Sneak Peek
Lucy gulped. “Did Tim invite her?”
“No,” whispered Genny. “She just showed up saying she missed our dinners. Tim’s about to arrive, and I have no idea what to do. Help.”
Lucy squared her shoulders. She would not be cowed by a cow.
“Got it. Then I guess we’re doing this,” she said to Genny, who looked alarmed at the grim statement.
“What exactly are we doing? Lucy? Hun, wait—”
To punctuate her arrival, Lucy clacked her heels hard on the marble floor and made a beeline for her target, who was lingering alone by the spiral staircase in the vestibule. From this angle, it was clear Isabel was everything Lucy was not— mature in age, tall, leggy, and blonde. Tim’s female counterpart in every way. And to top it all off, a red silk dress with a plunging V-neck hugged Isabel’s breasts, highlighting every barely-there curve until it flared out below her waist in an attractive, whimsical way.
I bet she knows Tim has a thing for breasts, and she’s using that knowledge to her advantage.
Nostrils flaring, Lucy called out, “Isabel! Funny seeing you here.”
The slender woman turned, confused for a moment as she looked Lucy up and down with an appraising blue eye. Finally, her lined lips stretched wide, but the expression didn’t quite reach her eyes. Lucy had grown up with all manner of tricksters, so she knew exactly what a Pan Am smile meant long before the LAPD had ever labeled it for her.
Isabel placed one lovely manicured hand on the banister to her side, adopting a casual and uncaring stance. “Oh, Boot! Funny seeing you here.”
Lucy mentally geared up for a comeback, but a hand at her bare back stopped her.
“She’s the officer now. You don’t get to call her that.”
Lucy’s heart stopped a little. With a slow turn of her head, she felt her long dark hair fall over her shoulder and obscure her profile from Isabel while she stared up at the man she missed with every bit of herself.
He was looking down into her eyes with a polite but soft smile, his gentle touch against her scars grounding in a situation that had her totally unmoored a second ago. Dressed in a black turtleneck that looked very cozy for the rainy weather, Tim was so utterly mouthwatering that Lucy wished she could snuggle up into the cashmere at his throat. Her intrusive thoughts, however, were pierced by Isabel’s next words.
“Tim, how about a hug hello?”
“Of course,” he said. “Forgot.”
Lucy’s heart broke, the thought of him enveloping someone else an ache, especially when he couldn’t hug her in front of his ex—
Tim’s arms wrapped around Lucy, her mouth dropping open in surprise against his shoulder. One of his hands slipped a bit beneath the backless edge of her dress, making her shiver with a deliberate, slow stroke that slicked her panties.
She could see Genny behind him smiling just before Lucy closed her eyes and gave in to the feeling of every last one of her muscles relaxing into her favorite embrace.
“Hello, Boot.” Tim let her go and walked off toward the backyard with a single dry comment tossed over his shoulder. “Thanks for the reminder, Izzy.”