Before she actually laughed out loud, she turned and walked back toward her house. Dignity in defeat.
“Hey, aren’t you supposed to bring me a pie?” he called after her. “Or a casserole?”
She didn’t slam her door, but she wanted to. Just having him in her library for six hours had caused an epic struggle between her head and the parts of her body below the neck. And now he was going to be right next door.
With a sigh, Hailey decided to burn off her sexual frustration with some house cleaning. Spotless floors and sparkling toilets were almost as satisfying as an orgasm. Almost.
MATT HAD THOUGHT it was funny that in this supposedly gossip-filled town, Hailey hadn’t known there was a game warden moving to town, but now he saw the joke was on him. Nobody had told him he’d be living next door to the town’s librarian. Who just happened to not like him very much and now thought he was stalking her.
Perfect. Welcome to Whitford, Warden Barnett.
The house had seemed perfect. The pictures they’d sent him had shown the garage, which he needed. A nice backyard. And they didn’t mind if he cut in a dog door for Bear, which was necessary because of Matt’s unpredictable hours, as long as he replaced the door when he left. But they conveniently hadn’t mentioned the neighbor was a pain in the ass.
Maybe that was something she saved just for him.
“Who was that?”
Matt turned to his brother-in-law, Jeff, who he had strong-armed into helping him move.
“Remember the lost princess in the woods-slash-librarian I told you all about at dinner a few nights ago?”
“No shit. That’s her?”
“That’s her.”
Jeff nodded and looked toward Hailey’s house. “I don’t think she’s going to bring us a pie.”
“Pie?” Their friend Donny rounded out the moving party, and he never passed up food.
“Sorry, dude. The neighbor lady doesn’t like our friend Matt, here. No pie for us. Or casserole.”
“Did you try smiling at her?”
Matt shook his head and pulled the work gloves from his back pocket. “Let’s finish getting this truck unloaded.”
A person didn’t realize how much crap he owned until it was time to move it all. He lost track of how many trips they made, but he was thankful he’d taken the time to write an overview of the contents on each box.
“It’s time,” Jeff told him in a voice that should have been accompanied by an ominous soundtrack.
“Did Donny measure the doors?”
“Yeah. And when I saw him trying to figure out if he was holding the tape measure upside-down or not, I went back and measured them again.”
Matt laughed and shook his head. “He gives new meaning to the expression measure twice, cut once.”
“That he does. It’s going to be tight and it’s gotta be sideways, but it should go in that study or whatever you’re calling it, where you want it.”
Matt eyed the gun safe sitting in the back of the moving truck. Even emptied out, the thing weighed a ton. Taking it out of a ground floor studio-type apartment that had French doors hadn’t been too bad, especially since he’d had a couple more guys. Now the three of them had to get it up steps and through narrow interior doors to the room the previous owners had used as a dining room. He didn’t really want to have the thing sitting in the living room, though that was Plan B. Ideally it would have gone in his bedroom, but they weren’t getting it up the staircase without more guys and a better plan, so he had a smaller biometric safe to go next to his bed.
“Are you trying to move it with your mind or what?” Jeff asked. “Because staring at it doesn’t seem to be doing much.”
“Smart-ass.” Matt pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it onto a pile of boxes.
It took them almost twenty minutes just to get the safe secured on the dolly with ratchet straps to Matt’s satisfaction. During those twenty minutes, he lost count of the number of times he glanced toward his neighbor’s house. And two or three times, he was sure he saw her curtains twitch.
He wasn’t sure why he annoyed Hailey so much. It had to be more than the fact he’d witnessed her misguided attempt to go hiking, but he couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. There were glimpses, though, of humor and he was looking forward to getting to know her once she’d calmed down. Which, admittedly, she’d probably do faster if he didn’t push her buttons. He couldn’t seem to help himself.
When they took a breather before starting the process of getting the safe down the ramp, Matt was thankful he’d sent Bear home with his dad for the week. He missed his dog, but Bear was neither underfoot nor running loose in a new neighborhood, so it was worth it.
