Melt For Him(11)

Text me sometime.

She made her way to the door, stopping briefly in the kitchen for a glass of water. She scanned the room quickly, hunting for glasses in a dish rack so she wouldn’t need to go rooting through his cupboards. There was a newspaper stacked on the kitchen table, with one section removed. How quaint that he still had a paper delivered. Or maybe he didn’t read it, judging from the way the paper looked untouched and unread.

She noticed the section spread out was the comics, and she laughed. Okay, that was kind of adorable. She peered closer, looking for Calvin & Hobbes, since that strip had been a favorite of hers and Travis’s since they were kids. Then she saw that he wasn’t reading this section for the funnies. He’d completed the crossword puzzle.

In. Pen.

Damn, the guy was smart, too?

There went her heart, with a little flutter.

She turned away from the table and headed for the sink. The counter was neat and organized, with just a pile of mail next to a box of Cinnamon Life cereal. She felt a surge of giddiness. Cinnamon Life was her favorite, too.

Okay, it’s just cereal.

Besides, it was the way he talked to her and seemed genuinely interested in what she said that she liked the most. She smiled to herself. Yep. This was going to be a lovely little fling. In one fantastic night, he’d already proven a delicious antidote to putting Jason and their botched history behind her. A few more romps, and she’d eradicate all those cruel memories. She reached for a glass from next to the sink, poured herself some water from the tap, and finished it quickly.

She walked home as the sun rose, pink streaks leaking across the sky, waking it up. Tingles raced through her chest at the memory of how she’d spent the last night. So unexpected. So hot, and yet so tender in some ways, too. This was only a brief encounter, something to pass the time during her short stay here. But what a way to pass the time with a man who’d made her laugh, then made her cry out his name.

It had a quick beginning, it would have a brief middle, and then a perfect, painless end when she picked up one more time and left.

Megan hummed a tune as she watered the flowers in her mother’s front yard later that morning after she and Becker had exchanged a few sexy text messages. The newest Jane Black song was playing in her head, a sexy number about new lovers, so it seemed fitting for her to hum as she gave the tiger lilies a little something to drink. When she stopped, she stood back to consider one of the fiery orange flowers, its long petal looking like the tongue of a rock star. She tilted her head to the side, picturing that petal adorning a shoulder blade, a forearm, maybe even a hip. That would make for a cool design for a tattoo. Later that afternoon, once she and Jamie went to the olive oil fair in the town square, she’d sketch it out.

“Look at you. Up early, watering Mom’s plants, just like old times. Did you already bake muffins and scrub the floors, too, like a perfect little house sitter?”

Megan swiveled around and beamed at Travis. She wrapped her arms around him in a hug, even though she’d seen him earlier in the week on the drive to Hidden Oaks; all her belongings, including her motorcycle, had been loaded into the bed of his truck.

“You know I’m allergic to any chores that don’t require the use of my very green thumb,” she joked as they pulled apart, and she set down the watering can. “But I do love to garden.”

“Nice to see you here taking care of the plants again.” He leaned against the porch railing. “Did you have a nice time last night?”

Red rushed across her cheeks. “Sure,” she muttered, and she resumed watering so he wouldn’t see the guilty look in her eyes. Not that she’d done anything wrong by hooking up with Becker, but Travis surely didn’t need to know she’d gotten busy her first night back in town. Travis never liked the guys she went out with. The typical older brother, he didn’t ever think anyone was good enough for his sister, and he surely wouldn’t think well of a man she’d slept with after one hour of knowing him.

“You saw Jamie at the Panting Dog, right?”

She nodded as she watered. “Yes,” she said, then immediately her chest tightened. She hated lying to him. “No, I mean. It was too crazy in there, Trav. I just sat out back in the alley and read a book.”

Fine, so that wasn’t the truth, either. But it bore a semblance to the truth.

“Ah, you’re such a good girl, keeping your nose in books and staying out of trouble,” he joked. Then he narrowed his eyes. “You aren’t getting into any trouble while you’re back in town, are you?”

Megan scoffed. “Please.”