuz the drafts are only a dollar. If someone doesn’t watch her, they’ll eat our innocent Em alive. You dropped the ball, Dixie Davis. Next time, you have to pull your shift and take my shift, too.”

Em gave her friends a sour face, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’m plenty of adult sittin’ right here, I’ll have you know. I don’t need a babysitter, and I’m not so innocent. And if I want to have four drinks, I will. Maybe I’ll have five,” she said defiantly.

She deserved five. It had been a long two months since the finalization of her divorce. Seven total if you counted the time since she’d found out Clifton was an infidel who wanted to wear women’s clothing and live in Atlanta as Trixie LeMieux.

Most of the pain of that discovery had passed. That Clifton hadn’t even given her the chance to understand that part of him still stung. She’d always prided herself on being open to new things, despite the fact that she was born and raised in a town stuck somewhere in the 1950s.

Cross-dressing hadn’t ever entered her mind when she’d been thinking about what the word open meant, but who’s to say she wouldn’t have adjusted? Clifton just never gave her the chance to say one way or the other. He’d just left.

And now, here she was, single at thirty-six with an eight-year-old and a five-year-old to raise with little help from her ex-husband. His embarrassment after an incident in town, where his secret was publicly and cruelly revealed by none other than Louella Palmer, had kept him from coming to see the boys as often as they needed seeing by their daddy.

Dixie stretched her arms upward with a yawn of her perfectly glossed, pink lips. “Fine. Next girls’ night out, I’ll take two shifts. Now, what do you say we get you home, Em?”

Em shook her off, reaching for more wine. She could drink as much wine as she liked, her internal rebel coaxed. “Stop appeasin’ me, Dixie. I’m a grown woman, and I don’t want to go home to my lonely, empty house right now. Gareth and Clifton Junior are spendin’ the weekend at Mama’s, so I’m a free bird. Just like Lynyrd Skynyrd says.”

Dixie gave her a pointed look—one you’d give a willful preschooler. “You know what they say about idle hands and the devil.”

“As Satan’s closest confidante, I’m sure you’ve heard all the gossip,” Em shot back, squeezing her friend’s arm with a giggle.

When they’d been forced into the race for the phone-sex contest Landon set forth with Em as mediator, leaving them in each other’s company more often than not, she’d used Dixie’s former cruelties full force as a way to continually poke her with what she now lovingly referred to as a “gentle Em reminder.” Nowadays, since they’d become so close, she did it with love, but she still did it.

“I thought we were past my mean girl and well into forgiveness. Will you ever run out of nails for my coffin?” Dixie inquired with gooey sweetness.

“Lucky Judson’s Hardware store has aisles’ and aisles’ worth. How’s never suit you?” Em shot back with a lopsided grin.

LaDawn burst out laughing, the sound rich and deep. She flicked a purple-painted nail at Em. “Phew! You are all ’bout your sass these days, aren’t you, Miss Emmaline? Every time I turn around you’re assertin’ yourself in one way or another. You’re all breathin’ fire at us at the drop of a hat lately.”

Marybell nodded, reaching into a bag of Cheetos Dixie had produced from her deep desk drawer. “Oh, yes, ma’am, she is. If you look at her cross-eyed, flames come right out of her cute little mouth,” she said on a giggle, tweaking Em’s lower lip.

It was true. She’d become a little testy in this quest to show anyone within earshot she was no longer Emmaline Without A Spine. Some would even say she’d gone overboard. Nonetheless, she protested. “Bah! They do not.”

Dixie popped a Cheeto in her mouth, licking her fingers. “Do so. If I simply say the word no, even if it’s when you’re askin’ me if I’d like another glass of sweet tea, you jump right down my throat. You’re always barking orders at us like we wouldn’t listen to you if you didn’t holler them with that stern teacher voice you’ve adopted. Reminds me of old Mrs. Beauchamp. Remember her from third grade?”

Marybell nodded her agreement, her eyes, heavy with dark makeup, playful. “Next thing you know, she’ll show up with a ruler and crack our hands to get her point across.”

Em rolled her eyes at them. Admittedly, as of late, she had a case of the “I will be heard” syndrome. The one where everything she said had to be full throttle or she was convinced she wouldn’t be taken seriously. It would just take some time to find her balance. Toning her stern teacher’s voice down would probably be a good place to start.

“Uh-huh,” LaDawn confirmed, patting Marybell on the back. “You know what, I take back my protestin’ from earlier. Some days, the way you’ve been orderin’ us all around, maybe we should just let you take all the calls and we’ll all go shop for shoes, seein’ as you seem to know how to do it better.”

That sudden need to prove herself, the one she’d just reminded herself was on the warpath, the one that was completely unwarranted and absolutely unnecessary, reared its badly mannered head—again. “I bet I could answer your calls—all of ’em.” She rolled her neck in the “wanna go ’round?” way LaDawn did. “I know all the dirty words because I hear Miss LaDawn here say them like she’s recitin’ her prayers before bedtime, all day long.”

Em’s defensive answer sparked the competitive streak in LaDawn. She sat upright and pointed to the wine bottle. “You just stop talkin’ crazy from over there and have another glass of wine. You would faint dead if you had to pretend to spank some man with my special spatula and scream, ‘You dirty, dirty boy!’ You know it, and so does everyone else sittin’ here.”

Dixie held up a hand, leaning forward and putting it between the two women with a look of admonishment. “Girls, how quickly we forget I’ve banned all forms of competition. Em, you stop riling the caged beast, and both of you play nicely with each other.”

“You only banned them because you can’t resist them, Dixie,” Em taunted, knowing full well she was again poking her friend for her former habit of turning everything from pie eating to merely breathing into a death match.

Dixie narrowed her eyes in Em’s direction, her husky voice raspy when she said, “You’re baiting me, Em.”

Em nodded, throwing her a smug smile, though it was full of love. “If I had a worm, I’d dangle it in your face.”

“I still say you couldn’t do it,” LaDawn coaxed with a sly grin, twisting her hair and tying it up with a rubber band she always kept around her slender wrist. “You couldn’t even answer one phone call and say the P word without callin’ out forgiveness from on high. We’ll all be home and in our beds in no time flat before you get ’round to it. I’d bet next week’s girls’ night drinks on it.”

Dixie held up a finger, her eyes flashing warning signals at LaDawn. “In Em’s condition, she’ll end up meeting some crazy killer for chicken and waffles at Madge’s. Stop goading her, LaDawn.”

“Oh, really?” Em challenged, using her hands to push off the desk’s top and stick her face in LaDawn’s. She balanced herself on her waist, teetering. “You’re on, Latex Lady!”

Dropping back to her chair, she picked up the phone on Dixie’s desk and rang Nella.

“Nella? It’s Emmaline. Next caller who doesn’t know his foot from the P word, send them to me on Dixie’s line, please.” She hung up the phone with a triumphant drop of the receiver, almost hearing poor Nella’s jaw drop all the way from the other end of the guesthouse.

“Right here, right now, I’m callin’ it. This is a mistake, Em. You’ve had a little too much to drink, and tomorrow, you’ll regret it,” Marybell said with confidence, fighting a grin. LaDawn cackled, crossing her arms. “So what’s your name for the naughty gonna be, Em? I think Not Gonna Happen’s already been taken.”

Dixie and Marybell erupted in a fit of laughter, followed shortly thereafter by LaDawn.

Oh, they could laugh all they wanted. She’d thought about it long and hard. All while LaDawn ordered her clients around in dominatrix fashion and during request after youthful voice request for Marybell. She’d even thought about it tonight at Cooters, and she didn’t have to think too hard. At least not with four swirly drinks in her stomach and her sense of reason fully affected.

She narrowed her gaze at every one of her friends, sputtering and snorting at the very idea Emmaline Amos could say the P word. Maybe she might even use the—gasp—C word. “Well, won’t you all be sorry when that phone rings and I answer to the tune of Em ’n’ M?”

“Like the rapper or the candy?” Dixie squeaked out between gasps of air tucked between bursts of laughter. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from disturbing the operators in the back rooms.

She eyed Dixie with a defiant glare, surely fueled by her alcohol consumption. “It might not be as mysterious or sexy as Mistress Taboo or as sticky sweet as Candy Caine was, your Mr. Smexy’s old operator name, but it’s cute, just like me.” Cute and adorable and like someone’s worn stuffed animal. Ugh.

LaDawn was the first to buckle. She hopped up from her chair, coming around the desk to give Em a tight squeeze from behind, her lilting voice clear in Em’s ear, the sweet scent of her lavender body spray in her nose. “We were just teasin’ you, Em. We know you’re a force to be reckoned with, and we wouldn’t have ya any other way. So no phone calls for you. You’re just not made outta the same cloth as the rest of us dirty girls. You’re fine silk and we’re just a polyester blend.”

The jarring ring of Dixie’s office phone created a shrill silence between them—reaction suspended for a mere second before all three women were scrambling to grab the phone to keep it from Em. Chairs scraped against the tile floor, desk organizers fell to the floor with pen-filled thuds.

But Em was quicker, and when all was said and done, and she was high on regret for ever taking LaDawn’s bait, she’d pat herself on the back for just how quick she’d been on the draw being as tipsy as she was.

She snatched at it, holding the receiver up like she’d just won the coveted Swarovski tiara at their local Miss Cherokee Rose Pageant. Triumph streaked her eyes before she growled, “This is Em ’n’ M. Would you like some candy?” Her eyes opened wide at her brilliance. Associating her name with the pleasure of the famous candy. Hah! Innocent Em couldn’t make the dirty, huh? She’d show them.

“You have candy? My daddy loves candy. Maybe he’d like you, too.” A voice so pure, so full of spun sugar and innocence, filled her ear.

Leave it to her to get the one call, out of all the hundreds of calls Call Girls received in a night, from a child.

The universe was obviously conspiring against her and her sexy.

Two

LaDawn pressed the speaker button, the little girl’s voice ringing throughout the office as though on angels’ wings. “So do you have candy? My daddy needs a girlfriend, and I like candy. My uncle said it would make him nicer, the girlfriend, but maybe not the candy. I tried giving him candy, but that didn’t make him nicer.” There was a definitive determination to her charming voice—a voice that to Em’s experienced ears sounded right around six or seven.

