“Because I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No. Really. I can’t.” I felt my eyes widen to their maximum diameter. “I’ve never successfully carried on a conversation with Beau Winston. Every time I try to speak it’s like my brain forgets English, and I start slurring Swahili or Swedish or Swiss.”

“The people of Switzerland don’t speak Swiss. They speak German, French, Italian, and Romansh.”

“See? I’m becoming dumber with each second.”

I sucked in a breath because I could hear his voice now; he was speaking to the little girl, and the sound was so fantastically adorable and sexy it caused my stomach to pitch then lurch like I was in a small boat in the middle of the ocean. I placed my hand over my belly and braced my feet apart.

When he entered my peripheral vision, my attention was drawn to him like a magnet. He was still smiling, but it was smaller, polite. He was handing the little girl off to a lady I recognized as Mrs. Macintyre, the lead librarian at the local branch in town. I knew at once Tinker Bell must be her granddaughter.

She said something about a chicken or a rooster. He said something in response. They laughed. I stared, letting the velvety sound wash over me. Once again I was caught on a big wave in the middle of the ocean — pitch, lurch.

Then it happened. His eyes flickered to the side, likely feeling my stalker stare, and he did a double take, his gaze ensnaring mine. My throat worked without success, and I was a lava field of suffused heat and awareness. His stare narrowed just slightly as I continued to meet his gaze.

God, I was such a creeper.

I wanted to look away, but I physically couldn’t. He so rarely looked at me, I felt like I was falling, my surroundings fading away — everything except him and his blue, blue, blue eyes.

Annoyingly, the music only I could hear whenever he was near started playing between my ears — this time it was Dreamweaver by Gary Wright — therefore I missed the sound of his voice when he said, “Hey, Jessica.” Instead, I surmised what he’d said based on the movement of his lips and subsequently tried my best to turn down the volume in my head.

I nodded at him, still not able to look away.

Then, horrified, I watched as he excused himself from Mrs. Macintyre and Tinker Bell and walked to where I was standing with Claire. I swayed a little, took a step backward as he advanced; Claire slipped her arm through mine and fit herself against my side. She probably thought I was going to either faint or make a run for it.

Unfortunately, I managed neither by the time he made it to where we were standing.

“Hey…Beau.” Claire said, the hesitation in her voice obvious. “You are Beau, right? Or are you Duane?”

He gave us a crooked smile that looked completely adorable and mischievous, his eyes darting between us. “You can’t tell the difference?”

Claire returned his smile with a small one of her own. Beau’s charm was contagious and addictive; I’d once overheard my daddy tell my momma that the six Winston boys had inherited their father’s ability to charm snakes, the IRS, and women.

I was also smiling, although mine probably looked dazed and weird. I was thankful for the long gray beard around my mouth. I hoped it camouflaged my expression of worshipful adoration.

“I’m pretty sure you’re Duane,” Claire said, then indicated me with a tilt of her head. “But Jess thinks you’re Beau.”

His eyes moved back to mine — somehow more intense, interested, piercing than they’d been before — and he swept me up and down once again. On the return pass I saw what I thought might be appreciation, and that’s when I remembered I was wearing my ironic sexy Gandalf costume, which basically hid nothing except my face and hair.

It hadn’t occurred to me until that very moment that someone might look at me, my curves in this scrap of fabric, and see more sexy than irony.

“What’s this costume, Jessica? Are you a wizard?” His lips tugged to the side, but his tone deepened when he added, “I like it.”

The tenor of his voice paired with the words sent a jolt of racing through my body. I gripped Claire tighter to keep from sinking to the floor.

“She’s sexy Gandalf. She was going to be a sexy bee, but the shop sold out of pollinator costumes.”

Beau laughed — a sound that, for reasons unknown, I felt in my uterus — and reached for the beard at my navel. The back of his fingers brushed against my stomach as he plucked the length of synthetic facial hair from my inconsequential sheath of a costume.

“The beard adds a certain something…” He tugged just gently and winked at me.

Of course, my response was to stare at him mutely because my first impulse was to dry hump his leg. Some odd little corner of my brain briefly thought about the logistics of wearing this long white beard always, every day.

“Hey, if you tug her beard, she gets to tug yours,” Claire teased.

His smile growing, the redhead stepped forward and into my space, his eyes at half-mast as they glittered down at me. “Go ahead, Jessica…Touch it.”

His nearness stole my breath.

I could smell him, and it just made me want to…want to…want to touch every inch of him. Tie him up and grab and squeeze and feel and bite and lick and suck and listen as he moaned my name. I wasn’t this person; I didn’t have these kinds of thoughts about anyone but Beau Winston. He brought out the horny hare in me.

Beau’s eyes seemed to flicker then flare as though he could read my thoughts; they dropped to my lips.

Yeah. I was definitely going to dry hump his leg. That was going to happen in 3, 2…

“I am so sorry about your momma, son.” A voice to my right and his left pulled our attention away from each other. We both turned our heads to find Mr. McClure, our local fire chief and Claire’s father-in-law, standing there with his hand outstretched. Beau looked down at it and then, taking a step away from me, accepted the offered hand as the man continued. “She was a good woman, and she’ll be missed.”

I shook myself a little, a spark of sobriety cutting its way through Dreamweaver. The Winstons had just lost their mother not more than four weeks ago. Bethany Winston was only forty-six. It was very sad and had been quite sudden. I hadn’t gone to the funeral as I was sick with flu, but apparently everyone else in town had shown to pay their respects to Mrs. Winston, her six sons, and her daughter.

“Thank you, sir.” Beau nodded once. The heat of his earlier expression was now extinguished, replaced with a tight-lipped smile and a shuttered gaze.

Mr. McClure nodded at Beau, then turned to Claire and me. He greeted us warmly, stepping forward to give Claire a kiss on the cheek. During this intermission, I felt Beau’s eyes follow my movements. I gave myself a mental high five for keeping my attention on Claire’s father-in-law, even though I really, really wanted to just stare at Beau.

After hellos were exchanged, Mr. McClure narrowed his eyes at Claire, “Claire, did you lock your car?”

I thought it was cute how Mr. McClure looked after Claire like she was his daughter, it warmed my heart.

She nodded, her lips curved in a warm and patient smile, “Yes, sir. I locked my car.”

To my surprise, Mr. McClure swung his blue eyes to me, “Jessica, did you lock your car?”

I blinked at him, caught off guard, and glanced at Claire.

“There’s been some thefts,” Claire explained, “and not just tourists, like usual. Jennifer Sylvester’s new BMW went missing last week.”

“Her momma told me she had a banana cake in the front seat, too.” Mr. McClure tsked, like the real crime was the loss of the banana cake, then he turned his attention back to Beau. “Your brothers here?”