Hope Entangles: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (Book 2 of 3) (4 page)

“
Hi Miss Jones,” Georgia
said. She walked over to where I stood, and looked relieved to be
around someone other than Billy.

“
I see he talked you into
ice cream after all.” I prodded.

She looked over to where Billy was
polishing a fingerprint from his metal beast, then to me. “I don’t
know what to say to get him to back off.”

Oh…

“
I mean, he’s nice and all,
but I like Adam too much to…” She shrugged a shoulder and sighed.
“I’ve even tried setting him up with a couple girls I know. They
were willing, but he shut them down before I could even introduce
them.”

Billy stopped to say hello to Darla and
Bette sitting at the picnic table. Of course he’d know Darla. They
were practically the same age.

I stepped closer to Georgia. “I don’t
mean to come off all knowledge lady…” God knew I’d screwed my love
life up to the point of implosion. “But I’d say you need to be as
honest and direct with him as possible. If he hasn’t a chance in
hell of getting you, then you need to let him know.” She looked at
me and frowned. “And no sugar coating it. Blunt is best, especially
if he’s not really hearing what you’re saying. Make sure there’s no
wriggle room in what you’re saying.”

Georgia’s expression turned thoughtful,
and then she rolled her eyes in frustration.

“
I just don’t want to hurt
him. I’ve known him almost my entire life, and he’s such a good
friend to Adam…”

Billy waved goodbye to Darla and turned
toward us. The Big Bad Wolf glowed in his eyes, and his smile was
just lecherous.

Georgia gulped audibly. “Maybe you’re
right.”

Billy swaggered over to us like a
cowboy coming in from a long day of roping calves. With a visible
effort he pried his gaze from Georgia to look at me.

“
Hi there, photographer
lady.”

“
Hey Billy.” I smiled,
trying to put as much happy in it as I could muster. I didn’t think
I had much of that left in me, but I should at least try.
Especially when talking to a model prospect. “So do you think you
could come for a photo shoot sometime this week? I need to get a
new cover ready.”

His pouty lips pursed as he mulled this
around in his head. “Sure,” he said, absently scratching his broad,
cotton clad chest. The deep green of his shirt made his eyes
practically sparkle like emeralds.

“
And if you can manage to
bring a pretty girl with you?” I cajoled.

He glanced Georgia’s way and his smile
deepened.

Damn…

If he wasn’t the perfect Big Bad Wolf,
then I might need to turn to girls.

The thought kind of left me confused…
and strangely warm inside.

Again with the head shaking. I needed
to get these crazy ideas out of my head.

After all, I’d only had a
big girl crush once, and that was on a fictional character: Willow
from
Buffy the Vampire
Slayer
. Alyson Hannigan is a lovely,
beautiful actress, but I only had the yearning for her when she was
the werewolf loving Wicca who turned lesbian halfway through season
four.

Again I shook my head and blinked my
eyes, trying to get the crazy to fall out of my head.

“
I’ll see what I can do,”
Billy said, licking his thick, pouty lips. “I’ve still got your
card, so I’ll call you.”

“
Perfect.”

I felt bad as he turned away and pulled
Georgia into his wake, steering them toward the order window. He
didn’t have a chance at getting Georgia.

I sighed and headed over to the picnic
table. Bette and Darla were finished with their ice cream, and
Darla was on her cell phone telling Drew to pick her up at my
house. She sounded sad as she said goodbye.

I looked askance at her.

She perked right up. “I want to
surprise him with already having my license.” She smiled
naughtily.

Bette snorted. “She wants to rub his
cute little nose in it too.”

Darla shrugged. “Maybe a
little.”

The two looked at each and burst out
laughing.

“
Maybe more than a little,”
I said, and we headed back to Bette’s Caddy.

Chapter 4

In celebration of her
passing the driver’s test, Bette conceded control of her Sirius
satellite radio to Darla. We were treated to Fall Out Boy
Light(ing) it Up
, Kelly
Clarkson sounding angry and liberated about
People Like Us
, and finally Pink
hamming it up, singing that she’d just lost her husband, and didn’t
know where he went…

It was at this moment that we rolled
onto my block, and I closed my eyes and thanked god we’d somehow
made it home all in one piece, and without even putting a scratch
on Bette’s high priced automobile.

When I opened my eyes I saw a strange
sight in my side yard, the one facing away from Bette’s
house.

A tall, broad shouldered young man
stood next to my sycamore tree, pulling off a white t-shirt,
exposing not only luminous caramel colored skin, with some of the
nicest, sculpted musculature I’d seen, but some swirly,
multicolored tattoos curving down his right arm.

I felt myself straighten in
my seat, and I leaned closer to the window to watch as the now
shirtless man bent over—
wow… that’s one
nice bubble butt!

“
Oh my…” Bette said
breathlessly.

“
Ah… who is t-t-that?” Darla
stammered in the same tone of voice, and then reddened in
embarrassment.

And then this veritable god stood up
wielding a large yellow chainsaw, which he yanked the start-up
chord on, widened his stance, and then started taking aim at the
base of my tree.

That fucking lunatic was going to cut
my tree down!

“
Stop the goddamn car!” I
snarled like an angry mountain lion.

The Caddy screeched to a halt. I was
out of the rear passenger side door in a flash, not bothering to
close it, and was halfway across the lawn, screaming at the
chainsaw wielding nit-wit to stop.

But the damn chainsaw was making so
much noise I couldn’t even hear myself.

When the blades of the saw bit into my
sycamore’s bark I lost it. I ran at him, hitting him square in the
back with my outstretched arms as hard as I could, anger making me
strong enough to actually push him three feet away.

