Everybody Knows (Sunnyside #1) (3 page)

“And until then?”

“Yeah, that’s the problem.” With his hand on the
back of his neck, he craned it from one side to the other like he needed to
work out some kinks. “I’ve been away and didn’t know about this screw up until
a couple of hours ago. There hasn’t been time to arrange for you to stay
anyplace else.”

“Okay.” With a house like this in her very near
future, she could handle temporary digs for a few days. Her furniture wouldn’t
arrive until Tuesday or Wednesday anyway. “I don’t mind going to a hotel.”

He exhaled a small huff. “Says the city girl.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

“In Chicago, you’d have hundreds of hotels to
choose from. In Sunnyside, there are only two, and you can’t stay at either
one.”

She looked up at him—from her vantage point at his
feet. A long way up and kind of a compromising position, planting a pretty
suggestive picture. So, no. She’d prefer to conduct this discussion with a
semblance of equality.

The majorly cool sandals she had on gave her all
kinds of confidence, but they were not great for gliding gracefully to her
feet. She almost took a tumble head first into his groin. Before she made the
face-plant, he grabbed her elbow to steady and help her up.

Ignoring the little zing his touch created, she
focused on the fact that he’d touched her twice already—admittedly just her
elbow, but still, he had touched her—and she didn’t even know who he was. Sure,
she knew his first name and title.
D
r.
Zach, animal lover and probably a veterinarian. But other than that, and the
fact that he was a former Sunnyside football high school quarterback, had
magnificent shoulders, sexy bedroom eyes, and apparently reno-ed houses in his
spare time, he was a mystery.

“Why not?” She pulled herself back on task.

“The Best Western’s temporarily closed from a
minor fire a couple of days ago, and the Sunnyside Inn… Well, I might as well
tell you since everyone knows anyway. The Health Department shut it down this
morning due to bedbugs.”

“Bedbugs.” She tried not to shiver. “Thanks for
the warning.”

“The next available hotel’s on this side of
Springfield, about an hour away.”

“An hour, huh?” Not optimum, but doable. “What
about a bed and breakfast, room to rent, boarding house, something like that?”

“There are a couple of places, but they’re full
up.” His gaze fixed on some point past her shoulder.

As he considered, she had to wonder what he’d come
up with next. He hadn’t said anything yet that even came close to her
expectations.

“Do you like cats?” he asked, apropos of nothing.

His words took her on a sharp detour back into the
land of confusion. “Cats, the musical, or cats, the animal?”

“The animal.”

“I like cats.” She paused, not exactly sure where
he was going, unless... “How many cats are we talking about?”

“Ten. Or twenty.” He considered. “Maybe more.”

“Probably too many cats for me.”

“That lets out Cora’s Cordial Bed and Breakfast
then.”

Unbelievable. She’d been globetrotting and
jet-setting her whole life. She’d probably been to more countries than the
people of Sunnyside could find on a map. Plenty of crossed wires and lost
reservations had occurred during that time, but she’d never traveled any place
where her mother hadn’t been able to find them a place to stay. Harper could be
equally as resourceful. “So where does that leave me? Back to the hour drive?”

“Maybe. Unless...” He hesitated. “There’s room at
my house, but my dad and brother are out of town. If you stayed over, everyone
in Sunnyside would have us married by morning.”

She suppressed a small scoff. “How would they know
I was there?”

“Small-town grapevine, honey. Everyone knows
everything. About everyone. All the time. Get used to it.” He took a quick visual
survey of the neighborhood. “There are at least five people peeking out from
behind their curtains watching us right this minute, waiting to see what I’m
going to do with you.”

At last, he favored her with a real smile. His
deep brown eyes twinkled, and that smile pulled her right in with down-home
charm he hadn’t previously bothered to display.

Okay. Something else to adjust to. Not just a lack
of amenities, but people who’d be curious about her off-work activities. In
Chicago, she could have given an orangutan a blow job outside her apartment
building and not generated much interest. But here, apparently, watching
neighbors stand around on their own front porches constituted a spectator
sport.

There were worse things. She had nothing to hide.
She never had unorthodox amorous adventures with humans or orangutans, indoors
or out. Everything open and above board, that described her normal, boring,
everyday style.

