Summer's Indiscretion(Divine Creek Ranch 7)(28)

It was par for the course with the rest of the ugly, insulting blog posts, and Summer gritted her teeth, thinking of how much it would hurt Teresa to see her name used in such an inflammatory article. Summer had expected some negative public opinion when they started their business. Grace and Rachel were a lot tougher because of dealing with book reviews and critics. Teresa avoided the computer and going to town alone altogether. Summer sincerely hoped that Ace and Kemp would have luck this weekend finding a connection.

She called Ace’s cell phone, and he picked up on the second ring.

“Hello, kitten.” His husky voice resonated through her, and her heart galloped at the sexy promise in his tone.

Her voice caught in her throat as she greeted him. “H–Hi.”

“What’s up?”

She explained what she was looking at and gave him time to pull up the website on his phone. After a few moments he growled. “That explains what that pair of binoculars was doing on the other side of the fence. They must’ve been busy shooting photos and accidentally left the binoculars behind. In all honesty, it’s a beautiful image, but not one I wanted shared on the Internet.”

“I feel the same way.”

“Wait. Did you see the comments beneath the article?”

Summer returned to her laptop and hit the refresh icon. Multiple comments popped up, most of them anonymous.

“…I used to enjoy your blog but I know one of these ladies and she’s nothing like you paint her here. You should stop this mudslinging…”

“…I wish you sanctimonious hypocrites would get a life…”

“…As long as they aren’t hurting anybody and it’s all consensual, it’s none of your business or mine. Frankly, I love shopping at Discretion. Maybe if you shopped there and spiced up your love life a little you wouldn’t be up in the air harping all the time…”

A comment from ASheridan1334 said, “Just my humble opinion but I think we’ve gotten off base here. See you in Bible study.”

“Bingo,” Ace said. “Kitten, thanks for calling me and letting me know about this. We’ve been watching the comments hoping for a clue or connection.”

“I’ll let you go work your PI magic.”

“Things have been quiet at the shop, at least security-wise. Business appears to be booming. I think that blog may have had an unintended benefit for your business. Kitten?”

“Hmm?”

“That bed upstairs sure is lonesome. I miss you.”

Summer smiled, remembering what Rachel had told her midweek about Ace having a king-size bed delivered to the shop the morning after their movie night.

“I miss you, too. I feel better. I may come in for a bit on Friday or Saturday. The swelling has gone down.” She was grateful, too. Today was the first day she could walk without pain. The rash was going to take longer, but she could deal with it.

“Think you’ll be able to come to The Dancing Pony Saturday night?”

“Maybe. I haven’t decided.” She hoped it didn’t make her sound vain to be so hung up on her appearance, but she wanted to be at her best for them. “I hate to ask, but given that I’m the subject of this week’s blog, wouldn’t it be better for me to sit with Grace Saturday night?”

“Kemp mentioned that this morning. As much as I don’t like it, you’ve made a good point. If you sit with her it should seem like any normal night out. It would be better if we were able to observe without being observed ourselves. Do you mind?”

Summer sighed. Yes! I mind very much! “No. I understand.” She didn’t want the person video-recording to catch on to the fact that they were being observed. That didn’t mean she was happy about sitting apart from Ace and Kemp after spending a week away from them. Feeling her sense of humor returning, she added, “You don’t suppose they’d e-mail me a copy of this hot picture, do you?”

Ace laughed and said, “When I sit down to have a talk with the person behind all of this, I’ll make sure and ask.”

Summer almost felt sorry for that individual.





Chapter Seven



Ace chuckled as he watched Summer pout across the room. She’d just read the text message he’d hit “send” on seconds before. Her lower lip stuck out adorably as she tapped out a reply message.

“But I don’t want to. Can’t I just sit here and chat with the others?”

“When they go off to dance you sit there all alone. I don’t like that. Kemp thinks you should dance too. We’re watching over you. Maybe we’ll cut in later.”

“You will?”