Page 11 of Old-Fashioned

If I said that I didn’t get a warm feeling every time I felt his eyes on me, I would be lying.

And I would also be lying if I said that the sight of his tattoos when he wore t-shirts didn’t send me into an induced coma from wanting to have orgasms brought on by him, and no one else.

Another week later, after having lunch with Priscilla, and meeting the townsfolk, I had fallen in love with Holly Springs, North Carolina, just like Miss Maggie had done all those years ago.

Four weeks later, I found myself walking into my cute little country home on the outskirts of town with a few bottles of wine, waiting for Isla and Priscilla to come over and help me finish unpacking and putting things away.

Chapter 2

Abel

Was this shirt too tight?

Fucking hell.

Did this color make my eyes pop?

Should I wear that one again?

Then realizing that I was acting like a fucking woman, I shook my head, disgusted at myself.

So fucking what if I gave a damn what I looked like?

I was old. Set in my ways. Been that way for thirty-six years.

And I wasn’t going to change for a fucking soul.

With my first cup of coffee, I leaned against the railing on my back deck.

There was nothing better than the view I had.

Mountains as far as the eye could see and nothing other than the landscape. No other houses messing up my view.

And that wasn’t changing.

Not when I owned five hundred acres and wasn’t selling.

You wouldn’t believe the number of offers I’ve received through the years. Each of them got higher and higher, but there was no amount of money I would ever accept that would take this freedom, this peacefulness from me.

Once I emptied my mug, and placed it in my dishwasher, I locked up and headed out to my second love.

The first was my house and land, the second, was my bike, and with my helmet on, I started my baby up and headed to my third love.

And on the way to the bar, I didn’t think about the shirt I had put on, the one that was a dark blue and had made a certain woman’s eyes flare when she caught sight of me.

A certain woman’s eyes that held a color that I’d only ever seen one other time.

Our parents had taken us on a vacation when I was fifteen, and Baker and Caelan were both fourteen. No, they weren’t twins.

Our parents weren’t really our parents. They had adopted the three of us at different times in their lives. But that was another story for a different day.

We were scuba diving off the coast of Kona in Hawaii.

The sun’s rays had hit a coral reef just right, and that night, as I lay in bed, I searched for names of the color blue that would match it.

And that was how I knew what the name of her eye color was. It was so rare in fact that less than five percent of the world’s population had that color.

And yes…. I had researched it because I had been amazed.