LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t sure he could explain—even to himself—what it was about Georgia Reed that appealed to him. Or maybe he was afraid to admit that he’d fallen for the two little boys who had snuck over to look at the puppies even before he’d realized that his pretty blonde neighbor was their mother.

      Since the breakup of his marriage, he’d been cautious about getting involved again. Having his heart trampled by his ex-wife was bad enough, he wasn’t going to risk having it trampled by anyone else’s children.

      Not again.

      Or so he’d thought—until Quinn and Shane raced into his backyard.

      “I’m not looking for anything more than a chance to get to know my neighbor a little better,” Matt insisted.

      “So get to know her,” Luke agreed. “But don’t get involved with her. A relationship with someone who lives next door might seem convenient at first, but it can be a nightmare if things don’t work out.”

      “Almost as bad as falling into bed with a woman who was supposed to be a friend,” Jack said.

      The statement was made with such conviction Matt was sure there must be a story behind it. But since he didn’t want to discuss his personal life—or current lack thereof—he certainly wasn’t going to grill his brothers about their respective situations.

      “If you’re lonely, you should think about getting a pet,” Luke suggested.

      “Like a puppy?” Matt asked dryly.

      His brother grinned. “Man’s best friend.”

      “A dog is too much of a commitment.”

      “Less than a woman and her three kids,” Jack pointed out.

      Which was a valid consideration, so Matt only said, “Are we going to spend all day sitting around and talking like a bunch of old women or are we going to paint this damn deck?”

      “Since you put it that way,” Luke said. “I guess we’re going to paint the damn deck.”

       Chapter Two

      After Pippa was changed and fed and the boys had helped make little pizzas for their lunch—using up all of the cheese and pepperoni and emptying the last jug of milk—Georgia knew a trip to the grocery store was in order. Since it was a nice day and Quinn and Shane seemed to have energy to burn, she decided they would walk rather than take the minivan.

      The twins refused to ride in the double stroller anymore, insisting that they were too big to be pushed around like babies. Unfortunately, Georgia knew their determination and energy would last only so long as it took to reach their destination and not bring them home again, so she strapped Pippa into her carrier and dragged the wagon along beside her.

      As she started down the driveway, she caught another glimpse of her hunky neighbor and his equally hunky brothers, and her pulse tripped again. The automatic physiological response surprised her. Since Phillip had died, all she’d felt was grief and exhaustion, so the tingles that skated through her veins whenever she set eyes on Matt Garrett weren’t just unexpected but unwelcome.

      She did not want to be attracted to any man, much less one she might cross paths with any time she stepped outside. But while her brain was firm in its conviction, her body wasn’t nearly as certain.

      Matt caught her eye and lifted a hand in greeting. She waved back, then quickly averted her gaze and continued on her way. It was bad enough that she’d caught herself staring—she didn’t need her neighbor to be aware of it, too.

      Of course, he was probably accustomed to women gawking in his direction. A man like that would be.

      Not that she had a lot of experience with men like the Garrett brothers, but she knew their type. In high school, they would have been the most popular boys: the star athletes who had dated only the prettiest girls, the boys that other boys wanted to be and that all of the girls wanted to be with.

      But not Georgia. She’d been too smart to fall into the trap of thinking that those boys would even look twice in her direction. And they never had. Not until Aiden Grainger sat down beside her in senior English and asked if she’d help out with the yearbook. Even then, she’d been certain he was only interested in her ability to correctly place a comma, and no one was more surprised than she when he walked her home after school one day and kissed her.

      And with the first touch of his lips, she’d fallen for him, wholly and completely. They’d dated through the rest of senior year and talked about backpacking around Europe after graduation. Aiden wanted to see the world and Georgia wanted to do whatever he wanted to do so long as she got to be with him.

      This willingness to sacrifice her own hopes and dreams in favor of his terrified her. It reminded her of all the times her life had been upended because her mother decided that she had to follow her heart to another city or another state—usually in pursuit of another man.

      When Georgia was thirteen and starting her third new school in three years, she’d promised herself that she would never do the same thing. And now, barely five years later, she was preparing to throw away a scholarship to Wellesley College in order to follow some guy around Europe? No, she couldn’t do it.

      Aiden claimed that he was disappointed in her decision, but it turned out he wasn’t disappointed enough to change his plans. He’d said he wanted to travel with her, but in the end, he wanted Europe more than he wanted her. And maybe Georgia wanted Wellesley more than she wanted him, because she went off to college and didn’t look back.

      But it had taken her a long time to get over Aiden, and a lot longer than that before she’d been willing to open up her heart again. And when she finally did, she’d lucked out with Phillip Reed.

      Maybe theirs hadn’t been a grand passion, but for almost ten years, he’d made her feel loved and comfortable and secure. It was all she’d ever wanted or needed.

      So how was it that, after less than ten minutes, Matt Garrett had made her wonder if there might be something more? How was it that he’d stirred a passion inside of her that she’d never even known existed? And what was she supposed to do with these feelings?

      Unable to answer any of these unnerving questions, she pushed them aside and led the kids into the grocery store.

      When Matt decided to move, his real estate agent had repeated the same mantra: location, location, location. And Tina Stilwell had promised that this neighborhood scored top marks in that regard. There were parks, recreation facilities, a grocery store and schools in the immediate vicinity, with more shopping, restaurants and the hospital—where he worked as an orthopedic surgeon—just a short drive away. She hadn’t mentioned the beautiful blonde next door, and Matt wasn’t sure how that information might have factored into his equation.

      He hadn’t necessarily been looking for a house—and he certainly wasn’t looking for a new relationship. But he believed that real estate was a good investment and this house, in particular, had everything he wanted, not just with respect to location but amenities.

      Jack had, logically, questioned why a single man needed four bedrooms and three bathrooms, forcing Matt to acknowledge that it was more space than he needed. He didn’t admit—even to himself—that he had any residual hope of utilizing those extra bedrooms someday. Because he had a new life now—a new home and a new beginning, and he wasn’t going to waste another minute on regrets or recriminations about the past. From this point on, he was going to look to the future.

      But first, he had to cut the grass.

      As he pushed the lawn mower across his yard, he kept casting surreptitious glances toward his neighbor’s house, eager for any sign of Georgia Reed. He hadn’t seen much of her in the past few days, and he knew she wasn’t home now because the minivan was missing from her driveway, but that didn’t stop him from checking every few minutes.

      Thinking about what his brothers had said, he had

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