Beautiful skin or not, she’d overstepped. Jenny and Jane were Carter’s responsibility and how he treated them—cross or not—was none of her business.

“They won’t bother you again. You can send them home.”

She let out a huff of breath that Carter found more entertaining than threatening. She opened her mouth as though she wanted to have the last word but snapped her jaw closed as she reconsidered. Maybe he’d overestimated her feistiness. Too bad. Fighting with his neighbor would have been more entertaining than sitting around the house feeling sorry for himself.

Without another word she spun on a heel and strode the length of the patio before crossing the lawn and hopping the fence. Carter’s gaze lingered on the perfect roundness of her ass before he looked way, embarrassed. He shouldn’t have been looking at another woman.

That didn’t mean he shouldn’t apologize to her for being an asshole, though. He owed her for finding the girls before they’d gotten hurt or worse. And Jenny and Jane were right: he’d been no fun, and too cross with them for the entire week. Looked like he was going to have to suck up his pride and take one for the team and eat a little crow.

Damn, he hated to lose.

Three

Tess closed the lid on her laptop in a huff. It did her no good to try to work when her concentration was shot. Her run-in with her new neighbor yesterday still had her blood pumping and not just because he was the most stubborn, curt, infuriating man she’d ever met. It was also because he was the most drop-dead, stunningly gorgeous man she’d ever met. Men simply didn’t look like that in real life.

Totally unfair.

She’d marched up to his house in her yoga pants, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, her T-shirt bearing the evidence of the Greek yogurt she’d had for breakfast—awesome—and he’d stepped out onto that patio every inch of him perfect as though he’d been whipped up in a lab. His light hazel eyes were nothing short of hypnotic and his shaggy dark brown hair made her fingers itch to smooth the locks away from his brow. The square of his jaw and sharp cheekbones looked as though they’d been cut from stone, so hard in comparison to his soft mouth that, despite his agitation, remained relaxed and pliable. Despite his intimidating nature, Tess couldn’t help but wonder if he had ever been truly enraged once in his entire life.

Besides, he’d been more annoyed than angry. Not to mention concerned for his daughters.

Tess had a feeling that there was a lot more to her gorgeous neighbor than met the eye. Despite their less than stellar introduction yesterday, she found herself wanting to know everything there was to know about him. So much for swearing off men.

A knock came at the back patio door and Tess craned her neck from the kitchen table fully expecting to see Jenny and Jane, their little faces pressed to the glass. Instead, the entire sliding glass window was taken up by the towering frame of their dad. Tess looked down at her standard yoga pants and T-shirt ensemble. She seriously needed to reconsider her choice in clothes.

Tess took a deep breath as she slid open the patio door. “Before you start in on me again—”

“I want to apologize.” He cupped the back of his neck and his cheeks flushed. Tess couldn’t be bothered to notice his chagrin for more than a second, though. Her eyes were drawn to the play of muscles that flexed in his powerful arm with the motion. Wow. “I was an ass yesterday. I’m Carter by the way. Carter Christensen.”

“Um…” Tess couldn’t form a coherent thought to save her life. She dragged her eyes from the curve of his bicep and met his intense hazel gaze. “You were worried about your kids and I didn’t help anything by acting like a know-it-all. You’re entitled to be a little grumpy.”

“An ass,” Carter corrected. A reluctant smile tugged at his lips, and Tess’s stomach did a backflip. “No need to sugarcoat it.”

“Okay, you’re entitled to be an ass.” Tess laughed and added the caveat, “When you’re worried about your kids.”

“I’ll make sure they stay off your property from now on.”

Carter turned to leave, and it was the last thing Tess wanted. “You don’t have to do that!” she blurted. Ugh. Way to play it smooth. “I was just worried that the barn wasn’t structurally sound, that’s all. I don’t mind them playing over here if you don’t mind. I was going to ask my dad to fly down and check out the barn, but maybe you could check it out? I was debating whether or not I should have it torn down for safety reasons. Or if you wanted to check out the fort the girls made you could do that, too. I mean, if you want to. Or not. Whatever. You totally don’t have to.”

Carter turned. His brows gathered as he watched her with an intensity that sent Tess’s blood rushing through her veins. She always talked too much when she was nervous, and Carter made her want to launch into a two-hour recitation of her entire life history so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge how awkward he made her feel. Awkward and shaky and sweaty and lightheaded. Holy crap. If she didn’t take a breath she was going to pass out.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Carter said. “Knowing those rug rats, they won’t stay away even if I tell them to.”

Tess pulled on her boots, regretting for the millionth time that she was wearing her yoga pants and not a cute pair of jeans or something that made her look like a marginally more productive member of society. She glanced down at Carter’s feet and swallowed down a groan as she got a glimpse at his pristine herringbone patterned Chuck Taylors. Seriously. Good looks and phenomenal taste in shoes?

“You probably don’t want to trudge across the swamp in those.” She nudged her chin toward his feet. “The ground hasn’t dried out yet.”

Carter laughed, and the sound traveled through Tess’s body in a pleasant ripple that softened her bones. “You did know there’s a flood irrigation system for the lawn, right? You can turn it off and get rid of the swamp.”

“Yeah…” Tess knew so little about her own house and property it was embarrassing. “I had no idea.”

Carter smiled. “Let’s take care of the irrigation first. Then the barn.”

“Your shoes?”

He shrugged. “They’re just shoes. That’s what washers are for, right?”

Jared would have freaked out at the prospect of getting his shoes dirty. Once when they’d gotten caught in a rainstorm, he’d insisted they duck into a restaurant and wait it out rather than allow his new leather loafers to suffer any water damage. It hadn’t mattered that they’d missed her cousin’s graduation in the process. The little, inconsequential things had always mattered most to Jared and not the important things like, say, fidelity.

As she followed Carter around to the west side of the house, Tess’s curiosity about him only intensified. “How do you know so much about this house?”

Carter didn’t turn to face her. “Steph’s grandparents owned the property that our house is on now. We used to come here all the time when we were in high school. Millie coerced me into doing chores for her whenever I was around.”

“Steph was your wife?” The words left Tess’s mouth in little more than a whisper.

Carter’s T-shirt stretched taut across his shoulders as his body tensed. He leaned over the irrigation valve and paused as though taking a much needed moment. “It’s funny,” he said as he closed the valve. “It’s been almost two years, and it’s hard for me to think of her in the past tense.”

Tess’s heart clenched. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Carter straightened. When he turned to face her, the depth of sadness in his hazel eyes was so intense that Tess felt it in her gut. “Just turn the valve all the way to the right when you don’t want to flood the lawn.”

“At this point, I doubt I’ll need to water it for the rest of the summer.”