Mercy.

No one moved. Everyone froze in their respective spots as three pairs of eyes, full of panic, watched Em.

How had a child managed to get past Nella-Nator? She was like a SWAT team when it came to manning the phones against children violating Call Girls’ strict, over-eighteen policy.

“Hello? Miss Em ’n’ M?”

In a flurry of hands, Dixie and Marybell motioned for her to hang up while LaDawn slid her forefinger across her throat, signaling she should cut the child off.

But Em knew what to do. She had two children of her own, and this one obviously needed to be heard. She cleared her throat, holding up a hand to her friends. “I’m here, and I think you have the wrong number, sugar snap.”

A pout she virtually heard pulsed in Em’s ear. “You mean you don’t have girlfriends there where you are? My daddy needs a girlfriend. At lunch when they were cuttin’ up my grilled cheese sandwich in triangles, I heard my uncle Tag say so to my uncle Gage. They said he needs a girlfriend. I asked them where you get a girlfriend and they said the girlfriend store. I see on the paper my daddy has on his desk that you live in a place called Call Girls. Is that a store where we can buy my daddy a girlfriend? Like Toys ‘R’ Us?”

Em sat down on the chair and smiled into the phone. The child’s sweet voice, so heartbreakingly clear with desire for her father’s happiness, clenched her heart with a vise grip. The leap she’d made with the words call girls wasn’t just adorable, it was smart.

“No, sunshine,” she said gently. “You can’t buy girlfriends here. And you know what? I think your daddy should do the shoppin’, don’t you? He knows what he likes best. Now, I bet it’s about bedtime, right? Long past, if I’m readin’ my clock correctly. You need to scoot off to bed now—all the pretty girls need their pretty sleeps. Can you do that for Miss Em?”

There was a sniffle from the other end of the line, and the muffle of possibly her hand, as though she’d cupped the phone to her mouth to keep her voice hushed. “Are you sure you don’t have any girlfriends there? I know it would make my daddy happy. He hates to cook. He makes all those grumble noises and sighs when it’s suppertime.”

Em’s heart melted bit by gooey-filled bit at this angelic voice and the genuine request she made, one that in a child’s mind, probably should be as simple as shopping for a girlfriend. “I’m sure we don’t have girlfriends here, sugarplum. Now, off you go to bed like all good little girls do and sleep the sleep of the sweet—”

“Who the hell is this?” a megamasculine voice hissed into the phone, clearly enraged.

Em straightened her spine, her eyes wide. Oh, mercy, the poor child had been caught. Em was just about to explain that when Angry Man bellowed into her ear again, “Who the hell are you?”

Sucking her cheeks in and giving her invisible caller the stern-teacher tone, she responded with crisp coolness, “This is Emmaline Amos, general manager of Call Girls—”

“How dare you allow a little girl of six—she’s six, do you hear me—talk to one of your operators?” he growled. “Don’t you have some kind of security that prevents this sort of thing from happening? What kind of business are you running there?”

Em’s tipsy state flew away on wings of outrage. How dare he accuse Call Girls of lax security? Clearly there’d been some mistake, but the quick decision to shoot him down for being so incredibly rude outweighed the notion he might someday be a future client she needed to reassure.

She clamped a hand on her hip. “Excuse me, sir—we’re running a very reputable business with plenty of security, I’ll thank you kindly to remember! Your little girl found our phone number on, according to her, your desk. So, in the future, when you take it upon yourself to seek solace with a woman who is not your intended or otherwise, I highly recommend you don’t leave such things lyin’ about in a place an innocent child of six can find!” Em slammed down the phone with a huff, infuriated their above-standards security measures had been called into question.

As she fought for breath, so incensed she wanted to hurl every item off Dixie’s desk and slam it against the wall, Dixie, Marybell and LaDawn all stood, still rooted to their spots in quiet mode, waiting, watching.

Cat stirred, eliciting a small snore.

Em’s lips thinned, her fingers clutching the back of her chair, her knuckles white from the effort. “I will not have our security questioned by some man who can’t keep track of his adorable little girl and her penchant for girlfriend shopping. Will not!”

LaDawn was the first to approach her, though it was hesitant. “I’m afraid a’ you, sugarlove.”

Marybell nodded numbly and raised her hand, her bangle bracelets jingling and sliding into place at the bend in her forearm. “Me...too.”

Dixie’s mouth was slightly open, her brow creased. “Wow. You were on fire. See what we mean about the fire breathing?”

If there was one thing Em had in her life besides her boys, it was her job. One she took incredibly seriously. “I take great pride in making sure everything runs smoothly here at Call Girls—especially the phones. How dare he outright declare we would have allowed something like that!”

LaDawn came up behind her and massaged her shoulders with nimble hands, breathing a sigh of a giggle. “Okay, Rocky. It’s over now, and you set him right. Why don’t you grab your chicken breasts? I think it’s time we all head on home and get a good night’s rest. You fought the good fight. You should take a break between matches.”

As her wits gathered, Em couldn’t help but replay the sweet voice in her head, wanting a girlfriend for her daddy so he wouldn’t be so cranky. There had been a hint of sadness, the wish to make everything better for her father that in a six-year-old’s mind meant snuggles and kisses and a girlfriend you bought at the girlfriend store.

The spike of anger she’d rolled with when she’d spoken to that arrogant jackass of a man dissipated in a puff, leaving her with a combination adrenaline/alcohol-related pounder of a headache, and a sad ache in her heart that a sweet little girl wanted her father to have a girlfriend.

This was what she got for thinking she was ever going to be capable of simulating sexual acts with LaDawn’s special spatula and a chair.

Oh, libation, what have you done?

* * *

The hard drop of a hammer on metal had Em gritting her teeth and wincing with pain. No more girls’ night—not ever. At least not when it factored in swirly orange drinks accompanied by chicken cutlet breasts.

Making her way toward Lucky Judson’s Hardware store, she stopped on the curb, unable to properly appreciate the cooler weather with early winter in full swing. Usually, it made her happy to finally be able to wear sweaters and boots. Today, it grated on her hangover and bit at her sinuses, forcing her to tighten the belt around her thigh-length coat to keep the sharp wind from clawing at her silky blouse.

Typically, the square, sitting directly in the center of Plum Orchard, surrounded by the local establishments and quaint row of Victorian houses where the local doctor, lawyer and dentist were housed, made Em smile.

It was always busy and humming with the people she’d grown up with all her life. Today, she’d rather not see any of those people, for surely they’d see her red eyes and sallow skin and label her with a big, fat letter H for shamefully hungover.

Her hangover reminded her of that innocent, sweet voice dipped in angels’ wings on the phone last night. There was something, something the mother in her had picked up on that told her the little girl had sensed a need in her father—loneliness maybe? Children had an uncanny knack for picking up emotions, leading them to act on their simplistic views of the world just to make the boo-boo better.

Not thirty feet from Lucky’s, the scent of freshly brewed coffee rose, making Em’s alcohol-weakened stomach lurch, taking her mind off the little girl momentarily. Or was her stomach lurching at the sight of the Magnolias, lying in wait, all phony smiles as they sat at the new café, hoping to make her their first pounce of the day?

The Magnolias, or Mags as everyone around town called them, were the backbone of all town social events, and what everyone perceived as the cream of Plum Orchard society. The chosen ones with rich families, and what was considered the proper connections.

Em always secretly compared them to henchwomen due to the fact that getting into the Magnolias was as difficult, and probably as bloody, as joining the mob. Unless, of course, you entered by birthright. She’d never been a Magnolia, but Dixie had once been the leader of their pack. They were exclusive, snobbish and plain old mean if anyone dared cross them.

When Dixie had come back to town—a changed woman—she’d crossed the Mags, and they were never going to let Em forget that even though she wasn’t allowed access to their exclusive club, she’d betrayed them simply by accepting Dixie.

Squaring her shoulders for the barb they’d certainly shoot at her, Em forced herself to make her feet move past Louella Palmer and her gang of Magnolia-scented thugs, each sipping on fancy coffee with whipped cream and sprinkles.

Louella, beautiful and blonde, pristine in a winter-white cowl neck dress and deep burgundy knit shrug, coupled with knee-high, brown leather boots, wiggled her fingers at Em. “Hi, Em! How’s tricks—I mean, Trixie?” Lesta-Sue Arnold and Annabelle Pruitt giggled on cue like all good gang members do when their head gangster tugged on their puppet strings.

If there were ever a day, today would be the one, when slugging Louella Palmer right in her perky nose was highest on her bucket list. Her reference to Em’s ex-husband, Clifton, and his cross-dresser name, Trixie, had everyone in town turning around.

Always look your demons square in the eye, Emmaline Amos—then lift your chin and show ’em all your secrets. You get there before they do, there’s nothing they can touch if you’ve already touched it.

Sage advice from Dixie the ex-demon.

Em lifted her chin, securing her dark sunglasses on her nose to fight the effects of the glaring sun and the stares of everyone around them, waiting to see if she would react.

She chanted in her mind, Be Dixie. Be one with the Dixie. “Oh, he’s right fine, Louella. How’s that rhinoplasty you’ve got scheduled comin’ along?” she called back, stopping just feet from the white steel table they’d gathered ’round like it was a cauldron and they were witches, mixing a brew.

She smiled with innocence at the group, eyeing each one of them, then setting her sights on Louella, still recovering from her crack about the bump she currently had on her nose, courtesy of tanglin’ with Dixie. “Silly me. How insensitive to make mention of it when it’s clear you still haven’t even made the appointment.”

Em didn’t wait to see their faces. Pivoting on her heel, she breezed off, catching the low cackle of Dixie’s future mother-in-law, Jo-Lynne Donovan, from the corner of the café. Jo-Lynne flashed her a quick thumbs-up and a warm smile before returning to her steaming coffee, making Em instantly regret her unkind comment.

Just because Louella Palmer had come precariously close to ruining her life in Plum Orchard, had turned her children into the subject of cruel jokes at school, was no reason for her to take pleasure in cheers from the crowd. That would make her as bad, if not worse, than Louella Palmer.

But she shot a conspiratorial smile back at Jo-Lynne anyway; because today, Louella’s gruesome was something she just couldn’t cotton on top of her minihangover.

