His eyes rolled to the sky. “I’m sorry for all prior, current, and future offenses I make in your presence.”

From behind, I heard Rambo start lapping up some water from his bowl. “All jokes and banter aside,” I said, “thank you. This is quite possibly the nicest thing anyone’s done for me.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he stared at me. “It was no big deal.”

“Yeah, it is,” I said, not about to let him wave this off as no big thing. “Although I’m curious as to how you got this thing built without anyone hearing or noticing.”

“It helps that I’m a fence making ninja,” he said, giving me a twisted smile, “and it also helps that I live next door.” Pointing his chin at the next cabin over, he arched a brow at me and waited.

“It was your family that bought the place from the Chadwicks last fall?” I asked, gazing at the A-frame cabin next door. I’d been under the impression it was still vacant.

“Yes, indeedy.”

“You’re my neighbor?” It was every teenage girl’s American dream to have a neighbor like Jude, so why did my stomach feel like I’d just swallowed a brick?

“No,” he said, rubbing his hand over his mouth, trying to mask his smile. “You’re my neighbor.”

“Well,” I sighed. “There goes the neighborhood.”

He nodded once, those gray eyes of his so light today they were the color of nickels. “There it goes.”

Three words. Three words accompanied by that look, performed by those eyes, emitted from that man.

I was lucky my knees weren’t buckling beneath the weight of that swoon.

“So,” Jude scanned me, “neighbor, how does Friday night sound?”

“It sounds like Friday night,” I smarted back, thankful the strong, very unswoony pieces of me were coming back together. No man, a level short of divinity or not, would render me into a sighing, batting eyelashes, love sick maniac.

“Weak, Luce,” he said, clucking his tongue. “We’re going to have to work on the speed and sharpness of your comebacks if you’re going to spend much time with me. I’m hard to keep up with.”

“Easy solution to that then,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back into the kennel. “I won’t spend much time around you.”

“So you’ve decided to wise up and keep your distance?” he said, his voice quieter.

“Lucy wise up?” A voice that could line that much ice around words in this kind of heat took a particular level of skill and discipline. “That’s as likely as me getting to take a three day vacation any time in the next decade.”

I swear if I was a dog, my hackles would have been on end or my tail would have been between my legs. With my mom, I didn’t know whether to fight back or cower and expose my jugular.

“I don’t know about that, ma’am,” Jude said, stepping around me to where I assumed my mom lingered over me. “Luce seems like one of the smart ones. One of the ones who has her head on straight.”

Mom clucked her tongue three times. “Flattery is not considered a virtue, young man. Especially when, at this stage of life’s game, it is utilized by young men hoping to work their way into a young woman’s pants.”

“Mom,” I hissed, spinning around.

“Who’s your new friend, Lucy?” she asked, looking him head to toe like he was as every day and far less useful than polyester.

“Jude.” When she was acting like this, I kept my answers to one word.

“And I’d assume Jude,” she said, just like she was sinking her teeth into a lemon wedge, “has a last name.”

“Ryder,” he offered, extending his hand, which she glared at like it was a misplaced load bearing beam on one of her projects.

“Ryder,” she repeated, although she annunciated it so it sounded more like ride her. “Of course it is.”

Unbelievable. My mom had to be the first woman who had looked into Jude’s face and not felt something thump-thump somewhere inside. Even a guy, a straight guy, would have been more impressed by Jude than mom was.

“Another dog,” mom sighed, turning and appraising the kennel and everything in and around it as if it should be shipped away on the next train out of town. “So much for wising up. When are you going to learn that you can’t save the world one lost soul at a time?” she said, the hardness draining from her voice, leaving behind nothing but the sadness that really was my mom.

She didn’t expect a response to that question but, although she was halfway to the cabin door and out of hearing range, I still offered one. “Until there are no more lost souls left to save.”

“Seems like a great lady,” Jude said from behind. I could feel the smile on his face it was that strong.

“You have no idea.” I turned towards him, wishing every time I looked at him it didn’t feel like I was falling down an abyss. “So you think I’m smart, huh?”

“Only because you decided to keep your distance from me.”

Glancing at the kennel, imagining the time, money, and stealthy planning it must have taken to build it without being noticed, I didn’t need to know the finer details that made up Jude Ryder. “Who says I decided to keep my distance?”

“You did,” he said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his worn pewter jeans.

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “And if I did, I reserve the right to change my mind at any given time.”

“If that’s the case, then I reserve the right to retract my previous comment.”

“You make so many of them, exactly which comment are you talking about?” I asked.

Reaching out, he ran his fingers down the laces of my pointe shoes strung over my shoulder, like he was capable of breaking them if he wasn’t careful. “The one about you being smart.”

He could have been about to say something else, he could have been about to do something else, but it would have to remain a mystery because at that moment, the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” blared through the windows. Dinner was in thirty.

“Are you hungry?”

Stroking the pink ribbons one last time, more carefully than hands like his seemed capable of, he glanced back at the cabin. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” I repeated, shooting him a look. “You’re a teenage boy, a super human sized one at that. You should always be hungry.”

He paused, the inner conflict so strong it was lining his face.

“Come on,” I insisted, grabbing his hand and giving it a tug. “My dad’s the best cook ever and you just met my mom. Don’t make me go in there alone.”

Exhaling, his eyes shifted to mine. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, positively, impossibly, certainly,”—I peaked a brow at him— “Dare me to continue?”

“Make it stop,” he said, clamping his hands over his ears.

“Come on, Drama-saurus Rex,” I said, waving goodbye to Rambo, who was happy as a clam gnawing his bone, and lead Jude up the stone walkway.

“Another weak weak attempt at humor, Luce,” he said, winding his fingers through mine. “So weak.”

“Forgive me, oh hallowed god of comedy.”

Nudging me as we walked up the steps, he grinned that impish grin that made me feel my heartbeat in my mouth. “Good to see you’re ready to admit I am a god.”

“Oh, god,” I sighed, shaking my head.

“Exactly,” he said, all matter-of-fact. “Just the way you should refer to me.”

Shooting him the most unamused look I could manage, I shoved the screen open. The inevitable would only wait so long.

Sitting down to a family dinner was low on my list of priorities, especially considering dinners as of late had been punctuated by silence and even more silence. Unless you count the looks mom fired like a ping-pong ball between dad and me. But sitting down to a family dinner with Jude, a guy I knew very little about other than I was dangerously captivated by him and that, at least on the surface, he was a guy no right-minded parent would want their teenage daughter spending their time with, this dinner, I was quite certain, had the potential to be epic.