And now that she thought about it, she didn’t like
the sound of that. This was her new life. She should adopt a new style.
Something more fun. More daring. More adventurous. At the very least, she could
try for more flirtation.

If there were five people watching, she should
give them something worth seeing.

She gave her eyelashes a slow slide downward and
then lifted them back up, conjuring the secret smile her sister had perfected
before she was twelve. Peering up at Zach, she brushed her hand across his
shoulder, kind of cozy and caressing. Similar to the way Brianna had touched
him, but with less Fatal Attraction undertone. Her fingers trailed up the back
of his neck to tease the hint of curls that grew there.

Stretching up on tiptoe, she whispered into his
ear. “That makes six of us then, ‘cause I’m curious to see what you plan to do
with me, too.”

What am
I going
to do with her? About twenty
possibilities fired through Zach’s brain in two seconds flat.

From the moment she’d stepped out of her car in
that dress that fit like a second skin and those high-heeled sandals that
stretched her legs from toned and shapely to X-rated fantasy, he’d gone from
bone-weary to bone-hard. Ever since, his dick had been shouting suggestions of
what he could, should, or would do with her. If he allowed himself to, and if
she were willing.

All of which amounted to a great big reality of
no freaking way
.

In his fantasies, she embodied the words expensive
and delectable. Like hot sex, cool sheets, chilled mimosas, and romping in bed
on a sex-infused Sunday morning.

In reality, she looked like someone who’d detoured
into town by mistake and would motor back out again as soon as she found
somewhere to top off her latte and gas tank.

And despite all that, or really—because of it, she
looked like wa-a-ay too much trouble.

Which made him fleetingly wonder how much trouble
would be too much trouble to have her in his life. In his bed. Just for the
three or four months until he left town. Would that be too much to ask?

Probably.

He heaved a disappointed sigh. No wonder Brianna
had been such a bitch. This sophisticated fashion plate had no business showing
up to tempt him and every other sex-deprived, numb nuts in a slow-moving,
isolated place like Sunnyside. She’d dazzle this little town, shake it all up
and turn it upside down in a New-York-minute.
If
she didn’t get run out on a rail first.

All the women here had their hair done at the
Sheer Delight or the Cut ‘n’ Curl, and nobody here had hair that glowed in the
sun with red and gold highlights or swung sleekly around her shoulders like
tousled silk begging to be crushed.

In Sunnyside, people bought their everyday clothes
from Wal-Mart and their good clothes from JCPenney. Undoubtedly, Harper Simmons
had never set foot in any store with such commonplace names.

No matter how much he wanted to strip her out of
that cling-on designer dress, leaving her in nothing but those do-me heels and
whatever teeny tiny transparent scraps she might consider underwear, he had to
remember his goal. His Plan. His Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card.

Apparently, the breath-taking, but misguided
Harper Simmons had chosen to come here. She wanted to stay for reasons of her
own. Whatever she wanted to find here he couldn’t fathom, but it wasn’t what he
needed, which was to get far away as soon as possible. Leaving the weight of
his past behind.

Which made him the most ungrateful, hard-hearted,
deceitful bastard that ever lived.

The good people of Sunnyside had supported him in
every pursuit in his entire life, but that support carried a soul-sucking
responsibility that left him hollow and resentful. They had too much knowledge
of his past, too much involvement in his present, and too many expectations
about his future.

So he could lust after this high-maintenance
beauty, breathe in her expensive perfume, and feel the temperature around him
elevate from too-hot-for-comfort to incendiary passion just because she stood
too close and batted those long, sweeping lashes up at him. He could picture
her sizzling and sweaty with her hair tangled and her skin flushed and her
lips—oh, God, yes—he could picture her lush lips trailing down his stomach in a
steamy path.

He could picture all of that, clear as sunrise.
But even if she were agreeable to a brief but satisfactory romp as his own
personal sexual playground—which was a freaking big
if
—he wouldn’t suggest it. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Probably
not ever.

For her own good and his.

He didn’t want or need more ties to this place.
The town would judge the idea of the new librarian having an affair with anyone
harshly, but especially with him. They had other plans for him.

The frustrating result of those combined
roadblocks had him gripping her shoulders and firmly moving her away from their
nearly chest-to-chest contact to a much safer arm’s length away. A distance
that allowed him to cool down and get his head on straight. The head on his
shoulders, not the other stupider one that was screaming “closer, closer” and
didn’t want to co-operate.