Head down to fight the yellow beast of the sun in the sky, Em went straight for the hardware store’s door, stopping just shy of entering when she sensed a presence, a large, warm, almost-imposing presence.

Her eyes flew upward, locking gazes with an intense pair of light brown eyes surrounded by a thick fringe of lashes. The sun glazed them for a moment, turning them a deep, glimmering whiskey.

It was him.

Her cheeks went hot.

The him she’d spent far too many hours daydreaming about since they’d first made eye contact over two months ago. Him laughing, his perfectly straight white teeth flashing when he smiled at her. Him, gruff and darkly beautiful, his thickly roped arms wrapped around her waist, securing her to his side.

Him when he leaned in low and took her mouth, letting his tongue rasp along hers and kissing her like her lips were the very reason he breathed.

And yes, even him naked, with every corded muscle that made up his smooth planes and rigid lines hovering above her, hard against her belly, her legs tight around his waist as he thrust into...

Her heart stopped pumping, the unquenchable heat in her veins threatening to set her limbs on fire.

His square jaw was almost too square, too hard and unforgiving until it shifted when his lips turned up in a smile of inquiry, leaving Em holding her breath.

Apparently, “him” didn’t recognize her. Disappointment flared in the pit of her belly. To be fair, her hair was a little longer now, and she did have dark sunglasses and a hat on.

Somehow, in her daydreams, when they saw each other again, he would’ve known her if he was blind.

Em’s stomach clenched and released then contracted into a tight fist again when he cocked his dark head in the direction of the interior of the hardware store as if to say, “Ladies first.” He patiently held the door, his squared fingers covered in Band-Aids, scratches and hangnails.

The cool breeze blew another swift gust, carrying with it his scent, crisp and clean—like Irish Spring and fresh creek water. The way he smelled made perfect sense to Em. A man like him, hard and raw, sinful from head to toe, didn’t need expensive cologne as a final touch to his rough perfection.

Em’s heart finally struck up the band again, and began to boom in time with her head. Her fingers clutched the strap of the purse slung over her shoulder. Words, as they always did with a man, especially this man, failed her.

A bump from behind jolted her forward, making her aware she was staring. “Gawking, honey,” Dixie whispered in her ear. “Stop gawking and say, ‘hello, divine man. Need a screw for your screwdriver?’”

Em did everything she could to keep from gasping at Dixie’s suggestive words, nudging her in the ribs before sending the man a cool smile and whisking past him into the hardware store, Dixie in tow.

She headed straight for the farthest aisle from the door, almost running into Nanette Pruitt and Essie Guthrie without even acknowledging them, refusing to stop until she was as far away from that man as possible.

Dixie’s ankle boots clacked behind Em, skidding to a halt when she rounded the corner and hid behind a pallet of two-by-fours.

Em grabbed Dixie by her arm and pulled her close, scrunching her eyes shut. All that rapid forward motion left her stomach sketchy at best.

Dixie fought to catch her own breath in a harsh wheeze, before asking, “Why did we just run all the way across Lucky’s like we were runnin’ from a band of Magnolias with lit torches?”

The stomp of work boots as Lucky’s employees loaded and unloaded pallets of heavy wood made her wince, but it was the stench of turpentine and furniture polish that was almost her undoing. She took a gulp of air, thanking whoever was in charge of the universe the moment passed.

Dixie smoothed Em’s hair off her shoulder, giving it a gentle tug. “One more time. Why did we run all the way to the back of the store when what you need is in the front?”

“Because that’s him!” Em wheezed back, pressing her fingers to her queasy stomach and tugging her knit beret farther down her forehead.

Dixie snickered, unwrapping the turquoise scarf from her neck. “I know it’s him, Em. I remember. I was in the square that night when the two of you all but consummated your mad lust just lookin’ at each other. If you’d stared at each other much longer? Total combustion. Poof.” She gestured an explosion with her fingers and a grin full of mischief.

Em groaned out her misery in both ailment and bad memory. One of the worst nights of her life had included the best ten seconds of her life. One long searing gaze over picnic blankets and children’s heads was really all it had been. Yet, there had been more bad that night than good.

“Didn’t you once say you heard Louella call him Jax? What a gorgeous name. You’d better make haste before Annabelle Pruitt lures him to her house for her special fudge candy pops. Or the seal-the-deal cherry crumb pie,” Dixie teased.

But Em was back in the square—locked in the memory of all the horrible stares, the gasps of shock when Clifton’s secret was revealed. “I don’t want to think about that night ever again, Dixie.”

Dixie scoffed, lifting Em’s sunglasses to gaze directly into her eyes. “Stop clinging to a bad memory, Em. It’s over. Everyone knows Clifton cross-dresses now. So what? If anyone should hate the memory of that night, it should be me. Or have you forgotten you thought I was the one who’d gossiped about Clifton’s secret to someone and that ‘someone’ told Louella, who accidentally on purpose included the picture of him at the Founders’ Day slide show all dressed up in his Trixie LeMieux gown?”

Em’s lips thinned, snapping her back to reality and the sounds of a busy Saturday at Lucky’s. “We’re not far from the nail aisle, Miss Dixie. Do you want to buy some to seal my coffin all right and proper?”

Dixie snorted a chuckle, scanning the surrounding area and lowering her voice. “Hah! I’ll just borrow some of yours.”

Oh. That night. She’d said so many unforgivable things to Dixie, it left her with an actual physical pain when she remembered them. “I’ve apologized for that night. Over and over, might I remind you?”

Dixie’s smile was full of warmth and sympathy. “Which is sort of my point, silly. You don’t need to apologize anymore because it’s over, Em, long ago. And might I remind you, just before all those bad memories happened, you made a good one, too. A really, hot, longingly, deliciously good one. One that involves that enormous man dipped in delicious all the way up to his eyeballs. Whose name is Jax, in case you needed remindin’.”

Fear and humiliation rooted her to the spot, refusing to allow her to move an inch. Her thighs ached from sitting on her haunches, but she’d rather sit on them all day than have that man recognize her.

“So, are you going to go see if you can recapture that magical moment in the square—or are your eyes too bloodshot?”

“I’m not reliving anything. He saw everything that night. Everything, Dixie.”

All on a big screen. Clifton, larger than life, dressed better than Em would ever be capable of dressing herself. He’d heard, too, she was sure.

Who hadn’t heard her call Dixie a sorry excuse for a human being that night? Remembering those awful, ugly words, words Dixie had long ago forgiven her for, still made her feel sick with shame.

The frosty white icing on the cake? She’d run smack into him upon fleeing the square that evening, tears soaking her cheeks, her nylons ripped from tripping over a child’s bike in her mad dash to get away from the prying eyes of everyone attending the Founders’ Day celebration.

Em hadn’t seen him since that night when just before she’d humiliated herself in front of all of Plum Orchard, they’d shared a moment when their eyes met—a brief few seconds still suspended in her mind, and probably much bigger than it had truly been.

What was he doing back here anyway? He couldn’t have been here for the past two months. There was no way you could hide someone the size of him in Plum Orchard—droves of the town’s single women lining up outside wherever he rested his gorgeous, dark head wasn’t something you’d likely miss.

Sure as the day was long, a fresh man even remotely passable didn’t stand a chance in a place where a new face didn’t go unnoticed and the single women outnumbered the single men five to one.

Dixie sighed, finally sliding to sit entirely on the floor, crossing her legs. “Who cares what Jax saw? He probably doesn’t even remember anything but that across the crowded square thing you two were doing with your eyes. I saw him look at you, Em. That cancels everything else out. Why didn’t you just say hello to him out there to begin with? You can’t ever do lascivious things to his incredible body if you don’t at least say hello. Well, hold that thought. I guess technically, you could, but I think that classifies you in a category unbefitting a lady.”

Em slid down next to Dixie, letting her head rest against the ends of the wood with a weak sigh. “Stop being plum crazy. A man like that isn’t ever going to let a woman like me do anything to his incredible body.”

“Why the heck not?”

“Spoken like a woman who’s never doubted her incredibleness.” And why would Dixie doubt how gorgeous she was? She exuded confidence and this raw sexuality that oozed from her pores.

“Leave me out of this, and stop making excuses. So tell me again why a man like that wouldn’t let a woman like you have her way with him?”

“Because he’s just too much incredible. Incredible men look for incredible women.” At least, that’s the experience she’d had since they’d begun girls’ night. A man like that wouldn’t be interested in her. He’d want a woman who was dynamic, worldly and far more interesting than a woman who’d rather stay at home and bake apple pies while she sipped grape Kool-Aid from a wineglass, fancying herself a real academic because she read mystery novels by the dozen.

She was simple, in taste and in her way of life. He looked like he should drive an Aston Martin and call some elderly woman Miss Moneypenny. He might appear big and gruff, but there was a primal elegance to it—a Daniel Craig air about him that left her knees weak.

Dixie rose, holding out her hand to Em, who took it, moaning when the motion of merely rising unsettled her precarious stomach. “The not-hungover Dixie is going to tell hungover Em to stop being so maudlin and more important, stop talking about yourself like you’re not just as incredible. Because that’s just plain not true. Now,” she said, tucking her gloves inside the pockets of her sweater, “why are you here again? I forgot in light of the hunky man.”

“Tile. I need to pick out some new tile for my bathroom. But first, I need you to take a peek around that corner and be sure he’s gone. Please.” She pointed over her shoulder.

Please let him be gone, please let him be gone.

Dixie poked her head around the tall steel shelves, housing smaller cuts of wood. She gave Em the thumbs-up, holding out her arm to her.

Em hooked arms with Dixie, forcing her shaky legs to keep up. “I warned you you were headed for a hangover, didn’t I?”

“You bein’ the expert, and all,” she remarked dryly, using all her energy to focus on picking new ceramic tile for her bathroom. Since Clifton left, she found herself itching to change the things he’d once loved but she’d hated about their small house. Seeing as she was good with a band saw—or almost any saw—and Dixie had afforded her a generous paycheck, she could do it.

Dixie grinned. “Hangovers and a little sleepin’ around were my specialties. Don’t take from my résumé, Em. It messes with my street cred, lessening the value of all my hard work all those years. It hurts.”

Em giggled. “Stop chattering. It makes my head swim.”

