LITMIR.BIZ

      For the Smart Women of Romance Writers Ink, the best writers, support and friends ever. You guys rule!

       Chapter 1

      In a small town like Copper Lake, Georgia, there were benefits to having an office right on the square, Jamie Munroe thought as she gazed out the window behind her desk. These days, there were bigger benefits being on the corner just off the square. Namely, the mega-construction project going on across the street, turning a shabby, rundown apartment building back into the gracious pre-war gem it had once been.

      Okay, so the noise and traffic could be a hassle, but the workers…

      “I swear, the best-looking guys in the county are on this crew,” she murmured.

      A few feet away, Lys Paxton, paralegal, computer wiz and friend, uh-huhed with her feet propped on the credenza, her gaze locked on a pair of the smoothest, tannest, strongest, sexiest backs—and backsides—Jamie had ever seen. Both men wore jeans, faded, snug and caked with the usual residue of construction work, and both had stripped off their shirts in deference to the morning heat. They were unloading lumber from the bed of a pickup, and they were definitely ogle-worthy.

      Lys sighed, her hands clasped loosely around a cold can of diet pop. “Don’t you love it when the lumberyard can’t make deliveries on short notice?”

      “Hmm. Remind me to send the owner my thanks.”

      It was ten-thirty on Wednesday morning, and Jamie and Lys were officially on a coffee break. Up until a few weeks ago they’d actually locked up the office and walked over to the coffee shop on the square to spend ten bucks and fifteen minutes relaxing. Then the work had started on the mansion, and they’d begun taking their breaks in the office, chairs turned to the window, feet up, savoring.

      It was the only male-female relationship of any sort in Jamie’s life these days. Pathetic.

      “When was the last time you went on a date?” Lys asked.

      “I don’t remember.”

      “Me, either.” Another sigh. “I need one. Bad.”

      Jamie hadn’t needed a man in a long time, not since law school, and she didn’t intend to let it happen again. Oh, she wasn’t giving them up or anything. She could want and have. She could use and discard. She could have a perfectly normal relationship. She would just never let herself need a man.

      Men were dangerous to a woman’s health. Every woman she knew had gotten her heart broken, her faith shaken and her self-esteem smacked. A couple of them had lost all their money to the rat bastards, as well.

      Using, enjoying, not trusting, not needing. That was the way to go.

      “I call the guy on the right with the rip in his jeans beneath his truly impressive butt,” Lys said.

       “You’re welcome to him. I’ll take the one on the left. I like a man who saves his revealing clothes for just me.”

      “Okay, it’s time for them to turn around. The mystery faces revealed. Think we know either of them?”

      “If I do, I haven’t seen them like that before.” Not that she made a particular habit of looking at men’s butts.

      When the last board was in place, both men did turn, Lys’s first. He was as hot from the front as from the back, and unfamiliar to them both. Jamie’s pick was slower. He bent to retrieve a bottle of water from the cooler next to his booted feet before straightening, giving them an oblique view as he tipped his head back and drained half the water at once. Watching his fingers grip the bottle, his throat work to swallow, his muscles ripple from the relief of the cold water, Jamie suddenly felt as if her own temperature had redlined. She was groping for her pop on the desk and found it just as he turned to face the window head-on.

      The pop fell over, dripping off the desk to puddle on the mat. Lys choked, coughing until she sputtered, and Jamie turned to pure ice inside, too frozen to move or think.

      Russ Calloway, owner of Calloway Construction. Brother to her good friend, Robbie. Respondent in the first divorce case she’d handled after coming to town. Sworn enemy. Former lover.

      “Son of a bitch.” Lys grabbed a handful of tissues to blot the desk pad, then mop up the cola on the floor. Catching Jamie’s chair, she spun it around so her back was to the street. “There should be a warning.”

      Jamie managed a faint smile. “The signs on all those trucks over there do say Calloway Construction. So does the big fancy sign the bank put up at the corner.” This Calloway Construction Project Is Funded By Fidelity Mutual Of Copper Lake.

       “Yeah, but he’s the freakin’ boss. He’s not supposed to be over there.”

      He was a hands-on boss, by all accounts. Just because they hadn’t seen him before didn’t mean he wouldn’t show up. The crew had been working for only two weeks, doing basic demolition. She’d known he would be on site eventually. She’d been prepared for it. Eventually.

      “It’s not like I don’t ever see him around town,” she said, reassuring herself as much as Lys. “A woman can get lost pretty easily among twenty-thousand people, but there’s always that chance.”

      “Yeah, but you don’t drool over him if you catch a glimpse of him at the grocery store, do you?”

      “Of

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