But it would. It definitely would as he pinned on
his professional expression and planned to put her in a safe place far, far,
away from him. He firmly ignored the way the expanding space between them
transformed her expression from flirtatious to guarded to neutral.

“Like I said, my family’s out at the farm, so you
can’t stay with me. But my sister has her own place here in town. I’ll check
with her first. But I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you stayed there while she’s
gone.”

Harper grinned ruefully. “Nearby?”

“Two doors down on the street behind us.”

“Just one question.” She looked up at him.

He nodded the go-ahead.

“Umm, I appreciate the help and I’m not sure how
to ask, but... who are you?” She laughed, a throaty little chuckle that sounded
low and intimate, and just like that, the heat index surrounding them surged
upward again.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he took
another step back, increasing the distance that prevented him from pulling her
into his arms and kissing that happy, succulent mouth. The impulse to do so
blindsided him, but he held firm.

“Malcolm Newcomb was supposed to meet me here,”
she continued, “and you are definitely not Malcolm. The Pippa Welcoming
Committee said that your name’s Zach.”

“Right. I should introduce myself.” He cleared his
throat and then nodded. Good way to get them back onto an impersonal,
business-like track. He was a town official. Time to remember that. “Malcolm
broke his leg this morning. My father owns this house, and I’m a member of the
town council. So when Malcolm asked me to meet you in his place, I agreed. I
guess the Vicodin knocked him out before he made the call to let you know.”
He’d handled this meeting wrong from the start. But so far, she’d been a pretty
good sport, and damn, she was gorgeous. But that was irrelevant. “Let’s forget
the awkward puppy incident and start over.”

Reaching out to shake her hand, he realized the
mistake of touching her again the moment he did it. Palm to palm with her soft,
warm skin against his only served to revive the sizzle.

It would be much safer to concentrate on her
negatives.

Hell, think fast. What were her negatives?

Right, right
…
She was probably one of those pampered, self-centered, spoiled rich girls who
didn’t care about anything but their manicures, their wardrobes, and their
desires. Sure, she had long, strong fingers and a very competent grip, but now
that he noticed, her nails were done up in some intricate design that probably
cost more than his clothes.

“Hi, I’m Zach Novak, here to greet you on behalf
of the Sunnyside Town Council.”

“I guess you were the one missing from the teleconference
when I ‘met’ the rest of them.” She smiled, playing along with the do-over.
“I’m Harper Simmons.”

“Yeah, I have a tough schedule for daytime
meetings.” Man, if she kept smiling, he was never going to be able to resist
her. But he could do it. Starting now. All business. No flirting with the new
girl. “This will be your house while you’re in town, Ms. Simmons. Until the
renovations are completed, you’ll be staying at my sister’s home, just a short
distance away.”

“Sounds perfect, Mr. Novak,” she agreed. “Or
should I say Dr. Novak?”

He waved away the suggestion. “Just call me Zach.
Nobody in Sunnyside stands on ceremony with me, so you shouldn’t either.”

“Hard to imagine.” She gave him a visual once-over
that he ignored.

“It’s kind of tough for the locals to show the
proper respect when they remember me crashing my bike through Mrs. Carter’s
garden fence, uprooting her prize Heritage rose-bush, bleeding all over my
soccer uniform, and needing six stitches.” He pointed to the scar on his chin.
“Pretty much anytime any of them come to me to get stitched up, they remind me
of how I almost fainted from the sight of all that blood. And the needle.”

He shuddered at the memory. Words kept spilling
from his mouth. He couldn’t seem to stop. Taking a deep breath, he was
determined to retreat to his normal level of detachment.

“When they come to you for stitches?” Harper bit
her lip and seemed disturbed by the idea. “You mean you’re a real doctor? A
people doctor?” She cocked her head to the side as if she could determine his
occupation and all of his innermost secrets simply by studying him more
closely. And really, if she studied him that way much longer, he’d proceed to
spilling his life story.

“As opposed to what? Animals? Philosophy? Rugs?”

“Animals,” she admitted. “I thought you were a
veterinarian because of the way you protected and handled Pippa. And went to
such great lengths to save her.” She muttered under her breath, “Even though
she was never in any real danger.”