Dixie rested her arm high on a rack holding row after row of colorful tile. “That’s because you’re hungover. A swimming head’s a sure sign.”

“Hush, and help me pick out some new tile, would you, please? I don’t want to waste a Saturday doing nothing while the boys are away.”

“Are you really going to tackle this project alone? It’s a lot of work. Why won’t you just let me pay someone to do it for you?” Dixie’s face had skeptical all over it.

“It’s called Em’s big, fat pride. If I let someone do it, I won’t have done it myself. There’s a certain sense of self-satisfaction in remodeling an entire house all on your own. It’s not like I don’t know my way around a wet saw, Dixie. I mean, I did spend the first months of my divorce watching nothing but the DIY channel and YouTube. It gives me something to do while the boys are off at Mama’s, or when Clifton finally gets around to bringing them to Atlanta for his visitation. It’s clean, hard work—and it’s good for the soul. But also because I don’t want these busybodies to start talkin’ and saying I’m just your person because of all that money you have now. So let’s be clear.” She raised her voice a decibel so there’d be no mistake about whether Emmaline Amos took handouts. “I don’t love you for your mountains of money.”

Dixie held up a blue ceramic square with a yellow sunflower on it for Em’s inspection. “Then why do you love me, Em?”

Em shook her head when she peeked at the tile by lifting her dark glasses. No sunflowers. “I love you because lovin’ you is like havin’ an in with the devil’s head playmate. I’m always guaranteed an invite to the exorcism.”

Her phone buzzed against her hip, cutting Dixie off. She dragged it out of her pocket, frowning when she saw it was Nella, Call Girls’ receptionist.

Em held the phone up to Dixie so she could see who was calling. “My work never ends, does it? Sure, let’s give Em a job, you said. Let’s give her a juicy paycheck to match, you said. Let’s give her a title like general manager to match her big paycheck. I should have known there’d be Saturday strings attached with you in charge, Dixie,” she joked, scrolling her phone’s screen. “Nella?”

“Let me start right out by apologizing.” She rushed her words together, her voice riddled with anxiety. “I confused my lines again, and crossed wires, or pressed the wrong button, or whatever it is you do when you do it wrong—I did it. I’m so sorry, Em! I’m still learnin’ the phones. I would never want to do anything to jeopardize the good fortune that’s come my way since you hired me.”

Em smiled into the phone, full of sympathy for Nella. She’d hired Nella three weeks ago on a recommendation from her cousin Flynn. She didn’t know the details about what initially brought Nella to Plum Orchard, and she made it her business not to ask why she always looked so sad when she thought no one was looking.

She only knew Nella’s circumstances had left her jobless, and she kept to herself, but her sweet face, enormous round green eyes and cute pixie haircut were a total contradiction to the way she handled parsing out good calls from bad like a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebacker. “Nella? It’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes. You’re new. It happens.”

Nella groaned into Em’s ear, a vibrating buzz like a dentist’s drill to her sensitive head. “I promise you, it won’t happen again. I heard all that yelling, and I just knew I had to apologize for causin’ trouble, but I couldn’t find you to do it by the time I had a free moment.”

That’s because by that time, she’d been flat out on her big bed, clothes still on, snoring and drooling. “Nella, please don’t fret a second longer. Everything’s fine. You made a simple mistake, and I took care of it. That poor little girl shouldn’t have had access to a number...” She trailed off when she caught sight of Dixie, jumping up and down, waving her arms.

Em furrowed her brow, cocking her head in question while Dixie danced around. “She said she found it on her daddy’s desk! I was horrified, and this poor, sweet angel—”

“It was damn well you,” a voice as deep and booming as a canyon accused, creating a hush in the chatter of gossipy conversation all around her from the patrons of Lucky’s.

Em whipped around just in time to see Dixie stood behind him. She threw her hands up in the air in obvious defeat, shooting Em a digusted roll of her eyes.

It was him. The him.

But he wasn’t looking down at her with the look of her two-month-old daydreams. The look that said he’d gobble her up whole and no one in the world compared to her.

No.

This him was glaring at her—lording over her as though she was personally responsible for the Civil War and global warming.

His thick, squared finger rose, pointing directly at her. “It was you on the phone last night with my daughter.”

Three

Em’s eyes slid upward, scanning the length of him. This wasn’t her him. Her him wouldn’t have been the angry father from the phone last night. He also wouldn’t be an angry father with a phone number for a place like Call Girls.

She was certainly open to many things since she’d begun working for Call Girls—she would never judge a client, or at least she tried her best not to. But a man she’d turned into a knight in shining armor by virtue of one long glance, calling women for sex who were complete strangers?

“Nella?” She fought the squeak in her voice. “I’ll call you back.” Em slid the phone off and dropped it back into her pocket, taking in a deep breath before confronting him.

Arms crossed over his big chest, encased in a black sweatshirt with a plaid flannel jacket over it, he flared his nostrils. “You spoke to my daughter on the phone last night. I’d know your voice anywhere after you read me the first-grade teacher ‘how dare you’ riot act.”

Dixie was about to rush to her aid. Em knew it just by the sound of her heels clacking with a swift pitter-patter across the hardware store’s floor and the narrowing of her eyes. The angry narrow, not to be confused with the smolder narrow.

Em held up a hand to ward off Dixie, who came to stand at her side nonetheless. When it came to looking out for Call Girls, nothing could fluster her. Not even him.

She cleared her throat and adopted a businesslike tone. “I think we got off on the wrong foot last night. First, let me introduce myself—or reintroduce myself. I’m Emmaline Amos, general manager for Call Girls Inc.” She held out her hand.

He stared at it, his once-promising lips now a hard line.

Em straightened, sucking in her cheeks. Hoping to avoid a spectacle everyone in town would talk about until she made the next spectacle of herself. “Maybe we should discuss this outside?”

His face grew harder, if that was possible. “The hell. I’m fine with discussing it right here. Mind telling me how a six-year-old managed to get through to one of your operators?”

Em’s eyebrow rose. She bristled at the implication she was anything less than acutely aware of everything that went on at Call Girls. “Mind telling me how your six-year-old got her hands on a number like ours? She did say it was on your desk.”

He ran a hand over his jaw, already littered with stubble, or maybe it had remained littered with stubble because he hadn’t shaved.

His face, formerly known as hard and angry, went suddenly boggled and tame. He scratched his head. “Come to think of it, I have no idea how she got her hands on the number. I sent her straight to bed, and I didn’t have time to talk with her about it this morning. She made me tea, which distracted me because she’s dang cute when she makes me her special tea. That’s how I left her—having tea.”

Which would imply there was someone else looking after his little girl if he’d left her at the house, and still didn’t explain why he had a number for Call Girls. She struggled with how deeply that disappointed her and gave him her “aha” look, hoping her glare would reach him from behind her sunglasses.

It was the glare she gave her boys when they held the answer to their own question. “Then your number-one priority right now is to go focus on bein’ a better parent, and ask her. You obviously missed the chapter on putting things in high places where small children can’t reach them,” she condescended.

He grinned—suddenly, inexplicably. And it was magical. “I obviously did.”

Just like that, he wasn’t angry or yelling anymore. He was like Texas weather. Stormin’ and ragin’ one minute, sunny and blue-skied the next.

“So you—” he leaned in toward her and whispered “—manage a phone-sex company?”

Now that his accusatory tone and mad face were gone, Em’s words suddenly were, too. She swallowed hard, tongue-tied. When he said the words phone sex, her heart stopped again. It was husky and raspy like he’d taken a swig of whiskey and it had left him hoarse. His deep timbre vibrated up along her spine with soft fingers.

She understood exactly what he’d said, but somehow, his words had turned into the man of her daydreams asking her to have sex with him. Which couldn’t be right.

Her cheeks flushed.

Dixie pinched her arm and smiled at Em with encouragement. “She does manage a phone-sex company, and she’s amazing.”

Em nodded because it seemed like the right thing to do, not because she considered herself amazing. “I do.”

Now his eyebrow rose, dark and questioning. He made the shape of a phone with his fingers. “So, do you, you know, talk to...people—callers?” He seemed fascinated by the idea that he might have encountered a real live phone-sex operator out and about in the wilds of Plum Orchard, Georgia.

Em knew he was waiting for an answer, but she was mesmerized by the sharp planes of his face, the deep grooves on either side of his mouth, his dark hair, shaggy and curling around the collar of his jacket. And the pink barrette, dangling from a strand of it just behind his ear.

Her heart melted like cold ice cream on a hot July day. A man with a pink barrette in his hair was exactly the man of her daydreams.

“So do you?” he repeated, his eyes intense.

Did she?

“No!” Dixie was quick to answer in her stead. “No. Em doesn’t talk to our clients, do you, Em?” She rubbed Em’s back to prompt her. “But she does talk. I promise. She’s just tired. It’s been a busy week doing all that managing.”

The world morphed back into shape again, bringing with it the crisp colors of the stacks of ceramic tile, people milling in and out of the aisles, and Dixie, pinching her again, even harder. “Yes!” She forced her lips to move, watching the barrette he was so completely unaware of, bobble. “I do talk, but I can’t right now. I have to go. So I hope you’ll excuse us.”

He stuck out his hand, preventing her from leaving. “Before you go, Jax Hawthorne. My apologies. I’m a little overprotective when it comes to my daughter. I really don’t know how she got her hands on a number like yours. Not that your number is bad or anything. Just, well, you know.”

Jax Hawthorne. She’d once mentioned to Dixie, his first name sounded like something out of a romance novel. His last name cinched the deal.

Em hesitated. Touching his hand, that rough, wide, callused hand, the one she’d wondered what it would be like to have touch every inch of her, was probably a bad idea. It would leave an imprint on her skin—one she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about.

But her upbringing and good manners insisted she take it. Em dropped her hand into his, squeezing hard to assert herself in yet another way to prove to the world she was capable—independent. Because stern teacher’s voices and extrafirm handshakes are sure signs of empowerment, Emmaline.

“Anyway,” he said, dragging her back to reality by dropping her hand. “My apologies for reacting without investigating first. Have a nice Saturday, ladies.”

Just as he was about to turn his broad back to walk away, the pink barrette slipped from his hair, dropping to the ground at Em’s feet with a tinny clink.

