Janelle Denison - Sinfully Sweet

“Uh huh. Okay. Whatever you say.” He jerked his head. “She’s stopped.”

Daniel’s head whipped around. Carlie had paused to look into a store window, affording him a side view, which was just as curvy and outstanding as the front view. The breeze caught her hair, blowing several shiny curls across her face which she tucked behind her ear with an absent gesture. Then without glancing their way, she entered the store and vanished from his view.

Her disappearance yanked him from the stupor into which he’d fallen, and he blinked and rubbed his hand over his face. That’s when he realized that his glasses had slid down his nose and his jaw was once again hanging open. Definitely not his best look. Good thing she hadn’t seen him. She’d think him a gawking, slack-jawed, nerdy techno-geek. While he couldn’t deny he was a techno-geek, and by association kinda nerdy, no way was he a slack-jawed gawker.

At least he hadn’t been until thirty seconds ago.

He started walking, his limbs feeling oddly stiff, as if they really had turned to cement, and he craned his neck to see which store she’d entered. He vaguely noted Kevin walking beside him and pretended he didn’t hear his brother’s poorly suppressed chuckles. Seconds later he realized she’d gone into Sinfully Sweet.

It suddenly struck him that the words sinfully sweet and Carlie Pratt seemed to go together very well. Sorta like hot and steamy. Hot and bothered. Hot and who the hell had lit his jeans on fire?

Hmmm…was she making a purchase for herself-or looking for a Valentine’s gift for a boyfriend? He frowned. Did she have a boyfriend? He hadn’t ever seriously considered that question before. When she’d first moved in, he’d assumed she had several boyfriends after he’d observed, through his home office window, a number of men entering and leaving her house. Then, when he’d returned her muddy puppies to her the first time they’d dug under the fence into his yard, she’d told him she was a massage therapist at The Delaford Resort just outside of town near Crystal Lake, but that she freelanced on the side, treating a select few, long-term clients at the house. She’d made no mention of a boyfriend, and he hadn’t particularly wanted to know.

But all of a sudden, he very much wanted to know.

Yet with his brain once again firing on all cylinders, he frowned and shook his head at this sudden need for knowledge about her personal life, then decided to call it…simple curiosity. Yeah, that’s all it was. It wasn’t as if her boyfriend status really mattered-especially as he was moving in two weeks.

Kevin nudged him in the ribs. “Hey, there’s a coffee shop. I’m going to go order a caffeine I.V. drip. Once I’m revived, I’ll meet you in the candy store. That’ll give you some time to chat with your neighbor you don’t, um, like.”

Man, was there anything more annoying than a smirking younger brother? “I never said I didn’t like her.”

“Oh. Right. You said you didn’t want her.”

“That’s correct.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s totally obvious. Anybody could see that. Really.” With a chuckle, Kevin made his way toward the coffee shop.

Daniel stood on the sidewalk for several seconds, reorganizing his thoughts that the sight of Carlie Pratt had scattered, splattered and fried. What the hell was wrong with him? Clearly he, too, suffered from caffeine deprivation for the mere sight of her to knock him sideways like that. And why the hell was he still standing out here? Sinfully Sweet had been his destination. He had every reason to go into that store. And if he just happened to strike up a conversation with her, well, that was only the neighborly thing to do, right?

And as much as he might not like it or want to, he was feeling downright neighborly.

Pulling in a bracing breath, he rolled his shoulders, then walked purposefully toward Sinfully Sweet’s glass door.

THE INSTANT CARLIE stepped inside Sinfully Sweet, her senses were inundated with chocolate, coaxing a moan of pleasure from her throat. Decadent treats beckoned from behind the counter and tempted from a colorful display of foil-wrapped hearts in the center of the store. She inhaled, filling her head with the luscious, mouth-watering aroma. She could almost hear the delectable sweets chanting, Taste me, taste me .

Oh boy, this upscale store was the last place a self-confessed chocoholic on a tight budget should be, but after seeing the newspaper ad announcing the grand opening and the intriguing Valentine’s Day promotion, she’d been unable to resist the temptation. She could resist a lot of things, but chocolate wasn’t one of them. Nor was the chance to win a fabulous Valentine’s dinner date at The Delaford’s five-star restaurant. One glimpse inside Sinfully Sweet let her know that her willpower not to overspend would be sorely tested.

Just think about the whopper tuition you still have to pay , her inner voice advised. And the freakishly expensive text books you need .

Right. As if she could forget. With another year to go before she earned her bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy, and the added burden of having to shoulder the house’s entire rent payment after her friend Missy had eloped two days before they were supposed to move in together, money was tight. Certainly tighter than she’d envisioned it being by the time she was twenty-eight, but as she’d discovered, life had a habit of throwing curve balls when you expected a nice, easy slider.

Still, she wouldn’t let anything keep her from finishing her degree, then securing the job she’d dreamed of-one where she’d help people who faced challenges helping themselves. Like her grandfather, whose stroke ten years ago had set her on the course she’d chosen for herself. And whose recovery continued to inspire her to this day.

At first she’d considered not moving into the house, but given that she would have lost two month’s rent and her security deposit, not to mention the fact that she desperately wanted a place with a yard for P.B. and J., she’d moved in, thinking she’d look for another roommate. But after enjoying a few weeks of just her and the puppies, she’d stopped looking and tightened her financial belt in other places to make up the difference.

Indulging in gourmet chocolates had been one of the luxuries she’d painfully axed. Good for her piggybank, but tragic as far as her taste buds were concerned.

But surely after two months of denying herself, of surviving on supermarket chocolate, she deserved a small treat. Right? Her gaze zeroed in on a display of imported truffles and her mouth watered. Oh, God, something from Belgium would be so fabulous…

Clasping her hands together, she closed her eyes and drew in another delicious breath, vaguely aware of the door opening and closing behind her, then the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Wow, it smells really good in here.”

Her eyes popped open as she instantly recognized the deep, husky voice coming from directly behind her, and with a quick intake of startled breath, she whirled around. Less than an arm’s length away stood Daniel Montgomery, her very attractive neighbor. Who looked very attractive indeed in a dark blue flannel shirt that did great things for his hazel eyes rimmed by his black rectangular-framed glasses and a pair of faded jeans that did great things for everything else. Her very attractive neighbor who had, since the minute she first saw him, the weirdest effect on her pulse. Who rendered her either tongue-tied or turned her into a blathering dolt. And who, except for the holes P.B. and J. kept digging in his yard, didn’t even know she existed. And even if he did, what difference did it make? He had a girlfriend. She’d seen them sharing a kiss on his front porch the day she moved in. Plus, he was moving.