“Matter of opinion.” He held up his hand to
prevent her from going down that road again. “When you grow up around a farm,
you learn to tend your own animals. And medicine is medicine. In many ways, a
lot of what I do with humans applies to any warm-blooded creature. A broken
bone is a broken bone, a severed artery is a severed artery, and so on.”

“I guess,” she said, noticeably underwhelmed. “No
wonder you’re so... so....”

He didn’t think “wonderful” was the word she was
searching for. When she didn’t finish the sentence, he had to ask. “I’m so...
what?”

“Never mind. You said you grew up on a farm?”

Clearly, she didn’t intend to share her previous
thought which made him all the more curious. “It was my grandparents’ farm, but
I spent a lot of time there. The rest of my family’s there now celebrating my
dad’s sixtieth birthday. I came back to set Malcolm’s leg this afternoon, or
I’d still be with them.”

“So, aside from the famous bicycle/rose garden
incident, what other tales from the dark side will the town be clamoring to
share about you?”

Too many to think about—good, bad and ugly—but
he’d let her uncover the truly bad and ugly ones on her own. The gory details
of how he’d killed his best friend when he was seventeen would make great
gossip in the grocery store one day. “Well, there was an unfortunate occasion
in a pumpkin costume when I was six. But the less said about that the better.”

She chuckled, and he moved on. “I know my misspent
youth must be fascinating, but I need to call my sister. Are you willing to
stay at her place?” He hesitated. “It might not be what you’re used to.”

She blinked up at him. “How do you know what I’m
used to?”

“You lived in Chicago.” He’d gone to Northwestern
as an undergrad. Normal life for him in those years had been about scrimping
and saving, but he couldn’t see the vision in front of him doing the same.

“Hah,” she said. “On a librarian’s salary? In case
you don’t know how much that is, it’s a pittance. Especially compared to, say,
oh, I don’t know, a doctor?”

“Hah,” he said right back at her, although he saw
her point. Just as it was a stereotype to think all doctors were rich, he knew
there were plenty of poor people in Chicago. She didn’t look like one of them
though. Everything about her shouted dollar signs and lots of them. “You don’t
know the salary a small-town doctor pulls down. I mostly get paid in produce.”

“Ah, the barter system.” She exaggerated a
grimace. “That’s positively medieval. Does your W2 list a hundred thousand
dollars, forty goats, six sides of beef, two chickens, eight bushels of corn,
and four bunches of radishes?”

She almost got him to chuckle with that one, but
he frowned instead. “God, no. A hundred thousand dollars would be way out of
the ball park, and the number of farm animals sadly under-reported.” He waited
for her smile before looking her up and down and then glancing at her expensive
car. “I’m just a poor farm boy, not used to much. Salaries and occupations
aside, everything about you presents itself as ex-pen-sive.”

“Is that right?” Her eyes flashed, and he expected
excuses or explanations, but she just shook her head. “Your truck probably cost
as much as my car.”

That much was true, but he shook his head right
back. “Loaner.”

She jerked her chin in the direction of the
Infiniti. “Gift.”

Who in hell could afford to give a present like
that?

Harper tapped the toe of her high-priced
ankle-breaker, reminding him he needed to get a move on. “As long as there’s
running water and a bed at your sister’s, I’ll manage.”

“Okay. After I call Rachel, I’ll help you get what
you need from your car.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Won’t I need my car?”

“Planning on going someplace?”

“I thought someone—er, you were going to show me
the library, and I need to get something to eat.”

“We’ll walk.” He dropped his gaze to the sandals
that didn’t resemble anything humans should wear for getting from one place to
another. “Or we can take my truck.”

Lifting the trunk of her car, she pulled out an overnight
bag. Then, holy shit, she exposed an even greater expanse of leg when she had
moved around and leaned into the front passenger seat to grab a large leather
satchel. “Walking’s good. I’ll change shoes when I get to your sister’s.”

“What else do you need?” He resisted the urge to
pop his eyeballs back into his head when she caught him ogling her.

“That’s it.” She kept a grip on both bags when he
reached out to help. “I’ve got them.”

“I’ll carry the bigger one.” He’d have pegged her
for someone who’d travel with something more the size of a steamer trunk. Even
for a short stay.