She lifted her glasses to set them atop her head as she knelt and scooped it up at the exact moment he knelt to retrieve it, their heads almost touching.

And their eyes met, too—again—in another one of those stares. Long, short, intense, soft. Em couldn’t decide which adjective to lend it. She cleared her tight throat, holding up the barrette. “You dropped this.”

If Jax recognized her without her glasses, he didn’t show it.

He grinned again. “My daughter’s.”

She melted again.

“She likes pink?”

“She said it’s my color. For dress up, I mean,” he corrected, grumbly and deep.

Em smiled at him. “I agree.”

“Then it’s settled. Pink forever.”

“Pink rules.”

“Just like my daughter.”

More melting. “Tell her Miss Em said hello, won’t you?”

“I will.” He took the barrette from her fingers, their skin touching then not, doing hot, delicious things to places on her body that shouldn’t be hotly delicious from just touching fingers. He dropped it in the pocket of his flannel jacket.

“Have a nice afternoon, Mr. Hawthorne.” Em swung upward, thankful for Dixie, who grabbed her by the arm to steady her, murmuring a goodbye to Jax and ushering her out of the hardware store.

Outside, the cold air struck her cheeks, cooling their heat, but assaulting her headache with prickly pinches.

Dixie fanned herself, tugging at the collar of her sweater and lifting her chin to let the air hit it.

So it wasn’t just her. Em fanned herself, too. “It was like Hades in there. Someone needs to tell Lucky to turn down the heat in that store. It felt like August.”

“No, someone needs to tell the two of you to turn down the heat. You and Jax Hawthorne, that is.” She smiled, tucking her purse under her arm with that look of confidence on her face.

Em peeked back over her shoulder at the hardware store and made a warning noise at Dixie. “You hush.”

“I surely will not. It’s the truth. Jax Hawthorne is hot. As your person, it’s my duty to tell you, he’s hot for you.”

Jax Hawthorne. A flutter of nerves made Em shiver. Just the notion he might find her equally attractive after all that fantasizing about him wasn’t acceptable. She’d only end up disappointed when the fantasy ended. “He’s hot for my backside on a silver platter because of his little girl callin’ up a sex line. Nothing more.”

Dixie shook her head no with an impish grin. “Tell me that the next time the two of you spontaneously combust with one little glance.”

Em shuffled her feet, giving in to Dixie’s theory just a little. Jax’s face at the mention of his daughter left her heart fluttering like it had hummingbird wings. “Did you hear him talk about his little girl? He wears barrettes in his hair for his daughter when they play dress up.” How endearing and in tune to his daughter’s needs for a man so big and rough. More melting ensued.

Dixie giggled, lilting and girlish. “I saw. I heard. I conclude. Hot man, hot for you, who loves his little girl so much he’ll let her dress him up, grows hotter.”

Em let just one schoolgirl sigh escape her lips—allowed herself just a second or two to believe a man like Jax Hawthorne could find her attractive. But then the cold wind, growing colder by the minute, blasted her in the face and she winced. “It doesn’t matter. He said he left his little girl at home. He surely didn’t leave her alone. That must mean there’s a Mrs. Hawthorne.” Less melting, more gut-gnawing disappointment.

Dixie wiggled her finger in Em’s direction. “Would his daughter be lookin’ for a girlfriend for her father if there was a Mrs. Hawthorne? And if there is, he owes her an apology, ’cuz he’s been cheatin’ on her with his eyes. Now, come with me. I’ll have Sanjeev fix you up some hair of the dog and we’ll take care of that hangover. Then we’ll talk more about the cues a man gives a woman when he’s hot for her and almost certainly unmarried.”

Em began a slow stroll alongside her when doubt set in. “He didn’t even remember me.” Jax Hawthorne, that is.

“That’s because you had your sunglasses on. He couldn’t see those eyes he all but made the business with in the square that night.”

“I took them off, and anyway, shouldn’t he have known me just by my scent...or something?”

“Only if he’s a vampire, or is that werewolf?”

“Let’s not talk about him anymore. I need hangover relief STAT.” Em popped open the doors of her Jeep.

“Him’s name is Jax Hawthorne. I know you’re turning his name over and over in your mind. And we can avoid the subject of him all you like because that’s what you do when you’re flustered. But we’ll have to address this eventually, because I heard a little something while you were giving him hell. So, guess who’s movin’ to Plum Orchard permanently?” Dixie hopped in the car with a grin and shut the door.

Em’s stomach nose-dived while her heart fought for a way out of the captivity of her chest. Permanently? How, in the name of the good man above, would she survive his sexual napalm living in a community as small as Plum Orchard?

* * *

Jax shoulder bumped Caine Donovan, his longtime friend and old college roommate, before dropping down on a stool at the breakfast bar. “This—” he craned his neck to indicate the enormity of what Caine called the Big House “—is some shit. That guy that used to come visit you all the time in college left you all of this? Your best friend, right?”

Caine smiled, his grin easy as he leaned forward on the breakfast bar and sipped his beer. “Yep. Landon Wells, and yes, again. Technically, he left it to my fiancée, Dixie, but I scored big because I’m smart enough to marry her. He also left us something else. Something that’s gonna blow your head off. It’s one of the reasons I called you when I heard you were moving into your aunt’s place. You need something to do with your time since you sold the business. Your brothers told me you’re a total shithead lately.”

Jax was still reeling after meeting one Emmaline Amos up close and in person. The woman he’d seen across the town square when he’d been here two months ago, signing the papers to take possession of his aunt’s house.

When she’d run from the square that night and straight into him after seeing a picture of what he’d heard through Plum Orchard’s gossipy grapevine was her husband dressed in drag, her vulnerability, her raw humiliation, had touched a nerve.

Soft and sweet, her dark hair falling over her shoulders like silk, she’d caught his attention then and stuck like glue to his mind’s eye since.

Today, when she’d used that tone with him, under the guise of some good old-fashioned Southern decorum, it did something funny to his chest. It was like telling him to go straight to hell while she smiled that cute smile.

She was hot and sweet, and she’d tried pretty hard to maintain her composure, leading Jax to believe she remembered him from that night, too.

“Jax?” Caine nudged him across the marble countertop.

“Sorry. Got a lot on my mind. So what’s gonna blow my head off? Like this palace isn’t enough? You have a camel, man. There’s a camel in the backyard.” He still couldn’t believe it.

Caine chuckled. “That’s Toe, by the way. You’ll need to know that when you come work for us. He actually likes people—especially people who need a swift kick in the ass.”

He didn’t want to do anything but renovate his aunt’s house and hang out with his daughter, Maizy. Jax stiffened, cracking his scratched knuckles. “I don’t need a job, Caine. Since I sold the company, I’ve just been catching my breath.”

“And driving Gage and Tag crazy,” Caine said, but this time, he wasn’t grinning or coaxing or doing any of the things everyone did to try to get him motivated to get off his ass.

The mention of his two younger brothers, who were also part of the “get off your ass or at least get laid” brigade, made him chuckle. “Speaking of asses, they don’t know theirs from their elbows.”

Caine hitched his jaw in the direction of Jax’s hands. “Well, neither do you, if the Band-Aids on your fingers are any indication.”

Both of his brothers were skilled carpenters; both had offered to come and renovate their aunt Jesslyn’s house. Because they’d declared parts of it were unsafe, and the last thing those two knuckleheads wanted was anything to happen to Maizy. They loved Maizy as much as he did.

So, because he had nothing but time on his hands, he’d been trying to help with the renovations. Or making shit worse, as Tag said. He and their sister, Harper, were the brains of the family, Tag and Gage, the brawn, Gage always said.

Except there was no more Harper—she was dead. He clenched his fist and shoved that memory to the farthest region of his mind. “So why don’t you tell me why you’re plying me with beer, pal. What’s with all the secrecy?”

Caine shoved a bowl of tortilla chips at Jax. “Didn’t you get the message I left you? I called the house phone and left a message with Gage when I couldn’t get you on your cell.”

He smiled—because even when Maizy ruined something of his “on accident” she was still damn adorable. “Maizy spilled apple juice all over the damn thing—it crapped out. What message?”

“The one about Call Girls. I left the number.”

“Call Girls?” It hit him all at once. That’s how Maizy had gotten her hands on a phone number that, according to her, belonged to a store where you could “buy girlfriends.” His always-in-a-rush brother must have taken down the most minimal of information and left it on his desk, hoping Jax’s psychic abilities would link Caine to Call Girls.

Oh, shit. He’d fucked up and the stern teacher’s voice Emmaline Amos had lambasted him with hadn’t been without warrant.

“Yeah. Call Girls’ is the phone-sex company Dixie and I own. Someday, I’ll tell you how that crazy shit went down. Until then, that’s what this is about. I need someone to write some encryption software for security purposes. We want to tighten things up and branch out while we do. You’re the biggest tech geek I know. When I heard you were moving to Plum Orchard, you were the first person I thought of.”

“Maybe I’m not connecting the dots. Call Girls is a phone-sex company you own? Here in Plum Orchard? How the hell did you make that happen? I only visited during the summers, but people aren’t exactly progressive here. Not progressive enough to have a phone-sex company.”

Caine grinned. “Money talks in the PO. Landon made a lot of money. The town, and all he offered it with all that money, made up for their disapproval. He made sure of that before he left this place. So whaddya say? I’ll hook you up with your own office over at Call Girls, which is in the guesthouse, by the way—this way you can get out from under Tag’s and Gage’s feet while they fix that beast up, and it’ll give you something to do while Maizy’s in school.”

“I don’t need a job.” He needed his sister—alive. Since she’d been killed almost two years ago, he couldn’t keep his head in the software development game. Every time he thought he might go back to work, the memory of Harper, the other half of his geeky brain, kept his fingers as far away from a computer as he could get.

She’d been his sounding board, his right-hand man, or woman, as she’d often reminded him, and he couldn’t seem to focus on the intense kind of details government security contracts required.

Caine clapped him on the back. “Well, this job needs you. If you can create software for the Defense Department, you damn well can do it for something as rinky-dink as a phone-sex company. It won’t use up a lot of your brainpower, and you won’t be moping around, ruining perfectly good pieces of two-by-fours by measuring them wrong. I’ll give you your own office and everything. C’mon... You can even eavesdrop on the girls’ phone calls,” he joked with a wink.

