And from somewhere inside of Lorenda's purse, an almost sensual voice said, "Here is a list of moving companies in your area."

Chapter Four.

Lorenda held her old trumpet and a cross the boys had made with two sticks as Mitchell heaved out the last shovelful of dirt. He stood back. Rubbing a forearm across his brow, he swiped away the dampness that glistened under the sinking sun.

"Go ahead, guys," Mitchell said.

Trevor and Jaycee placed Checkers's small coffin into the tiny grave and started packing dirt over it. Malarkey sat on his haunches in between the boys and watched. The smattering of cottonwoods to the right of the front yard made a perfect burial site. A swing that hung from a tree in the center of the grove swayed gently with the afternoon breeze. They'd decided on one of the larger trees at the edge where the property opened up into a picturesque meadow on the side of the cottage.

Lorenda had left home earlier that afternoon to unload some old clothes and a dead guinea pig. How she'd ended up bringing home a new dog and a new man to live with her still had her head spinning. She wasn't sure which was worse-the dog or the man. Both were likely to disrupt the orderly life she'd carefully woven together.

A bottle of strong disinfectant and a lot of candles could solve the puppy problem. Probably wouldn't take care of the man problem, though.

Mitchell turned a bottle of water upside down and chugged it. The thick, ropey muscles in his neck flexed and released as each swallow slid down his throat. When the bottle was empty he crushed it in one hand, and the plastic popped and crackled. He lifted the bottom of his T-shirt and wiped his dewy face.

And sweet baby Jesus, those lean abs made her thirsty too. Was there such a thing as a twelve-pack? Because way more than a perfectly toned six-pack tensed and rolled as he toweled the beads from his face and neck. A feathery line of black hair started below his belly button and disappeared under the button of his jeans. A droplet of sweat trickled right down the center, and holy charlie, tango, and foxtrot. She'd like to get down on her knees and lick the moist glow right off with her tongue, and then- "Sparky." Mitchell's voice was a hushed whisper, but she jumped like a fire alarm had gone off next to her ear.

He rubbed the hem of his T-shirt across his neck one more time, a small, knowing smile settling onto his lips. Something both sweet and dangerous ignited in his eyes, melting away the ice chips that had been there at the sheriff's office.

Her lungs seized. Good Lord, she'd just been fantasizing over Mitchell's abs. His divine, dreamy, drool-worthy abs.

Oh God. Breathe, dammit, breathe. What was the code for dammit, again? She couldn't think with him here, and it was just day one!

Mitchell let his T-shirt drop back into place, and he nodded at the boys.

Her gaze flew to them, and her eyes slid shut at the way they stared up at her. They had obviously been watching her ogle their uncle Mitch.

"Um, here." She shoved the cross at Trevor, who placed it on the smooth mound. He sniffled and put his hand over his heart as they laid Checkers to rest under the old tree while the evening sky turned heavenly colors of purple and pink. Lorenda draped an arm around Trevor's shoulder and squeezed.

Jaycee took the trumpet from her. He puckered his lips, drew in a breath, and tried to play "Taps" the way she'd taught him. And she used the term play loosely.

She looked up to find Mitchell watching her with the gleam of friendly amusement that she remembered from their youth. He placed his hand over his heart too. It was meant as a gesture to pay homage to Checkers for the boys' sakes, but the crown of thorns tattoo visible just below his sleeve rippled as his bicep flexed. The same tattoo Cameron had apparently gotten after his last leave. The one Lorenda never knew about until the owner of the funeral home mentioned it. She'd insisted on seeing it in person before they'd dressed Cameron in his Navy crackerjacks.

She tried to clear the ache from her throat. She concentrated on the shoebox-sized grave and rubbed Trevor's shoulder affectionately.

Jaycee cracked an earsplitting note that had Malarkey skittering to find a hiding place with his tail between his legs. The deafening crescendo set the dog to howling as the sad song came to a close, and Lorenda clamped one hand on Trevor and the other to her side so she wouldn't give in to the temptation to cover her ears. God as her witness, leaves fell from the trees, and the moss-green shutters on her pretty little cottage shook because of the obnoxious noise. Some of the white paint may have even peeled off the new siding. She pretended to cough behind her hand to hide a laugh.

So did Mitchell. "Must be"-cough, cough-"something in the air." He beat his chest with a fist.

