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Then I realized these might be her pajamas, and once I pictured Clara Connor in bed, thinking was not my primary occupation.
The lights in my room were off. And I realized she probably knew that this room—the only bedroom on this side of my parents’ house—was unoccupied most of the time. But since when did Clara occupy that particular window? If that’d been her room in high school, I was pretty sure I would have known about it.
I was torn. The part of me that was relishing the way she managed to be completely covered up and still look ridiculously hot wanted to keep right on watching. She was folding laundry, picking things out of a basket and then dropping them onto the foot of a bed, bending and reaching as she folded. The part of me that knew it was wrong to watch her when she had no idea I was doing it thought I really ought to go ahead and close my blinds.
Only...
When else did I get to just look at her, the object of pretty much all my high school fantasies? She was gorgeous in such a perfect, proper way. She’d always been the literal girl next door, and everything about her fit that role. The smooth pale skin. The generous curves sculpted in high school by youth and now firmed by what I could only guess were rigorous days in the field doing whatever she did—lassoing and pinning bears? The light-gold hair that settled around her shoulders in full waves when it was dry, and hung in sexy strands right now while it was wet.
She must’ve taken the master bedroom, I realized, as I had a vague memory of seeing her dad wander by that window a time or two back in school.
Clara raised a hand to her head and dropped her face into it, her posture screaming of exhaustion. And sadness.
Was she sad?
I leaned closer, wishing I could...what? Reach through the window and touch her? So she could recoil and tell me to get lost?
I turned away, irritated with myself. I felt like a total shitbird peeping Tom.
Finally, I stood and closed my blinds before putting myself to bed. My neighbor clearly had her own problems. I needed to keep my focus where it belonged.
But that didn’t stop me from dreaming about her all night long.
I woke up frustrated and horny.
I needed a run.
CHAPTER6
CLARA
CLOWNS. WE CAN ALL AGREE ON THOSE.
“Mommy, Siillllvessssteeeer is running away.” Katie was glued to the living room window.
“Good,” I said from the dining room table where I was nursing a second cup of coffee and reviewing some of the notes from the week. The issue with being in the field all the time was that you rarely had the opportunity to take care of the office work that the field work generated. And so I ended up doing a lot of it at home. When I should have been giving Katie my full attention.
“Where is he going?” Katie turned to me and then padded across the living room to stand next to my chair, her hair a messy blond halo around her face and her pink pajamas making her look even younger than she was somehow. She looked worried. About Sly.
I sighed. “Honey, I don’t know where he’s going, but it doesn’t matter because that isn’t our business. He doesn’t even really live there, so we don’t need to worry about him.”
She frowned. “Where does he live?”
“In Wilcox. That’s where his team plays, remember?”
She grinned. “The Wombats.”
“Yes.” I was fighting the feeling of irritation that had come to the forefront every time I’d thought about Sly since seeing him at dinner the previous night. He had actually questioned my job choice, which really bugged me.
Maybe because I questioned it all the time too, ever since Zach had essentially brainwashed me by telling me over and over how inappropriate a job choice it was for a mother.
“Hey, Katie bear, you need to get dressed for school or we’re gonna be late.”
Katie’s bottom lip popped out and I hoped this wasn’t going to be one of those tantrum-before-school mornings. “And after school?” she asked, a hint of disapproval in her tone that suggested I’d better come up with the right answer.
“I’ll be picking you up. I’m working at home today.”
“Then I will work from home too.” She crossed her arms and bobbed her little chin at me.