“I don’t need an office to develop software. I can do it from home.” That he was even considering Caine’s offer shocked him.

“Nope. You don’t need an office, but I’m gonna give you one anyway because you need to get the hell out from under Gage’s and Tag’s feet before they hack off your fingers. And then you won’t be developing anything, will you?”

Jax sat silently.

“Look, bro, if not for yourself, do it for Maizy. I bet she’d really like a playroom that has a roof,” Caine said, ribbing the state of his aunt’s dilapidated house.

“Caine? Honey?” a familiar voice called from the large entryway, echoing off the marble tiles. “Know where Sanjeev is? I need him to mix up one of his hangover specialties.”

Caine held out a hand to the woman who’d been with Emmaline in Lucky’s, a woman who looked at him like his old college buddy had invented high-heel shoes. Pulling her to him, he gave her a long kiss that almost made Jax uncomfortable.

So he chose to take that moment to think. Caine was only trying to do what everyone had been trying to do since Harper died. Get him back out into the world—where crazy assholes roamed free and killed your sister.

He wasn’t sure he was ready for that. He had no motivation in him to do anything that was productive or useful, and everyone knew it.

It was at that undecided moment—while he searched for this motivation everyone seemed so eager to instill in him, when Emmaline Amos walked into the big kitchen, her hand squeezing her temples while she looked down at her feet—that he forgot everything.

Caine let go of Dixie, circling her waist with a loose grip. “Dixie, Em? I want you to meet my old college roommate, Jax Hawthorne. His aunt Jessalyn owned that big Victorian over by the creek. He used to spend his summers here. You remember her, right?”

Em’s steps stuttered then stopped altogether.

And there it was again—their stare. The one that connected them in a way Jax tasted on his tongue, felt in his freakin’ marrow.

A weird shift of his gut, his emotions all tangled up in it, happened again. This time stronger than the last.

Jax caught Caine and Dixie sending each other some secret signal only lovers shared. Dixie was probably trying to warn Caine that he and Emmaline had already been introduced, but like the man he was—the man they both were, Caine totally missed the signal.

When Em didn’t respond, Caine said, “Em, this is Jax. Jax, Em’s our GM at Call Girls.”

Yep. She sure was.

Enough said. He was in before he even understood why.

Oh, and hello there, motivation.

Four

Em virtually ran past Jax’s newly appointed office, hoping to avoid eye contact. She’d done it for a week. If she worked hard, stayed focused, was aware of her surroundings, she could keep right on doing it for as long as she was forced to work alongside Jax Hawthorne.

Picking up the pace, she moved with quick feet, willing herself not to run and appear rude. She nearly twisted her ankle taking the sharp corner while aiming straight for safe haven—aka Marybell’s office.

“Emmaline?”

Em stopped dead, her right heel catching on the carpet, forcing her to grab at the small crushed-velvet chair with the enormous fern on it to keep her balance. She swatted at the leaves and willed her voice to come off easy. “Yes?”

“Can I see you for a minute?”

Em frowned. Will it really only be a minute? Much longer and she’d probably melt into a puddle of lusty goo. In fact, since Jax had taken up residence at Call Girls a week ago, her record for staving off puddles of lusty goo when he was in the vicinity was eighty-eight point three seconds. A whole two minutes could pose a troublesome challenge.

He stuck his dark head out the doorway to locate her in the hall, filling up the space with his muscle-y chest and wide shoulders.

Em had to swallow back a sigh when she allowed herself a quick peek of the fitted, indigo shirt he wore, which hugged his pecs and tapered into his lean waist. The color of it made his eyes look like a dark, raging sea. Her eyes continued to travel, drawn to his thighs, thick and hard and making an uncomfortable heat pool between her legs.

Jax smiled at her, all white-toothed and luscious lips. “Em?”

She held up the screwdriver as though it was her magic wand—a wand that would ward off his penchant for turning her into lusty goo. “Sorry. Sometimes I have a one-track mind. I was off to fix the doorjamb in Marybell’s office. How can I help you?”

His eyes, thickly fringed with dark lashes, crinkled at the corners. “So you’re handy?”

Randy? Yes. Yes, she was. Wait. Handy. Are you handy, Emmaline Amos? She looked down at her traitorous magic screwdriver without meeting his eyes, hiding her gulp. “I’m very handy.”

“Like big-power-tools handy? Or just screw-in-a-lightbulb handy?”

Was that a little admiration she heard in his voice? When she finally let Jax’s gaze take hold of hers, she was actually able to smile with more ease. Safe subject.

If they were talking about power tools, confidence took over where schoolgirl puddles of lusty goo left off. She knew a band saw. “I really am. I can handle almost anything but a lathe. I just can’t seem to master the fine art of sculpting the leg of a table without turning it into a toothpick.”

Jax folded his arms across his chest and smiled his appreciation. “I have no clue what a lathe is, but I bet it’s an impressive piece of machinery. My brothers would love you. They’re both contractors, very handy guys. They’re helping me renovate my aunt Jessalyn’s house. Me? I’m useless when it comes to anything with a bit or a blade.” Jax held up his bandaged hands to show her the proof.

Forget his lack of expertise with power tools. He had brothers? There were more men running around the PO looking like him—all sorts of rough around the edges and dirty-hot?

It must be some sort of conspiracy. Just when she was beginning to feel something other than apathetic about the other gender, the universe decided to simply throw rough, yet beautifully hewn men at her for sport. How thoughtful.

Though she’d bet neither of his brothers matched the silent, almost-caged prowess Jax emanated. He was so many things: sleek, rough, unkempt but totally in control. Yet, he moved with such grace while his muscles bunched and flexed. Contradictions aplenty.

Still, no way it was legal to have another two just like him in Plum Orchard all at once.

Em inched a little closer to him. Just close enough to behave as though she wasn’t on high lusty-goo alert, but far enough away that she couldn’t quite smell his cologne. Which changed the game entirely.

If his presence weren’t already hard enough on her dirty, dirty libido, his cologne would surely trump all varieties of goo. She’d gotten a lingering whiff of him when he’d left Call Girls for the night and she’d had to drop some reports on his desk. Clean and fresh. Like Tide and sunshine.

Jax’s step closer roused her from her thoughts. “Em?”

“Your brothers, right. How nice of them to offer their services. So they’re here, too? That must be so comforting for your little girl—bein’ in a strange, new town and all. Having your wife and your brothers around must have made the move much easier on her.” Fishing. She was going fishing. Throwing her line into the pool of unanswered Jax questions, waiting to see what her hook snared.

For a week, she’d refused to ask Caine or any of the girls if they knew what Jax’s relationship status was because of the razzing she knew she’d get from them. Maybe he was just separated from Maizy’s mother? Maybe it was his turn for visitation, and Maizy was just here temporarily?

She’d wondered all sorts of things about Jax, thought up every scenario imaginable.

Then she had to talk herself out of wondering. Her wonder was treading on the personal information she’d sworn not to wonder about. Yet had wondered about endlessly all week long.

Complications—she was gifted at creating them for herself.

“I don’t have a wife. Just some brothers. Two, to be precise. Gage and Tag.”

Relief flooded her veins when his voice cut into her thoughts. Jax didn’t have a wife. So, her lusty goo wasn’t breaking any girl codes. Phew. “A single dad, huh?”

“Yep. You’re a single parent, too, right?”

Her cheeks flamed hot and red. She gripped the screwdriver harder in some bizarre effort to force the magic Jax-Away-A-Nator juice into oozing from its metal tip. Had he inquired about her personal status? Things like that didn’t come up in general conversation unless you made it a point to bring them up.

“I am. Two boys. Clifton Junior, and Gareth. Eight and five.”

“We have a lot in common then. Bet your boys don’t call phone-sex lines, do they?”

Her laughter tinkled from her throat without consulting her. It slipped with ease from her loose lips. “I’m sorry I was so harsh and judgmental with you. It’s not easy to parent with two people, let alone one. Especially if they’re precocious and as smart as your little girl, but I’m about as overprotective about Call Girls as I am about my boys. I work hard to maintain our integrity—so you caught me off guard, and I got a little high on my horse.” And tipsy—he’d caught her very tipsy.

He held up a hand with a wrinkled Band-Aid across the broad back of it. “No. You were right. Maizy, that’s my daughter’s name, shouldn’t have had access to a number like that. My brother took a message from Caine for me. He just didn’t take the entire message, and he left it right on my desk where she could find it. She’s pretty smart, and very curious. She’s a handful to keep track of—but when she gets an idea in her little head, there’s no telling her otherwise.”

Em nodded with a grin of single-parent solidarity. “Oh, I know all about stubborn little mules, dead set in their ways. I have one of my own.” A picture of Clifton Junior found its way to the surface of her mind’s eye.

A picture of him happy and giggling—the picture of him before his father had left without warning, and before he thought it was his responsibility to be the man in the Amos household. Her heart tightened in her chest. She’d give anything to have that little boy back again.

“You’re such a dirty, dirty boy, Lionel!” the new dayshift operator, Simone, squealed in exaggerated delight from the office across from Jax’s. “If you keep this kind of behavior up, you know what’s gonna happen to me, don’t you, mama’s nasty little boy? You’ll make me scream for you to—”

Em coughed loudly, reacting without thinking before Jax had the chance to hear another word of Simone’s phone call. She forgot that touching the chest she’d dreamed of for two months would be the end of her. She forgot that her palms would ache to touch more of him. She just wanted to drown out listening to a phone call like Simone’s while standing right next to him.

Since she’d begun working at Call Girls, most of the naughty rolled right off her back, became background noise she heard it so much. But listening to it with Jax was akin to acting out the Kama Sutra page by page.

Placing her palms on his chest, she fought the swift rush of heat all those muscles created, battled the weakness in her knees, and gave him a shove into his office. “Let’s talk in your office,” she all but shouted to cover Simone’s next request of her client.

Their limbs tangled up, tripping and stuttering until they ended up pushed against the wall, Jax holding her firmly to keep them from falling.

But he didn’t let her go. He kept his hands sprawled over her hips, letting them rest along the rounded swells like they belonged there. He laughed, his minty breath washing over her face, his eyes amused. “The girls told me you could be pushy. Who knew?”

