“Are you sure you don’t want me to run my hands all over you, too?”
No boundaries, this man. And his words, the intimate, seductive, low tone of his voice promising she would enjoy every second of it, set everything off inside her. She had no control over the response or the warm rush of wetness between her legs, startling and panicking her. But she forced herself to ignore it. “No! And when you put it like that, get your hands off my dog, you perv!”
He looked at her knowingly over the top of his glasses, but he informed her, “Not leaving until you eat that.”
She tugged her lower lip in, biting at it as she contemplated the tempting fried dough dripping with chocolate. In a quiet voice, she said, “I’m not hungry.”
“Looks like you haven’t been hungry for a while.”
“It’s none of your business,” she snapped.
He took a deep breath and patted Fred on the head, exhaling heavily. He acknowledged her statement. “You’re right. Just don’t give it to Fred; he can’t have chocolate.”
“I know that,” she said in a hard whisper.
Casting her an unreadable glance from behind those annoying glasses, he stood up. Fred stood with him, but he made a gesture, and Fred sat obediently.
Cassidy looked up at him from beneath hooded eyes, waiting for the next insult or innuendo from him, annoyed he was leaving without putting up more of a fight. Annoyed that she was annoyed.
“Later, neighbor,” was all he said as he walked away, making his way back across the street.
Dropping her gaze back to the doughnut, she sorted through her feelings. Was he calling her too thin; finding fault with her body? She refused to see it as anything other than rude and degrading; a dismissal of her grief. What difference did it make to him whether she ate or not?
She ran a hand over her sweatshirt, pressing the material to her stomach, casting another glance down the sidewalk. He was gone.
“Cassie!”
Cassidy tore her eyes from the direction Mac had disappeared, skirting the sidewalk for the familiar woman’s voice she hadn’t heard in months, not since she had seen her in the Trading Post: Darlene, the owner of the local bar. The woman had hinted she was willing to open a spot for her whenever Cassidy wanted a job. The suggestion had been enough to drive Cassidy back into hiding.
Now Cassidy’s attention landed on the sexy forty-something redhead—natural—strolling down the sidewalk toward her. She had a bag of greasy food tucked under her arm and was popping French fries into her mouth. Her bright tresses were up in a messy bun, a few tendrils cascaded down to frame her face, and her voluptuous breasts—not natural—stretching the ribbed dark gray long-sleeve T-shirt clinging to her buff body. White cutoff shorts barely covered her ass cheeks, and tanned legs ending in dark brown cowboy boots.
Darlene was a petite walking advertisement for sex and her bar, though technically, she had a monopoly on the latter. The food at the bar was okay, but not award-winning—that wasn’t why people went to the bar, for the food. It was also why she was eating food from the diner out of a greasy brown paper bag.
“Baby girl, how ya doing?” she drawled in her southern accent. She approached the row of tables pressed against the brick exterior of the building where Cassidy was sitting. With a jaundiced glance at Fred, who warily eyed her in return, she slid into the chair Mac had vacated.
“Hi, Darlene; I’m good.”
Up close, anyone could see the lines of her face as a testimony to the life she’d left behind in the south, one she’d tell you all about over a shot of whiskey. But her sultry beauty was still there, her green eyes bright and full of positivity now, grateful to have escaped her former life. “Looking good, doll. How’re ya feelin’?”
Cassidy forced a smile. “Good.”
Darlene popped another French fry into her mouth, eyes flicking down the street, asking with a full mouth, “Was that Mac Boyer I saw?”
“You know it was.”
She grinned, her dimples making an appearance. “Yeah, I know it was; thought I’d give you an out if you wanted to take it.”
“Why? I don’t need it.”
Darlene assessed her. “All right. Just checking.”
“He’s my neighbor,” Cassidy said defensively.
“No one would blame you, Cassie.”
The tone was full of pity, turning Cassidy’s stomach. Her gaze fell to the doughnut again. To keep herself from saying something she shouldn’t, she picked it up and took a giant bite.
Darlene kept on, “And you’d be, like, theonlysingle woman in the region who hasn’t had a taste of him.”