"Must be." Lorenda tapped her chest with an open palm. "Maybe I have something in the medicine cabinet for it." Like earplugs.

Try as he might, Jaycee hadn't inherited her natural ear for music. The poor kid could carry a tune about as well as her car horn.

He wiped his eyes and lowered the trumpet.

"Hey, guys, why don't you take Malarkey for a walk while I get Uncle Mitch settled in? Just be back before dark." Spending some time with the new puppy might cheer them up. Plus, it would keep the puppy out of the house for as long as possible.

"Maybe they shouldn't stray too far from the house." Mitchell did a slow three-sixty to survey the property. Tension flowed into his shoulders.

Lorenda took the trumpet from Jaycee. "How about you stay in the meadow?" She pointed to the clearing beyond the cottonwoods where bright wildflowers were scattered across the field. "Do you really think there is something to worry about?" she asked Mitchell as soon as the boys were out of earshot.

He rubbed his jaw and stared at the boys as they ran, Malarkey loping after them. "You know of anyone who might have an ax to grind with you?"

She couldn't imagine who would be that angry with her. "No."

"I think we should be careful just in case."

An uncomfortable beat went by at the way he said we. Like they were a family unit. Wii was a game system. Wee! was what a child screamed from a merry-go-round. We referred to her and the two boys. They would never be a foursome, so Lorenda had to shoot a warning over the bow, draw a distinct line, and defend her borders.

"So," Lorenda said. When Mitchell looked at her, she couldn't return his stare. The piercing brown eyes, the strong jaw, the freaking hardness of his entire body . . . well, it unsettled her. Made her body hum and shimmy in places it shouldn't. He was her buddy!

But he didn't look at her like a buddy anymore. Nor did he look at her like a sister-in-law. Hadn't since he'd turned around in the park and locked onto her with those mesmerizing eyes. From that moment on he'd been looking at her like a woman. Looking at her in a way that made her feel like a desirable woman.

Or maybe she was just projecting, now that all three of her BFFs had found husbands and were settled into wedded bliss.

"So," he repeated.

"Um, how about I show you the apartment?" So much for defending her borders. She was such a pushover.

"Let me get my stuff." Mitchell headed toward his motorcycle, which had his military-issue duffle bag strapped to the back.

He strolled away with the ease of someone who was completely comfortable in his own skin, yet his muscled body flexed and tensed with each step and his head panned back and forth like he was taking in every detail, assessing danger, and sizing up the territory.

The fact that she liked it had her wanting to rattle off the entire military alphabet. His bike parked under the shade of a ponderosa pine right next to her SUV seemed to belong. Like it had been missing all this time and now her home was complete. His watchfulness, protectiveness, and the caring way he'd interacted with Jaycee and Trevor were . . . nice. Way more than nice, actually. It melted her heart and had her looking at him like more than a buddy or childhood friend too.

He grabbed his bag and tossed it over a shoulder. She waved for him to follow and then pointed to the garage as they headed toward the house. "There's an outside staircase on the far side. I'll give you a key." She stomped her feet on the mat when she reached the front door. "It's locked, so we'll have to go through my room for now." She walked through the living room, depositing the trumpet on a chair, and started to climb the stairs. "The only inside entrance is through the master bedroom." And suddenly, her throat turned to gravel at the thought of him sleeping in the garage apartment with just a thin wall to separate them. "Um, the person who built it was an artist. They used the apartment as a studio."

His footfalls echoed through the house as he climbed the wood stairs close behind her. So close that his heat seemed to reach for her. Or was that her projecting again?

Good Lord.

She hurried up the stairs and into her room where she snatched up her purse to search for the key.

Mitchell didn't follow her inside. He stood in the doorway, shoved his hands in the pockets of the worn Levi's that cupped and hugged and . . . um, bulged in all the right places.

She redoubled her efforts to find the key and dug deeper into her purse. Where was that extra set? Her tongue slid between her teeth as she searched. Tried to concentrate on hunting for the key with a large square base that should make it easier to find. And tried not to focus on the hot and hard man who lounged against the doorframe looking cool and confident and so darned dishy that she had to keep reminding herself he was her friend. Her childhood friend!

And a war junkie who would get on his motorcycle one day soon and roll right out of town looking for another thrill. He'd probably leave rubber tire tracks still smoking as he flipped the bird at the city limits sign on the way out.

