Page 18 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
Eff.
During our previous and rather unpleasant encounters, I hadn’t seen Jess smile. So far, I’d only gotten scowls, glares and smirks.
But damn if his smile wasn’t perfect.
Shivers erupted across my skin. My cheeks flushed and there was a throbbing sensation between my thighs. My core temperature skyrocketed a couple hundred degrees.
I was hot for the town sheriff. I was hot for a man who I absolutely did not like one bit.
He didn’t miss my reaction and his smile faltered. But instead of assuming the standard scowl as per usual when he caught me ogling, his gaze heated. Was he hot for me too?
He held my eyes with his intense stare, his ice-blue eyes firing. So they did darken when he was turned on.
The air around us was charged, hot and stuffy. I could practically see the sparks crackling between us. And the rest of the world disappeared. All I could feel was that magnetic pull.
My heart was pounding so loudly I was certain he could hear it. I held the air in my lungs so he wouldn’t see me breathing hard.
This was bad.
I tore my eyes away from his and focused all of my attention on my coffee cup.
I needed to get far away from Jess Cleary. Never in my life had I felt such an intense attraction to a man. His hotness did things to me. It made my brain misfire and my body want things it hadn’t craved in years. And I needed my brain fully engaged when he was around. I didn’t like him, but more importantly, I didn’t trust him. I couldn’t be stupid enough to fall for his perfectly handsome face and amazingly sculpted body.
Nate had dazzled me with his looks. And other than giving me Rowen, I regretted everything else about my decision to be with him.
As I struggled to get control of my hormones, I felt Jess’s eyes on me. Thankfully, I was saved from having to meet them again when the sound of footsteps rang in my ears. Sam was making his way toward us.
“Morning, Gigi,” he said.
I smiled and wiggled my fingers in a small wave before taking another long drink of my coffee.
Sam smiled back and looked at Jess. “Carlson called me a few minutes ago and wants us to go ahead and question John Doe now. He’s awake and lucid but in about an hour, Carlson’s going to give him more pain meds that could knock him out for the rest of the day.”
Jess nodded and Sam took it as his cue to get a move on. But before Jess left the desk, he grinned, saying, “Back in a few, Freckles. Enjoy your coffee.”
Freckles? He’d christened me with a pet name?
Oh, no. This was really, really, really bad.
I had no idea how long it took for the police to question the victim of an intense act of violence. Probably not long, maybe only an hour. I needed to reengage my brain, fast, and come up with an action plan to deal with this new, confusing Jess. If he was messing with me, trying to toy with me using his extreme hotness, I needed to be prepared.
I was well practiced at building walls around my heart. Leaving it raw and unsheltered was not an option with as much loss and heartbreak as I had experienced in my life. I couldn’t risk letting someone come in and obliterate me. Rowen depended on me. She needed those walls just as much as I did.
So I had an hour. One hour to throw up some new brick and mortar.
An hour and a half later, Jess and Sam walked downstairs from the second floor where John Doe was being treated. Both men looked perplexed. Sam was speaking quietly to Jess as they rounded the corner of the stairs and headed toward Maisy and me.
Maisy had returned from her random wanderings not long after Jess had left. When I’d asked her where she had gone, she’d shrugged and smiled.
Montana people often answered questions without actually speaking.
“So what did he say? Does he know who attacked him?” Maisy pounced on Jess and Sam as soon as they were within ten feet of the counter.
Maisy had to ask because she couldn’t not be in everyone’s business, it was just who she was. I assumed they’d give her a polite brush-off. Surely, any details regarding a crime would be kept very hush-hush.
“His name is Alex Benson,” Sam said.
Then again, this was Prescott. No wonder news traveled so fast here.
