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I felt Anna staring at me again. Unable to control myself, I slid my gaze her way. That was a mistake. Those pretty brown eyes speared me, stirring that raw need always lurking just beneath the surface whenever I was near her.
Most of the time, I could keep my desire in check and well-hidden. But the examining gaze she wore right now, like she was trying to discover what I was hiding, delving deeper and getting closer, wrenched something loose behind my sternum.
When she finally looked back down at her plate, her mouth tipped up in a secret smile, the one that made me crazy to know what she was thinking. Instead of asking, I focused on eating dinner and not obsessing over all the ways I wanted Anna Marie Hebert.
Chapter Two
~ANNA~
“Congratulations! Best of luck to you.”
“Thank you so much.” I shook Mr. Viator’s hand and waltzed out of the title office, clutching my folder of ownership documents in one hand and keys in the other.
The tight ball of anxiety centered inside my chest squeezed just for a second before I turned left on Main Street and started walking. I glanced around, afraid Mom or Dad or one of my brothers would just happen to drive by right at that inopportune moment. But two and a half blocks later, I was standing in front of my new building, what would become my very own dance studio.
My dream.
I inserted the key in the lock and opened the door, stepping into the dusty former insurance office. It didn’t look any different than the last three times I came to look around. Half-walls were erected into cubicles in a large rectangular room. Toward the back, there were two offices and a bathroom.
Assessing once more, I imagined what it would look like with the cubicles knocked down and cleared out, the carpeting replaced with hardwoods, one wall covered in mirrors from end-to-end, a ballet bar on the right wall, and one of the offices in the back converted into a dressing/locker room.
That tight ball loosened and unspooled, allowing my lungs to fill with a breath of hope. Laughter bubbled up and then out, filling the high-ceilinged room, echoing in the empty space.
“I did it.”
Well, almost.
Mom and Dad said I needed a plan. And I had one. Time to put it into action.
After locking back up, I hurried back across the street to Belle Teche Plaza where I’d parked my car. The plaza was in the middle of town between Main Street and Bayou Teche that wound through Beauville.
By some miracle, I didn’t run into anyone I knew. I was pretty sure if someone had asked what I was doing at that moment, I wouldn’t be able to stop from spitting out,I just blew my life savings on an old insurance office.
While I didn’t have the money yet to convert the office into a dance studio, what I did have was a plan. The hard part was to gethimto agree to it.
Jumping into my Honda Civic, I drove toward Broken Arrow Highway and the small one-loop neighborhood that was one of the last before there was nothing but sugarcane fields. When I saw Reed’s work truck in the driveway with Hale Building Co. on the side, my stomach did a double flip.
Parking behind his work truck, I exhaled a deep breath and gathered my courage before stepping out of the car. The garage door was open. He wasn’t in there, but his motorcycle was, giving me afrissonof excitement, scattering goosebumps along my arms. Just the thought of him riding that bike made my knees weak.
Reed’s house was a small Acadian-style cottage with obvious renovations. Since he’d moved in, he’d painted the house moss green with white shutters and rustic wooden posts added to the front porch since he’d moved in.
I’d only ever been to Reed’s house in the company of Jonah, and that had been exactly three times. The first was the weekend he moved in here five years ago. Mom and I dropped off housewarming gifts, a set of kitchen towels with tiny blue crabs on the trim, a new set of rocks glasses, and a casserole. Two Thanksgivings ago, we picked up him and his Nana when his work truck was in the shop. And last Christmas Eve, I drove him home from our family’s party because he'd had too much of Dad’s Bourbon eggnog.
I still remember the way he’d looked at me before he got out of my car that last time. A little bleary-eyed with that sexy, tilted smile. He’d opened his mouth to say something, but then he’d quickly shut it and opened the car door with a quietMerry Christmas, Anna.
Now, here I was at his house…alone. The mere idea of being alone with Reed Robicheaux sent a blast of butterflies in all directions.
I went to the front door and knocked. A minute went by, and so I knocked again. Nothing. When I tried the door, it was locked.
I knew he had a workshop on the backside of the house. Maybe he was working out there. I walked around the back and had stepped onto the second steppingstone leading to his workshop when a deep voice stopped me.
“Anna?”
I spun on the step to find Reed sitting on his back porch with a rocks glass in his hand, scowling at me.
Of course. It was late afternoon, the orange glow of dusk settling on the backside of his house. I’d heard him tell Jonah often enough he liked to try his new drink concoctions for his afternoon cocktail when work was done. Jonah always teased him about his affinity for whiskey cocktails instead of just beer, but Reed never seemed to care what others said about him. He had thisknowingof himself that always inspired me. Comforted me.
“Hi!” I squeaked, then cleared my throat and walked closer to the back porch to stand at the bottom of the steps.