He wasn't someone she could count on. At least not for the long term.

But the way he looked at her and the way he'd watched over her the last few hours like he was her champion made it really, really hard to convince herself of that. Especially while they stood in her most intimate sanctuary. A lavender velvet comforter covered a king-size four-poster bed that was way too big for one person. Fancy accent pillows were arranged just so to look artfully tossed at random. She'd decorated the room for herself, accepting that she might be single for the rest of her life. Truth be told, if not for the boys, she'd have loved to share the space with someone warm and affectionate. Someone willing to show up to the party and give her his whole heart. Not just a sliver of it while the rest belonged to a desert halfway around the world.

Mitchell's mocha eyes watched her, took her in, studied her. Gave her his full attention. Something she hadn't had . . . ever. Cameron hadn't been attentive since they were high school sweethearts, because after his first tour, he'd become a different man. A man she rarely saw, except when he was on leave.

A man she didn't recognize even when he was home.

The man who had come home just long enough to marry her and get her pregnant twice had been a stranger in her high school sweetheart's body. All emotion and tenderness gone. Replaced by a distracted and distant person who couldn't hold a conversation with his own wife. He hadn't even listed Lorenda as his next of kin. His personal possessions had been delivered to Mitchell, who'd handed them to her at Cameron's funeral. Just before Mitchell had burned rubber out of town, she'd given him Cameron's dog tags.

Seemed appropriate.

Her fingertips grazed a square object. Ah-ha! Finally. "Here it is." She pulled a purple metallic square from the bottom of her purse.

Mitchell's chocolaty eyes rounded, then twinkled with laughter. He cracked a smile so broad a flash of white teeth nearly blinded her.

She looked at her hand. And wanted to sink into the floor, because she'd proudly produced a condom. A freaking condom. Miranda, Ella, and Angelique-her happily married BFFs-were hounding her so hard to start looking for a man, they'd given her condoms for her birthday. Which she'd thrown into her purse and never thought of again. Until now.

And she was going to throttle all three of them.

Her eyes slid shut for a beat, and blood rushed to her ears, creating a thundering roar that rattled her brain. She closed her fist around the square to hide it. As if that would help the humiliating heat burning up her neck into the tips of her ears.

Mitchell rubbed his jaw and stared at her closed fist. "Thanks, Sparky, but you keep it. I'm okay in that department."

Oh, she bet he was. She, on the other hand, had been celibate so long that her idea of a good time was setting her cell phone to vibrate, putting it in her front pocket, and calling herself from the landline. Which was why her three blissfully married friends had given her the condoms and dared her to put them to good use.

Lorenda fought for composure. Threw the damn condom that would probably stay sealed for the rest of her life back into her bag and tore through the contents of her purse. "Can you turn the light on, please?" Her tone was huffy because the room was dim, lit only by the late-afternoon sun filtering through her wooden blinds, and that didn't help the situation.

He reached over and flipped the switch. "I agree. It's always better with the light on."

Her head snapped up at the gritty tone in his voice, and she found him laughing at her. That playful smile that she remembered from their childhood and then as teenagers. It had disappeared once he'd gone into the military. Then again, she'd only seen him a few times since then because he wasn't exactly welcome in Red River.

But that full-on mischievous smile was back. And sexy as hell.

"They were a gag gift." She searched the bottomless pit she called a purse. Could not bring herself to look at him. "For my birthday. From Miranda and a couple of other girlfriends." Head still down. Cheeks still on fire. Best friends still in danger of getting a headstone right next to Checkers. Soon. She set the purse on the bed and kept the search going right along with her blathering. "They think it's time for me to move on."

Gah!

Her fingers brushed metal, and she finally found the freaking key.

When she held it up like a prize, the look on Mitchell's face made her still.

"Sparky, you should've moved on a long time ago. You deserved better than what you got."

Every drop of air disappeared from the room. He knew. He freaking knew. Searing anger burned through her, setting all of her nerve endings on fire. Wasn't it enough that Cameron had cut her off emotionally? That he'd regretted marrying her? He had to share her humiliation with Mitchell? That shouldn't surprise her. The twin brothers had shared everything, often reading each other's minds without having to speak a word. But if Cameron held nothing else in their marriage sacred, he could've at least protected her from the embarrassment of others knowing she was baggage he'd rather not have claimed.

