I watched his ass as he went, thinking it would not be good if that look meant he didn’t like Fiona because I loved Fiona. It wasn’t like I played her 24/7 but she got a lot of airtime in Tess O’Hara’s house.

No, that wasn’t entirely true. I was thinking about Brock and Fiona Apple but mostly I was thinking about how great his ass looked in his faded jeans.

Once I quit thinking of this (around about the time he disappeared), I looked around for my glasses, saw Brock had taken them off and put them on the table at the side of the sofa. I nabbed them, slipped them on my nose, got up, and walked to the kitchen.

I was at the sink filling the coffeepot with water when he made it into the kitchen.

It took a bit of effort but I didn’t drop the glass pot into my ceramic sink when I saw a smokin’ hot, clothes-disheveled, usually sexy and unruly haired, now sexier and unrulier-haired (due to sleep and my hands running through it), heavy-eyed Brock Lucas saunter into my kitchen.

Whoa.

I’d never woken up with Brock but just looking at him in the morning was nearly as good as one of his kisses.

I turned off the water and moved to the coffeemaker, covering this reaction by asking, “Do you not like Fiona Apple?”

His response was, “Is this a deal breaker for you?”

I’d flipped up the top of the coffeemaker and turned to him while I poured the water in seeing he was preparing to open the fridge.

That was when I said, “I’ll take that as a no.”

He stood, fingers curled around the fridge’s door handle and his eyes leveled on me. “Babe, I listen to Credence, the Eagles, Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Thorogood, shit like that and pretty much anything country if a chick ain’t singin’ it. Does that sound like a man who’d like Fiona Apple?”

“No,” I replied. “It sounds like a man in dire need of a crash course in three decades of music. The boys are back from Vietnam, Brock. Follow me into the new millennium.”

He grinned at me and muttered, “Smartass,” before he opened the fridge door and stuck his head into it.

I was feeling warm gushiness in my belly due to his grin and seeing his head stuck in my fridge when I heard my cell ring.

I shoved the coffeepot under the coffeemaker and moved to my purse on the kitchen counter, wondering who was calling me at that ungodly hour and why. Then I pulled out my phone, looked at the display, and saw it was Martha.

Damn.

I hit the button on the screen to take the call and put it to my ear.

“Hey, honey,” I greeted. “What’s up?”