After hushing the dogs and herding them into the back bedroom, she straightened her crooked T-shirt, made a quick check of the floor for underwear or other inappropriate clothing items, then walked into the front hall. She grimaced as she remembered exactly what the dogs dug out of the laundry bin the last time she’d forgotten to check the floor.

Her neighborhood didn’t allow soliciting, and she hadn’t ordered from Amazon even once this month. She smiled. She was just a little bit proud of her restraint. But that meant no package deliveries. “Who arrives at the front door without at least dropping a quick text?” she thought absentmindedly, as she opened the front door.

And...wow, hot guy, was her first thought. Tall, really tall, she thought as her eyes traveled up…and up. Six-foot-two, six-foot-three? His muscular frame took up most of the open doorway. Short cropped, dark brown hair, bright blue eyes set in a lightly tanned, very attractive face. Just a hint of shadow on his jaw, like he’d overslept that morning and rushed out the door.  But wait, her eyes skittered back down to a broad chest and muscular arms. A T-shirt in March. How she loved warm Texas weather. It gave her the opportunity to admire bulging biceps at least eight months out of the year.

While she was still staring—and probably drooling, for all she knew—Hot Guy slipped his foot over the threshold of the door and braced it against the frame. What? Get that hot butt out of my house.

But what she actually said, was “I'm sorry - you must have the wrong house. This is number 4920. Which house are you looking for?"

When placed in socially awkward or stressful situations, why did she always apologize? Lizzie wasn't sure, but apologize she did. Even though this was her house, her door, her personal space being invaded. Wait a minute.

"Sir, you need to step away from my door."  Dang it. Sir? Really?  Why was she so polite?

"If you don’t immediately step away from my door, I'm going to call 911." Much better. Calm, assertive …okay, maybe a tiny bit panicky—but, hot or not, he was a really big guy.

During this entire inner monologue, the strange and rather large man on her doorstep said not a word.

Hot Guy paused another few heartbeats. Then he said, “Lizzie Smith?”

She slowly nodded, her brain still trying to process that a very attractive man, who was oddly pushy, stood on her doorstep calling her by name.

His startling blue eyes stared calmly at her. “I’m here about the book.”

There is a moment in movies when the heroine experiences an unpleasant surprise. She flutters her eyelashes as her eyes glow with tears. Or perhaps she gracefully swoons onto a conveniently placed sofa. Why was life not a movie? Lizzie wondered. Because she got sweaty, nauseous, and turned a rather unattractive shade of green, when shocked. Lizzie knew this because of a public presentation made at age fifteen, a sprained ankle at twenty-three, and a horribly embarrassing public break up at age twenty-nine.