She'd had his back even after he'd died, but he couldn't shield her from this one injustice.

Tears threatened.

Mitchell's eyes turned dark and raw as they caressed her face. "I'm sorry, Sparky. For everything. A woman as beautiful as you . . ." He toed the floor with his boot. "You should move on." His eyes lingered on her lips for a beat, then another, before locking gazes with her again. "So why have you stayed single for so long?"

She had no idea why the next thought zinged through her mind, but she bit her lip to keep it from spilling out. Blurting "because I was waiting for you" out loud wouldn't have made any sense, even though that's exactly what she was thinking. She hadn't been waiting for him.

But at that moment, delta if it didn't feel like she had.

Chapter Five.

Lorenda slept in the next morning, because the puppy howling from the laundry room had kept her up most of the night. The badass SEAL sleeping on the other side of the door that separated her room from the garage apartment hadn't helped lull her into a peaceful slumber either. She'd spent hours wondering what would happen if she knocked on the door.

No. Actually she already knew what would happen. She'd spent the night fantasizing about how good it would be.

Finally, as the first blush of dawn cascaded through her windows, the howling had stopped, and she'd drifted off to sleep. But the fantasies had continued in her dreams.

And now, with late-morning sun filtering through her window, she had to drag herself out of bed and face the man . . . her buddy, her brother-in-law . . . with a straight face and try not to blush at the images that had flickered and floated through her dreams. Dreams that had her insides coiled tight and ready to unfurl.

She took a quick shower, freshened up, and pulled on a fitted light-pink tee, a pair of frayed jeans, and sandals. Of course the holes in the knees were from years of roughhousing with two boys, but apparently, the latest fashion designers had labeled jeans like hers "distressed," slapped on a hefty price tag, and declared them all the rage. As she walked past the dresser on the way to the door, she stopped to check herself out.

Beautiful was the word Mitchell used yesterday evening. She hadn't felt beautiful in an eternity. Although she'd taken good care of herself, it had been so, so long since a man had looked at her the way Mitchell had yesterday. It wasn't just his sweltering gaze of attraction that flipped her switch. The compassion that had darkened his eyes and knitted his brow when he told her she deserved better than Cameron's disinterest had also ignited the most erotic dreams she'd ever had until she'd woken up close to an orgasm.

She mussed her long blonde hair and snagged a tube of sheer pink lip gloss off the dresser. With two swipes, she pursed her lips at the mirror and struck a sex-kitten pose.

Okay, stop acting like a slut. She'd have to make up a code word for that.

She breathed in a deep, steadying breath and told herself to grow up. She wasn't in high school anymore, and she'd already been down the long, lonely road of marital misery with one Lawson twin. She still had the last name and the stretch marks to prove it. War-hardened Lawson twin number two wasn't an option.

He had, however, been an extraordinary fantasy.

She shivered as she drifted downstairs, her nails skimming the banister.

The scent of fresh coffee drew her to the kitchen like a salivating dog.

Speaking of . . .

Lorenda checked the laundry room. Malarkey was gone. Come to think of it, the house was extremely quiet. Which caused a blaring disaster alert to go off in her mind, because the last time the house had been that quiet, the boys had decided to sneak into the garage and figure out how her car engine worked. By taking it apart. Luckily they hadn't gotten very far when she'd found them with a socket wrench and a hammer.

She hurried to the back door and opened the blind that hung over the glass panel. Her throat closed. In the backyard, Jaycee and Trevor were looking at their uncle Mitch with complete adoration. Down on one knee, he held up a treat, mouthed something to the dog, and to Lorenda's amazement, the dog sat. He tossed the treat into the dog's mouth, and everybody cheered while the dog licked and nipped at the squealing boys. Like a happy and complete family.

And the lump in her throat grew to the size of Wheeler Peak.

She fixed herself a cup of joe and headed outside. The boys had followed the loping puppy to the meadow. When she closed the door behind her, Mitchell stood, a black T-shirt stretching taut across his broad chest. It molded to hard pecs and tapered down his torso to a slim waist.

And, good Lord, did she feel a blush coming on? Because he was even hotter this morning than he had been in her dreams last night. Except for the clothes. Nope, he hadn't had a stitch on in her dreams.

Yep, either she was blushing or her temperature had just shot up to nuclear meltdown levels.

"Morning," she said, walking over to him.