Once in the family room, she fed her GloFish and debated grabbing a snack to nibble on while she wound down with a movie or TV show. Perhaps some ice cream?
Nope, she mentally lectured. You’re eating healthier, remember?
Right. Maybe some berries then? She had some delicious strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries in the fridge.
She nodded. That sounded great.
Drawing back the blinds that covered the sliding glass doors, she peeked out at the back patio. Bright solar-powered floodlights illuminated a neat cement slab decorated with an abundance of potted plants.
Her eyes fell on her pepper plants, then narrowed. “Damn it!”
She stomped into the kitchen, yanked her keys off the hook above the junk drawer, and headed into the laundry room. After tugging her jogging shoes on over her fuzzy socks, she unlocked the back door and headed outside.
A cool breeze brushed her hair back from her face and raised chill bumps on her bare arms. She’d forgotten temperatures were actually nice for a change tonight. Houston didn’t get much in the way of autumn or winter anymore, just occasional half-assed cool fronts that only made temperatures dip for a day or two before it became shorts weather again.
Oh well. At least yoga pants covered her legs.
She crossed to her veggie plants, then leaned over the bell peppers in search of her prey. “Aha! I knew it!” A large snail munched away at a leaf, having already eaten every damned flower on the plant and clearing one limb. “You’re going to pay for that, you little bastard.”
She grabbed it by the shell and tugged, grimacing when it stuck to the plant.
“Damn, Nick,” a woman said. “What’d you do to piss off Kayla?”
She froze and looked at her neighbor’s fence.
A low masculine chuckle floated on the night, doing funny things to her insides.
“Nothing, I hope,” a male replied, his voice carrying a faint French accent. Grass crunched as footsteps approached the five-foot fence.
When a handsome face appeared above it, butterflies filled her belly.
Nick Belanger smiled at her, his brown eyes glinting with amusement in the ambient illumination cast by the floodlights. “Everything okay?”
Straightening, she returned his smile and held up the snail. “Yes. Just stopping this little bugger. He and his buddies keep devouring my pepper plants.”
He grinned. Damn, he was handsome. Not in a pretty-boy way, but in a ruggedly masculine way. His short black hair was slicked back from his face, still wet from a recent shower. His strong jaw bore a five-o’clock shadow. His straight white teeth provided sharp contrast to the dark stubble that coated his cheeks.
She’d been attracted to him ever since she had moved next door to him six years ago.
Two small hands gripped the top of the fence beside him. A moment later, a lovely woman stepped up onto the horizontal brace on the other side and peered over the top of the fence. “Hi, Kayla.”
“Hi.” Reality crashed down, making a mockery of every fantasy she’d woven around Nick.
Eliana’s long black hair was slicked back from her face like his. Clearly, the two had just showered together.
Kayla envied the woman that. Nick had a fantastic body—broad shoulders with plenty of muscle to enable him to lift a woman up and pin her to the wall as he drove into her. Eliana was his perfect counterpart. The woman’s pale, porcelain skin practically glowed and lacked the freckles that peppered Kayla’s. Her brown eyes sparkled with warmth. Her full lips stretched in a friendly smile.
And while Kayla and the other woman were built the same—petite, slender, lightly muscled with full breasts and rounded hips—Eliana appeared to be at least ten years younger than Kayla’s thirty-eight years.
“Whatcha killing?” Eliana asked.
“Snails.” Dropping her slimy nemesis, Kayla crunched it under her boot. “They keep eating my pepper plants.”
Eliana nodded. “They’ve been really bad at my place, too. I think it might be because so many of the frogs have died off.”
“You noticed that, too?” The frog population seemed to get smaller and smaller each year. The damned mosquitoes and other insects were loving it.
As if on cue, a hungry mosquito landed on Kayla’s arm. She smacked it.
Eliana smiled. “Hey, would you like to join us?”
Surprised by the invitation, Kayla glanced at Nick in time to see him send Eliana an indecipherable look from the corner of his eye. “Oh. No, thank you. It’s late. And I wouldn’t want to in—”
“You wouldn’t be intruding. We were just going to snag something to eat and see if we can find something to watch on TV.”
Nick nodded. “It won’t be anything fancy. I’d offer you something better, but Oliver is out of town, and I didn’t cook tonight.”
Oliver was Nick’s best friend. When she had first moved in, Kayla had believed the two were a gay couple until Becca had mentioned Oliver having a girlfriend. They hadn’t seen Nick with a woman (hence the rampant fantasies Kayla had fabricated around his handsome ass) until Eliana started coming around.
“Please,” Eliana coaxed. “I’m around men all the time when I work and could use a break from the testosterone.”
Kayla smiled but hesitated nevertheless. She didn’t want to be a third wheel.
“If you don’t,” Eliana added with a mischievous glance at the tall man beside her, “I’m going to make Nick sit through another Gilmore Girls marathon.”
Nick’s eyes widened and fixed on Kayla with feigned dismay. “Please join us.”
She laughed. “Okay.” Might as well. She had nothing else to do. “Let me change first.”
Eliana waved a hand. “No need. We’re in our slouchy clothes. You’re perfect as you are. Meet me at the gate.” She disappeared from view.
Nick smiled. “You are perfect. See you in a minute.” Then he, too, disappeared.
Kayla stared at the fence, bemused.
Nick thought she was perfect?
After taking a minute to lock her back door, Kayla headed for the gate on the side closest to Nick’s. It released a loud groan as she opened it. She could probably get rid of that with a little WD-40 but had opted not to so she would hear it if anyone tried to open it.
Her damn ex-husband had tried to sneak in the back a few times after she’d moved here. And that creaky groan had worked well as an alarm.
As she closed the gate, the one on Nick’s side opened and Eliana stepped out.
“Good to see you again,” Eliana said with a smile and drew Kayla into a hug. She was so nice. Even Becca, who had briefly borne a deep crush on Nick, had been unable to dislike her despite the jealousy she inspired.
“Good to see you, too. It’s been a while.”
“Yeah.” She wrinkled her nose. “Work has had me bouncing back and forth from here to Austin.” She ushered Kayla into Nick’s backyard and closed the gate. “Wow. You are rocking that tank top, girl.”
Kayla shot Nick a look. Surprise rushed through her when she caught him staring at her breasts. She glanced down and noted the hard peaks the cool breeze had made prominent beneath the cotton material of the tank and her thin bra. Heat flooded her face. “Thank you. You’re rocking that crop top.”