Home Sweet Home: A Sweet, Texas Novella by Candis Terry Page A

delicious glory move in ways that showcased the power in his upper body. It was quite the show. So much so that she’d had to go inside for the glass of wine she’d started before her bath.
    While Aiden worked, and she watched, her body started to hum with need. And as he brushed off his hands and headed in her direction, she wondered what it would take to convince him to forget about this whole ridiculous good-bye thing.
    Maybe luck would be on her side, and all it would take would be for her to drop her fuzzy robe.
    AIDEN TURNED AWAY from the parked and secured cherry-picker and moved toward Paige. One look was all it took to tell him he was in deep trouble. In her hand she held up a glass of wine for him to take. The fuzzy robe she wore had slipped off one bare shoulder, and with her legs propped up on the chair, he knew she was still naked beneath the soft fabric. The suggestive look in her eye wasn’t calculated; instead, it communicated exactly the way she felt.
    She wanted him.
    Her unspoken message shot through his body like a burning arrow of need. Before he could let her see how much he’d been physically affected, he accepted the glass and sat down.
    He wanted her too.
    More than anything he’d ever wanted before. But he couldn’t have her. In all fairness, he’d come to help. Not make the situation stickier.
    “Sorry I interrupted your bath.”
    “No you’re not.” She smiled and sipped her wine. “Otherwise, you’d have missed me hanging out the window ready to welcome the aliens to Planet Buck Naked.”
    “Lucky timing for me.” He shrugged. “I won’t complain.”
    She leaned forward, and the collar of the robe slipped a little more, revealing the cleavage his fingers tingled to touch. He remembered her softness. The sweet scent of her skin. The warmth she wrapped around him. Her sighs. Her moans.
    Jesus.
    Everything about Paige was a sensory overload. Impossible to dismiss and hard to resist.
    But resist was exactly what he needed to do.
    “Now. Do you want to explain how you got the rental for nothing?” she asked. “Or maybe you could backtrack my wall of questions all the way up to what possessed you to even come up with the idea in the first place. Especially when, just a few days ago, you seemed so determined to remove yourself from my life. Now it seems you’re willing to plunk yourself right back in the middle. So what’s up?”
    As she leaned back in her chair, Aiden knew he should come clean. He should tell her the truth. Instead, he chose to relay only a part of the truth and keep the rest to himself.
    “Nothing’s changed except … when I drove away from your house I took a good look around and saw that you could probably use a friend to help you out here and there. When you came by and tossed out the business offer, it made me understand that maybe you really are in over your head. So as your friend, I want to help out where I can.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “You sure toss that word around a lot.”
    “Which one? Help?”
    “Friend.”
    “I hope that’s what we are.”
    “Is that so?”
    He nodded because even he wasn’t sure anymore.
    Friends were what they’d been in elementary school. It was what they’d been before he’d ever kissed her sweet, soft lips and discovered there were a lot better things than being just friends. Yet while he’d been in the Army and away at war, he’d been afraid of what his future held.
    He’d pushed her away.
    Just friends was how he’d treated her over the past several years.
    No.
    Scratch that.
    He treated friends better than how he’d treated her. He’d rarely answered her letters. Rarely thanked her for the amazing packages she’d sent to him that he was able to share with his buddies. And though he’d told her not to, he’d never thanked her for putting her life on hold to wait for him. He’d dishonored the magnitude of the gift she’d selflessly given him. In return, he’d been callous, and he’d acted as if she didn’t matter.
    Hell. She mattered.
    Sometimes, he thought