Seasoned

Chapter 1

That darn dog was at it again.

Renee peered out the window of her home office to see her neighbor’s German shepherd, Samson, barking as he chased butterflies in her yard. No fence separated her yard from next door’s, only a line of bushes that roughly delineated where their property lines met. Which meant the dog often came over uninvited and unwelcomed.

Right now, Renee was working on an editing project. During the summer months when she was off from school, she took on the occasional editing job, and this one was for a former student, a well-known literary author who not only wanted her to edit the book but give her unfiltered opinion as a reader. How could she concentrate on the prose with that dog yelping and running back and forth in front of the window?

Fuming, Renee stood and marched out of the little ranch house and slammed the door.

Samson looked at her, tongue hanging out and tail wagging. She didn’t understand why the dog liked her. She was never friendly to it and always took him right back to his owner. Clive Stevenson was the irritating dog owner who’d moved in a year ago and been on her nerves ever since.

If it wasn’t the dog coming into her yard, it was the visual mess of car parts strewn all over his lawn and driveway as he worked on his daughter’s car, his truck, or the vehicle of one of his many friends who came over to use his services. She’d written eight letters of complaint to the HOA board about his various infractions, and after the last complaint, she hadn’t seen any more car repairs in the front of his house.

The nighttime parties hadn’t stopped, though. They consisted of a bunch of men drinking, and talking loud as hell late at night, while their cars sat on both sides of the street and made it almost impossible to pass.

Renee took the German shepherd by its leather collar and walked stiffly across the neighbor’s yard and onto his driveway where he had a white Dodge pickup parked. The white vehicle was about twenty years old with chipped paint but brand-new tires and a new interior made of supple-looking brown leather. He probably didn’t want to get rid of it for sentimental reasons. Her third husband had owned a similar love—an old Mustang he poured thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours into.

More time than he did our marriage, that was for sure, Renee thought bitterly.

In contrast to the old truck, the house was in pristine condition with fresh paint and not a single piece of rotted siding in sight. Mr. Stevenson used to own a small construction company and now worked as a handyman doing odd jobs for some of the neighbors. Renee had barely talked to the annoying man, but she knew a lot about him, thanks to neighborhood gossip.

He was single, kinda-sorta good-looking—if you liked the type of man who was a little rough-looking, unrefined—and the women in Summer Springs couldn’t stop talking about him. Of course, they didn’t have to deal with his damn dog disturbing their peace and quiet every few days.

Renee rang the doorbell and waited. A few minutes later, Stevenson’s granddaughter, Margie, opened the door—an adorable eight-year-old with raven hair styled in pigtail braids.

Her gaze dropped to the dog. “Uh-oh,” she whispered, eyes wide.

“Hello, sweetie. Is your grandfather here?” Renee asked as kindly as she could between gritted teeth.

“I’ll go get him.” Margie ran off, leaving the door open and yelling, “Grandpa, Miss Grumpy is at the door!”

Renee’s fake smile fell away and she stiffened. Miss Grumpy? It wasn’t her fault she had to keep coming over to bring back their pet.

She heard a muffled conversation in a back room and then Clive ambled to the front door. The moment she saw him, her stomach did a peculiar flip, and her irritation amped up.

Okay, so maybe Clive Stevenson wasn’t kinda-sorta good-looking. He was full-on, breath-takingly handsome by anyone’s standards. His hair and beard were almost completely white, but his eyebrows and mustache dark, and his tanned skin proclaimed a penchant for working in the elements often. Handsome, yes, but not her type, so she couldn’t understand why her belly always did that odd motion at the sight of him. She tended to prefer well-dressed men, suit-and-tie types. This guy was built for manual labor in a pair of worn jeans and a loose-fitting white T-shirt that showed off his barrel-like chest and tattooed arms.

“Damn, did he get over in your yard again?”

His smooth, smoky voice—annoyingly seductive—kept the women in the neighborhood giggling behind their hands and batting their eyelashes. She’d literally seen them do it.

“What do you think?” Renee released the dog’s collar and he ran inside the house, his paws tapping on the hardwood floors.

“Sorry about that.”

“Are you really? Because if you were, you’d keep him in your yard. To be clear, that’s my yard, and this is yours. Keep him tied up. Something. It’s dangerous to have him running around. He could get hit by a car or bite someone, and then what? Tie. Him. Up.”

Clive sighed and looked past her and up at the sky. “The day is too pretty to argue with you. Anything else?”

“You are very rude.”

“So you’ve told me,” he drawled.

His green eyes lowered to hers and caused a wave of heat in her stomach. His eyes weren’t just green, they were brilliant. Everything about this man was in-your-face. His devil-may-care attitude, the blatant masculinity in his casual clothes and muscular build, the deep voice that made you want to lean in and bask in the sound, and his eyes—as luminous and as dark as emeralds.

“One of these days I’m going to call animal control and have him picked up.”

“You’ve told me that, too.”

“It’s not an empty threat.”

“Okay.” He flashed a grin, which annoyed the hell out of her. “Anything else?”

To make sure he understood she wasn’t bluffing, Renee said, “Next time I’m calling animal control.”

“You would deprive my granddaughter of her pet?”

“No, that’s what you’re doing. Keep Samson in your yard. This is your final warning.” Renee stalked away.

“Have a good day!” Clive called cheerily after her.

Renee knew he was purposely trying to irritate her, yet she spun in the driveway to look at him. He was tall and the loose-fitting jeans hung low on his hips. She’d seen him shirtless plenty of times, washing his truck or his daughter’s car, mowing the lawn or working on some do-it-yourself project in the back yard. Curly hairs sprinkled his chest—some of them already turned gray—as sweat trickled down his tanned skin while he worked.

She’d never met a man who aggravated her more. She’d never met a man who turned her on more. But she was self-aware enough to acknowledge that part of her aggravation stemmed from her attraction to him.

Narrowing her eyes, Renee tossed around a number of tart comments in her head to throw his way but didn’t bother. He wasn’t worth the effort and she wouldn’t give him any more satisfaction in knowing how much he irritated her.

She stepped hard across the grass and once inside her house, slammed the front door shut.