He wondered idly if Hailey liked dogs, or if Bear would be another entry in her list of reasons Matt annoyed the crap out of her.
“Hey, Casanova,” Jeff said. “You’re not getting any of her pie. Let’s go.”
Matt looked next door in time to see the curtain jerk and smiled. It was too early to tell how that was going to go. “Come on. Donny, you take the heavy end.”
Donny looked at the rectangular safe, then looked at them and back again. “Which end is that?”
Matt and Jeff laughed, and then Hailey was forgotten while Matt tried to keep himself and his friends from being crushed.
EVEN IN WHITFORD, there had to be something better to do than peek out her windows and watch a shirtless, sweaty Matt Barnett carry boxes.
Scrubbing her overactive hormones into submission hadn’t worked as well as she’d hoped. One, she had a strict housekeeping regime that meant there wasn’t very much to do beyond the floors, which she always did on her Saturdays off. And, two, she wasn’t going to accomplish anything while looking out her window every five minutes.
She thought about texting Tori, who wasn’t working this morning, but the last time she’d done that, her friend had shown up at the library. There was no way Tori showing up at her house to watch Matt move in would be anything but conspicuous and the last thing Hailey needed was more awkwardness.
Finally, she grabbed her purse and her keys. Even driving around in circles, listening to the radio, was better than mooning over a man she didn’t even like.
She ended up at the Trailside Diner simply because driving around Whitford was boring and not worth burning the gas. Tori wouldn’t be working, but Liz would be and Hailey had enjoyed getting to know her better. Liz Kowalski had moved to New Mexico with a guy after high school, but she’d moved back alone almost a year before. Now she was Liz Kowalski Miller, married to the chief of police, and the entire town was on pins and needles, waiting for baby news.
Hailey took a spot at the counter because it was easier to chat there, and nodded when Liz held up the coffeepot. Liz had the Kowalskis’ dark hair—hers long and pulled into a ponytail—and blue eyes, and she was wearing the new Trailside Diner tees that had the Northern Star ATV Club logo on the back.
“I hear the safety certification class at the library went well,” Liz said, setting a mug of coffee in front of Hailey.
“In other words, you want to hear about the hot game warden.”
“Of course.”
“At this very second, he’s moving in to the house next to mine.”
Liz’s jaw dropped. “You’re not serious.”
“Totally serious.” She added cream and sugar to her coffee, debating on whether or not to have a second breakfast. Although, it wasn’t like a microwaveable breakfast sandwich really counted as a first breakfast. More of a pre-breakfast snack. And it was heading toward lunch, so brunch would work.
“That’s really weird.”
Hailey looked up at her. “I accused him of stalking me.”
“That’s more weird.”
“He makes me crazy and I don’t know why.” There was just something about the man that set her on edge.
Liz grinned. “We know what that means.”
“I should have driven the hour to McDonald’s.” She glanced at the specials board, then wrinkled her nose. “I just want a side of fries, I think.”
“Awesome breakfast.”
“Brunch. And I’m not really that hungry.”
“Of course not. You’re only here to hide from your hunky neighbor.”
Before Hailey could come up with a response, Liz walked away to give her order to the kitchen and check on her other customers. Hailey drank her coffee and fumed. She wasn’t hiding.
It was only a few minutes before Liz brought her fries and Hailey drenched them in vinegar and salt before popping one in her mouth.
“Tori says you two have great chemistry,” Liz said.
Hailey almost choked on the fry. “What? The only time Tori’s seen us speak to each other was in the woods and I wasn’t exactly at my best.”
“Neither of you are in the woods now, so you’re not limping around with raccoon eyes and he doesn’t look like something out of a horror flick, so what’s stopping you from having a good time?”
“I gather no detail was spared in that story.” Hailey dabbed a fry in pooled vinegar. “And I’m not looking for a good time. I’m looking for forever. A husband, you know?”
“You have to give a guy a chance before you know if he’s husband material.”