Somewhere. Her next breath was somewhere in her diaphragm, afraid to come out for fear her exhalation would press her tighter to Jax’s length. She took a step back, still clinging to the screwdriver for all she was worth. “I am not pushy. Don’t you listen to those women. They tell tales out of school. Next they’ll have you thinkin’ I’m some sort of ogre.”

“Ogres have warts.” He tilted her chin up with his Band-Aid–wrapped forefinger, examining her face. His eyes went smoky when he grinned. “No warts.”

Em’s breathing hitched in her throat when he placed a thumb just beneath her lower lip. “Not a one.”

“Definitely not,” he agreed, still keeping his hands loosely on her hips, still wreaking havoc with her forbidden bits. “So things get a little racy around here, huh?”

Em hid her gulp and shrugged her shoulders to fake nonchalance. Like she was a sexpert. “That? I’m so used to it, it’s like hearin’ someone report the morning news.”

Jax laughed, sort of low, which did squishy, unidentifiable things to her belly. “Can’t say I ever remember hearing Katie Couric use those words to describe the war in Iraq,” he quipped.

“That was probably Bryant’s fault, always tryin’ to keep a good woman down.” She giggled a little then silently reprimanded herself for behaving like an inexperienced schoolgirl.

While not off the mark, that wasn’t the impression she wanted to give. She was Emmaline Amos, general manager of Call Girls Inc. In charge of a multimillion-dollar corporation. In. Charge.

Jax cleared his throat, still staring down at her. “Anyway, that question...” he muttered.

She snorted when she remembered there’d been a reason Jax had asked her into his office. And it’s probably a sexless question, Nympho Nancy. Then she covered her mouth when she realized she’d snorted, flustered and red all over again.

This was a perfect example of why she and small talk with devastatingly gorgeous men were twains that would never comfortably meet. “Oh, my apologies! I forgot all about the reason you asked me in here. What can I do for you?” Or do to you?

“I forget the reason I asked you in here, too. But I have a better reason for you to be in my office that’s just as compelling.”

She totally backed away from the heat of his big body and the intoxicating scent of man, finally finding her footing. Em placed a hand at her throat in a familiar, soothing gesture. “Yes?”

“First, Maizy and I had a talk about her using the phone without permission—a long one.”

Instantly, her concern was with that sweet voice that had struck a chord in Em’s heart. “I hope you weren’t angry with her. I don’t know if she told you the nature of her call, but it was out of concern for you.”

Jax’s expression went from soft to softer at the mention of his daughter, his granite jaw relaxing, his eyes flashing pride. “She did, and we talked it all out. But you made quite an impression on my girl. She said you were so nice to her and your voice was pretty in her ear. In fact, she wondered about you again today.”

Em’s heart sped up, pushing against her chest. She lost track of how many times she’d tried to form a picture in her mind of what Jax’s little girl would look like—what precious face the voice was attached to. “She was really very sweet, and exceptionally polite. You should be very proud of her manners.”

“I am, and she’s a great kid—which is why I wondered if I could ask you a favor.”

Em didn’t hesitate. “Oh, of course.”

“I know we don’t know each other, but you struck such a chord with her, and she’s feeling a little displaced since we left Atlanta. I don’t know many women here in Plum Orchard, and I really need a woman’s touch.”

Love slave. He was going to ask her to be his love slave. Yippee!

Wait. That had zip to do with Maizy.

He leaned back against the wall, letting his long legs stretch out in front of him. “Seeing as you’re admittedly handy with power tools, I’m betting you’re just as good at picking out colors for a little girls’ room. We’re almost done with the renovation in Maizy’s room, and I want to surprise her with something that will make her happy.” He held up his hands in a sort of helpless gesture, his smile lopsided.

This smile, different from his half grin, changed his whole face from ruggedly sculpted to playful and adorable. “What can I say? I’m a guy with guy tastes. Whatever I pick out will unequivocally suck. I can just picture her wrinkling her cute little nose at me in that, ‘oh, you’re so stupid, Dad’ way, if I’m left to my own devices. But I need help picking colors for the walls—girl things, you know?”

He needed an interior decorator? That didn’t sound like love slave at all. But her heart did that twitchy-melty thing again. He really loved his little girl. No one could fault him for that. Em smiled at him.

How could she say no when it would make that enchanted voice on the phone from the other night happy? She agreed without even thinking. “Of course. I’d be happy to help you pick colors.”

“Furniture, too, maybe? She’s been bunking with me while my brothers Tag and Gage finish up her room, but she’s grumbled about my stinky feet on more than one occasion. It’s time she has her own space like all little girls should.”

Em laughed even while she couldn’t imagine a single inch of Jax was stinky. “Sure—just say the word.”

She couldn’t read what was in his eyes because she was afraid to read wrong, but they looked lighter. “Tomorrow night? Are you free? I’d like to get her situated as soon as possible. I’ll buy you dinner for your trouble.”

Giddy. Oh, that wave of giddy at the mere thought of sharing a meal with Jax hit her hard. She pictured him biting into a juicy hamburger, his white teeth sinking into...

This would never do.

Shoulders squared, Em reminded herself his request was about Maizy. She was proud of the way she waved him off as she inched around his enormous frame to head back out into the hall. “Dinner’s not necessary, Jax. Really. I’m happy to help with anything that will make such a charming little girl smile. And tomorrow night’s fine. I’ll ask Aunt Dixie and the girls to babysit.”

“Well, you have to eat, right? I definitely have to eat. I won’t get out of here much before the dinner hour anyway.”

How would she ever eat with Jax across a table from her when she almost couldn’t breathe around him? But she found herself agreeing. “Okay. Tomorrow after work. See you then.”

“Thanks, Emmaline. Maizy and I appreciate it.”

“Anytime,” she managed, like spending an evening with him was going to be effortless and breezy. She even squeezed out another smile before she made one more clumsy break for Marybell’s office.

Rounding that hazardous corner again, she slipped inside Marybell’s office, shut the door, and leaned back against it, still clinging to her magic screwdriver.

It’s just dinner and some paint, Em. Breathe.

But it was dinner and some paint with him. Him.

The him.

The effects of Jax, after spending only ten minutes in his presence, left her body tingly and hot all over. Breathless, shaky and dizzy, too.

What would an entire evening and a meal bring?

An Em bonfire?

* * *

“You’re going where?”

“To dinner with a gorgeous woman.” Jax smiled to himself. His off-the-cuff request of Em had been genius. Since he’d met her at Caine’s a week ago, and agreed to take the freelance work, he couldn’t think of anything else but seeing Em again.

Not good. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want all the sticky, mostly messy end result of a relationship. Especially with a woman who had as many battle scars as she had. He’d been to a war once, and he’d just barely gotten out alive.

Though, she’d been damned elusive this week, seemed their paths almost never crossed while he’d set himself up in the office Caine and Dixie had appointed him. So when the opportunity finally presented itself today, and she was so close it was all he could do not to haul her up against him just to see what it felt like to have all that soft, feminine woman against him, he’d done the next best thing.

Asked her to help him pick paint colors while he silently berated himself for even opening the door just a crack to being around her more than at the office.

Dumb ass.

But everything, from the swell of her hips in her tight-fitting, yet somehow modest skirt, to the slope of her breasts, perfectly shaped beneath the black, figure-hugging sweater she wore, made his damn mouth water.

The small pearl buttons, running from the edge of her sweater right up to just under her chin, had him spending the time after she left fantasizing about how fast he could pluck them open and reveal what was beneath.

The scent she wore, pears, sunshine—a combination that, when recalled, made him wonder if every inch of her smelled like that.

And her lips. Jesus. Her lips. Soft, plump, red, just begging to have his mouth on them, nipping them, and it took more restraint than he’d like to admit to keep himself in his office while she stood so close to him he could see her pupils dilating.

Stir her cute Southern drawl into the pot and the way she drew out his name a little longer than everyone else, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about her.

Tag poked his head over his brother’s shoulder, his eyes finding Jax’s in the crooked bathroom mirror. “Wait. You have a real date? With a real woman? Or one of the blow-up variety?”

Jax smoothed some aftershave over his jaw and grinned at his brother’s reflection. One that wasn’t as haunted or pained these days. “Like you’d know the difference? And it’s not a date.”

Tag punched him in the shoulder and smiled, his eyes lighter than Jax had seen them in a long time. “So who’s this gorgeous woman?”

“Emmaline Amos.” Just saying her name made his gut tighten, bringing to mind those red, red lips of hers. Double shit.

“The one with the ex-husband who wears women’s clothes?”

Jax’s jaw stiffened, his grin fading. He’d never forget the pain on Em’s face the night he’d first seen her in the square after her husband’s secret was revealed at the Founders’ Day gathering.

Raw and so damn palpable. Raw enough that even without knowing anything about her, he’d wanted to beat the shit out of the person responsible for making her cry. “You heard, then?”

Tag nodded, leaning his arm against the chipped pink-and-gray ceramic tile on the wall. “Who hasn’t? This town sees everything, man. Everything. They talk the hell out of it, too. Especially those women who’re part of that gladiola club—or whatever they call it.”

Jax chuckled. “I think it’s Magnolias, and I’ve met Louella and her crew. Interesting bunch.” Somehow, in all the summers he’d spent at his aunt’s, he’d managed to overhear bits and pieces of the gossip that seemed to fuel such a small community, and the Magnolias were almost always at the center of it. Or if Aunt Jess’s words were right, they were the cause of it.

Tag’s broad shoulders rolled. “I don’t know. It’s some damned flower or another. You can’t go into that diner without hearing something about someone.” He put a hand on Jax’s shoulder, his eyes searching his older brother’s.

Tag knew how and when to look for signs something was up with Jax when no one else did. “So what’s so special about Emmaline Amos that she made you decide to crawl out from under your rock after not a single date since the Stone Age?”

Jax shifted his eyes first, focusing on rinsing the sink. He didn’t have an answer to what drew him to Em. He was just drawn—sucked in—total immersion. That was more than he could claim about a woman in a long time. “Not a date,” he repeated.

“Jax’s coming out from under his rock?” Gage asked, pushing his way into the crowded bathroom just like he’d always done since he was ten. “Good. Means you can do the dishes.”