He staggered and cursed, the chainsaw
making an angry, metallic scream as it cut off.

He tore off a pair of goggles I hadn’t
noticed him wearing, and turned on me.

“
What the fuck do you think
you’re doing?” His voice was hard as a brick and filled with rough
edges.

“
What am
I
doing?” I screamed right back, not
believing his gall.

“
Yeah,” he yelled, his dark,
dark eyes squinting in anger. “You could have killed me there.” He
held the chainsaw up to me. “This is a dangerous piece of
machinery, and someone could have gotten hurt by your childish
little stunt!”

That did it… something clicked inside
me, maybe it cracked, who knows. All I know is I was suddenly right
up in his face, hands on my hips, seething in anger.

“
I’m
childish?” I growled.

“
This should be good,” a
joyful, unfamiliar female voice chimed in from behind the chainsaw
wielding asshole.

I ignored her and stepped closer to the
lunatic. “I’m not the one trying to cut down someone else’s
tree!”

His upper lip rose in the beginning of
a snarl… but then he laughed.

The crazy asshole actually laughed in
my face.

“
Your
tree,” he grated, glancing for a second at my sycamore and
then back to me, “is an eyesore. And it blocks the morning sun from
my entire eastern aspect.”

“
See there,
Mr. Big-shot!
” another
unfamiliar female voice intoned. Did he have a harem with him or
something? “I told you your new neighbor wouldn’t like you hacking
down her tree.”

The muscles in his jaw clenched and he
closed his dark eyes in irritation. “Shut up, Kyra!”

It was my turn to laugh at him. “You
talk to girls like that? What are you… some social
deviant?”

His eyes snapped open and his dark eyes
blazed with anger.

He licked his full… silky… oh so pouty
lips.

Asshole or not, he was one amazing
example of the male form. Long, bulging muscles everywhere. All
covered by the creamiest, caramel brown flesh—and the tattoos made
the flesh they adorned glow with a silvery luster.

“
Thirty-five percent of
your…
tree’s
root-system is on my property. Over forty percent of its
overgrown branches hang over my side of the property line. So I do
have every right to clear my line of sight and my view of your ant
infested eyesore of an elm tree.”

“
Sycamore!”

“
Whatever.” He sneered down
at me as he took a step closer, leaning over me like some kind of
school-yard bully. “You should be happy I don’t contact my lawyer
and force you to pay for its removal. I’m doing you a
favor.”

I could hear Bette gasp as I stepped up
closer, until our noses were close to touching. At least the
asshole had nice breath… minty even.

I oh so very slowly I broke eye contact
with the sexy lunatic, leaning to the side as I moved in even
closer, until my lips were almost brushing his earlobe.

“
This is Texas,” I breathed,
taking in a nose-full of a mix of sweet male sweat, coffee, and
something foreign and spicy. “People get shot all the time for
messing with other people’s property.”

Bette gasped again.

Darla murmured. “Oh God, she
didn’t…”

The still unseen (to me at
least) Kyra hooted and clapped. “
Mijo
thinks he’s so freaking smart.
MIT, my sexy round ass!”

“
Kyra!” the other female
voice scolded. “You know mama doesn’t like us talking smack about
his education!”

Mr. MIT rolled his eyes and I heard him
growl.

“
You went to Texas A &
M. You’re a freaking doctor—”

“
After two more years of
being an intern—”

“
And I’m an accountant with
my own firm.” Kyra stopped, and I could see his jaw clench again.
He was waiting for what she was going to say next. “Mr. Genius over
there never even graduated!”

I felt bad for him… for exactly ten
seconds, and then he said, “Can’t choose your family, can
you?”

And then he winked at me.

Winked at me...

Really?

His thick, full lips slowly spread into
a beatific smile, showing off straight, white teeth—the bastard
could have done a toothpaste commercial.

“
We’ve gotten off on the
wrong foot,” he practically purred, scratched his bare chest, and
then slowly ran his hand down his pec and then lower, down
his…
was that an eight-pack of hard-as-steel
abs?
“My name’s Raphael Morales. Everyone
calls me Raff.”

I closed my eyes and breathed. This
wasn’t happening. Tell me that the new neighbor was not only a
complete tree-chopping lunatic, but was also now trying to flirt
with me.

And his mother actually named him after
an angel?

Oh… now I get
it…

I knew his type. I’d seen them all
through high school. Big, good-looking jocks who thought they were
God’s gift to the female population. And this one had a brain
too.

If he couldn’t talk his way
through his argument, then he’d pull the
I’m to die for sexy
card.

I looked up into his dark, fathomless
eyes and reached out my hand until my index finger was digging into
his chest, right where his sternum was.

He smiled. That was until I kept
applying pressure, really digging my barely a centimeter long nail
into his flesh, digging into the bone underneath.

With a rueful, grudging groan, he
stepped back a step.

“
I have a Remington pump
action shotgun hanging on the wall just inside the front door of my
house. It’s loaded with rock-salt.”

Raphael took another, smaller step
back, wincing when I said “rock-salt.”

I took another step closer, a maniacal
smile beaming up at him.

“
I’m a decent shot, really.
But if I’m, oh, let’s say pissed off, I might not hit what I’m
aiming at.”

He looked confused, so I
elaborated.

“
I might not hit your chest,
if I was going to pump it full of burning bits of salt. I might
miss and hit you…” I started to walk past and around him, letting
my eyes drag over his sweat shiny torso. “Right in the
balls.”