She stops and stares at me. “You’re gorgeous. Now come with me.”
Before I can argue, she tugs me into the yard. Automatically, my eyes find their way to Cole the instant he comes into view. He’s still in the yard, but now he’s moving his ladder.
“Hi, Cole,” Jordan bellows, causing my stomach to drop to my bare toes. The grass is covered in a chilly, early fall dew that coats my feet. I catch my breath when Cole glances up at us, his brow drawing immediately into a frown. He doesn’t respond. He just holds perfectly still, his long fingers curled around the ladder, forearms straining and biceps bulging. “Have you met Eden yet?”
As Jordan drags me across the pseudo-cul-de-sac, I can feel his eyes on me, the startling blue penetrating all the way through my clothes to my skin underneath. Goosebumps break out on my legs and arms and, to my utter humiliation, my nipples pucker. The heat of his gaze and the cool of the morning is too stark a contrast for my body not to notice.
When we stop within a foot of him, I see his hooded eyes rake me from head to toe. My nipples strain against my T-shirt, catching his attention on the way back up. I cross my arms over my chest, praying for this moment to just be over.
He’s silent for a long time. Long enough to be rude, but I don’t get the impression that he is. I get the impression that he’s just thinking. His frown deepens and for a second it appears he’s going to just turn away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he props the ladder against one shoulder and sticks out his hand.
“Cole Danzer.”
His voice. God! It makes me want to groan. It’s like a silk sheet draped over jagged gravel. It belongs in a bedroom. A dark, warm bedroom. Where pleasure and pain peacefully coexist, heightening the senses and curling the toes. It would be sexy in any circumstance, even if he were reading the encyclopedia aloud or explaining an insurance plan.
Reluctantly, I straighten my right arm and slip my hand into his. His palm is calloused, his fingers rough, just like I knew they would be. From the moment I saw them expertly crafting a sandcastle almost two weeks ago, I suspected they’d feel this way. They rasp against my sensitive skin, setting the walls of my stomach into a flurry of rippling activity.
“Eden Taylor,” I reply.
Despite his cool exterior and his less-than-friendly expression, his touch is warm and somehow reassuring, like he could fix or heal or bring back to life whatever he set these hands to.
Which is ridiculous and the first indication that I’m probably losing my mind.
I’m not this girl. I’m not the kind of woman who melts over a man. Any man. But this one does something to me. I get the feeling that, if the circumstances were right, I’d melt for him. Or with him.
He nods once and quickly releases me. I wonder if he felt something, too.
“Jordan,” he says abruptly, nodding once before adjusting his grip on the ladder and resuming his work as if we weren’t standing in the yard.
Jordan, still smiling, takes my arm again and leads me back the way we came, as if that was a perfectly normal greeting from this mysterious man. When we pass ear-shot distance, Jordan saves me the trouble of having to bring up Cole.
“Why do all the hot ones have to be so damn crazy?” she asks, sounding exasperated.
“Why do you say that? I mean that he’s crazy?”
Without looking at me, she answers. “Because he definitely is. He’s, like, talks-to-dead-people crazy. One-flew-over-the-cuckoo’s-nest crazy. Twelve-monkeys crazy.” She stops in the middle of the road and looks me in the eye. “Not that it makes him any less attractive. I mean, God, what I wouldn’t give to get that man naked. I’d do him six ways from Sunday.”
She smiles wistfully and continues walking, half-dragging me along behind her. My mind is spinning with a million questions.
“Does he really talk to dead people?”
“Yep,” she replies. “Well, supposedly. I’ve never heard him, but it’s pretty common knowledge.”
Holy shit! That’s pretty crazy!
“Who does he talk to?”
She doesn’t answer me until we are back in my yard, and even then she lowers her voice. “His daughter. At least that’s the only one I know of.”
His daughter is dead?
I close my eyes, resisting the urge to bend over and put my head between my knees. Oh sweet God! I feel like someone punched me in the chest, all the air whizzing out of my lungs in a harsh hiss.
“Hi-his daughter?”
Jordan nods. “Yep. I think she might’ve died in a car accident. Nobody seems to know much about it, though. That or they just don’t talk about it. You know, out of respect.”
I want to ask more questions, but I can’t. The words won’t come past my lips. All I can think about is my Emmy and what I would do…how I would feel if she…