Tag slapped his little brother on the back. “Yep. So that means we’re on dish duty tonight, bro, and Maizy duty, too. Big brother’s got a date.” He cackled the words like they were joke-worthy.

But it wasn’t a joke. He hadn’t dated in a few years. And he wasn’t dating tonight.

Gage whistled and grinned, his face lighting up. “A date? Nuh-uh. Who’d date you, you ugly schlub?”

“Not a date,” Jax repeated.

“Emmaline Amos,” Tag replied, adopting his impression of a feminine voice, complete with a bat of his eyelashes and a twirl of his finger around a lock of his shaggy hair.

Gage’s eyes opened wide. “No shit! The one that works at the phone-sex company with Caine?”

Jax’s eyes narrowed in Gage’s direction. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Gage. She’s the GM. She doesn’t answer the calls.”

Gage flicked his fingers at Jax’s reflection. “Oh, stop getting your back up. Still, workin’ in a place like that—” he wiggled his dark eyebrows “—I bet she knows a thing or two.”

Tag slapped him on the back of the head. “Shut up, Gage. This is the first time our wee boy’s been out in as long as you’ve been sexually active. Leave him the hell alone.” Tag’s eyes sought Jax’s again with the “If you need to talk...” signal before he said, “I’m happy for you, man. Glad to see you’re getting out. New town—new life. Clean slate, right?”

Jax and Tag had a clear understanding of clean slates. Both of them wanted one—both of them were going about finding them in their own ways.

Maizy, the final piece to their nonconformist, but totally a work-in-loving-progress puzzle, dipped between pairs of legs to latch on to Jax’s thigh. “You’re going out, Daddy?”

He looked down at his daughter; her bright auburn hair and freckles so much like her mother’s, so unlike the Hawthorne’s dark looks, and his chest tightened with that unconditional love her dark, chocolate-brown eyes summoned. “I am, kidlet.” He scooped her up in his arms, dropping a kiss on her freckled nose. “You got a problem with that?”

She captured both sides of his face and rubbed their noses together. “Only if you’re going out for ice cream. Then I’d be madder than a hornet.”

Jax hitched his jaw, making a comically confused face. “A hornet? Where’d you learn that, Maizy-do?”

She roped her arms around his neck, resting her cheek on his. “Uncle Gage says it all the time. He said it’s better for me ’n the S word.”

Jax rolled his eyes at Gage. “A sight better, I’d say. So, you gonna eat all your dinner like a good girl for Uncle Tag while I’m gone?”

“If he promises not to burn the fish sticks again.” Her honesty always made him laugh. They were all shitty cooks. Him probably being the shittiest. On the best of nights, they only managed to eke out a barely passable meal for Maizy. It included all the approved food groups suitable for a six-year-old.

It just wasn’t always edible—at least not the outside of it. Sometimes, if you picked your way to the middle of a chicken breast, there was a silver lining. But what Maizy lacked in their culinary finesse, they more than made up for with love. No one would ever mess with Maizy Hawthorne as long as her uncles and father were around.

“Note to self—Daddy needs to watch the Food Network more.” He’d made a vow—once they settled into this rundown house so full of all the potential Gage and Tag kept talking about, he’d learn to cook. For Maizy. Because everything was for her, and that’s how it was going to stay.

“Hey!” Tag teased, tugging on a tightly coiled ringlet of his niece’s hair. “They were blackened fish sticks, thank you very much, Ms. Food Critic. Cajun style. I was trying to broaden your food horizons.”

Maizy shook her head full of curls and wrinkled her nose with her trademark display of disapproval at Tag. “Uncle Gage said that was a fib. It was really just burned. It was yucky.”

Gage scooped her out of Jax’s arms and swung her around his back so she could hold tight to his neck piggyback style. “It sure was yucky. Probably the biggest fib Uncle Tag ever told you, too. It was right up there with, ‘Look, Maizy-do—this big ole gooey mess tastes just like Chicken McNuggets if you close your eyes and pretend. Give it a chance.’”

Maizy giggled, squeezing Gage’s neck. “That was so gross. So if Daddy won’t be here, will you be my unicorn tonight, Uncle Gage?”

Gage reached upward and ruffled her hair with a smile. “I’ll always be your unicorn.”

The phone interrupted Maizy’s giggling as Gage galloped out of the bathroom with her. “I’ll get it. You finish prettying up for your daaate,” Tag drawled with a laugh.

One last glance in the mirror, and Jax sucked in a deep breath, bracing his hands on either side of the pink, shell-shaped sink. Damn. He was nervous. When was the last time he could lay claim to that emotion? Especially when it concerned a woman whom he absolutely wasn’t dating?

He rolled his head from side to side to loosen his muscles, tight with anticipation.

Tag’s scruffy head was back in his line of vision. “Uh, Jax?”

“Yep?”

“Someone’s on the phone for you.”

His ears picked up something in Tag’s voice—something almost urgent, maybe even ominous. No one ever called them. No one who stirred up the kind of warning Tag’s voice held anyway. “Who is it?”

Tag’s throat worked, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down. His lips fell into a thin line as he jammed his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans.

A strange chill rolled along his spine. A warning chill. “Who the hell is it, Tag?”

“Reece. It’s Reece.”

The floor fell away from Jax’s feet in a tidal wave of his blood pounding in his ears and his heart dropping to his feet. Well, that explained why Tag’s voice sounded alarms in Jax’s head.

Fuck. Fuck, no.

Five

The front door to Em’s small ranch blew open with a gust of winter wind, Dixie’s beautiful face in the middle of it. “Well, hello, fine sir! Might I interest you in a cheeseburger and some fries with your aunt Dixie and the girls? Like a real dinner date?” Dixie swung Gareth up into her arms, nuzzling his neck with her nose until he was in a fit of giggles.

The moment Dixie walked through Em’s front door, Gareth launched himself at her. Dixie, Caine, Sanjeev and the girls had become as important to Em and her children as any family member.

Her mother didn’t like it, and no one in town did either for that matter. But she no longer cared what other people didn’t like. She didn’t care that the women in town mocked her parenting for letting the boys be around the women of Call Girls. Their “I can’t believe she’d allow young, impressionable boys in the presence of those women” snide comments rolled right off her like water off a duck’s back.

At least those women were honest. They might talk dirty, but they didn’t talk behind your back.

Over the months, during the hardest transition of their lives, Dixie and the girls were always there for her and her sons.

While she’d picked up the pieces of her life, while she’d driven Clifton to his counselor, while she’d learned how to be single—they’d been there, too. Helping her through meltdowns, passing her tissues and teaching her how to be a part of a group of women who accepted her for who she was. That was more than she could say for her judgmental mother and the Mags.

“Stop, Aunt Dixie!” Gareth cried between bouts of laughter as Dixie kicked the door shut with her foot. “I have somefin’ to tell you ’bout school. It’s ’portant!”

Em held her breath. Please, don’t let it be another incident where one of his classmates poked fun at him about his father’s cross-dressing.

Dixie’s eyes twinkled down at Em’s youngest son. “Did you find a new sweetheart? You better not be courtin’ someone new,” she teased, walking her fingers up his chubby arm until he squealed. “I’m your only girl, buddy. You’d do well to remember that.”

Gareth instantly let his head fall to Dixie’s shoulder to signify his loyalty, snuggling against it and wrapping his legs around her slim waist. “No, silly. I got an A on my alphabet test.”

Em let air into her lungs, sending up a silent prayer it had been a torture-free day for Gareth. That, on top of a phone call from her mother, Clora, reminding her the boys lacked proper discipline because she didn’t make them tuck their shirts in, would have been too much.

“You are the smartest boy ever!” Dixie punctuated her words with kisses. “Now, you scoot—go get handsome for Miss Dixie. I can’t have you goin’ out on the town with me if your hands look like they’ve been rootin’ around a pig farm. Tell that good-lookin’ brother of yours, Clifton, to kick it into overdrive, too!” She let Gareth down with a plunk and a pat on his behind, shooing him upstairs. “Are MB and LaDawn here yet?”

Em sighed with a nod, watching Gareth run upstairs to get his pouty brother. “Upstairs charmin’ Clifton Junior. You’re all so good with them. I wish Clifton would talk to me like he does to y’all. What is it with you and the opposite sex, Miss Dixie Davis? Honest, it’s like anyone with a man-garden falls ripe from the tree when you’re within range.”

“What is it about you and a man, Miss Emmaline?” Dixie closed the front door, putting her hands behind her back and strolling over to Em with a smile on her lips.

Em’s eyes fell to the floor, her fingers tangling up in a shaky knot. “Oh, hush. It’s not like that. We’re just picking out colors and some furniture for Maizy’s room.”

It wasn’t like that. It really wasn’t like that because she wouldn’t let it be like that even if Jax wanted it to be like that. Which, surely, he didn’t.

As she’d carefully applied makeup in preparation for tonight, she’d decided to get control of her wandering thoughts and behave like an adult. She was going to put her fantasies about Jax on a shelf where they belonged.

He was a coworker she was helping out because she had a skill he lacked by virtue of being the opposite gender. Single parents needed to stick together and support each other. Rah-rah.

Besides, her life was in such upheaval with the boys and the constant trouble they were having at school with everyone teasing them about their father, she didn’t need another complication in it. Men were complicated.

All she wanted was freedom right now, some room to breathe after holding her breath for so long she didn’t even know it was happening.

But wasn’t it you just a few days ago who was thinking about dabbling in the friends with benefits section of the relationship aisle? Yes. That had been her, but was it the real her?

Was she capable of having sex with no lingering emotional ties? Was she willing to find out? Was she the kind of woman who could take a lover in the afternoon and discard him for another the next day?

Now that a man had taken an interest in her—even if it was only about color palettes and canopy beds, a gorgeous man she’d logged hours daydreaming about, she was all tail between her chicken legs. One more reason to maintain a careful distance.

Just a few nights ago, she’d been ready to learn the finer points of talking dirty so she could nab a man and quell this raging desire to explore her lack of sexual experience. Tonight, she was throwing salt all over her libido’s fire.

Dixie ran a hand over the red knit beret Em wore and fluffed the scarf around her neck. “Helping a man pick out colors for his daughter’s room is very personal in nature, leading me to believe Jax wouldn’t just ask anyone.”