“That would be amazing.” Jenna sat forward, excited. “You wouldn’t mind? Believe me, the character wouldn’t be recognizable, even if anyone in Little Falls did read my books.”

“You think they don’t? Rina knows who you are.”

“She might be the only one in Vermont, then.”

“I doubt it. Cassandra Hart sounds a lot more famous than you like to let on.”

Jenna waved that away with a flick of her hand. “Never mind that. You’re sure I can come out with you?”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five.”

“Wait a minute, you can’t be working tomorrow.” Jenna brushed the bandage on Gard’s arm. “You need to recover.”

Gard laughed. “Sweetheart, I can’t stop working because I’ve got a little scratch.”

“I can’t believe that’s a little scratch. And you’ve very neatly distracted me so that you didn’t have to tell me what happened.” She stood up and pointed a finger at Gard. “I’m going to clean up and you are going to tell me what happened.”

“Oh yeah?” Gard grabbed Jenna’s hand with her uninjured arm and pulled Jenna onto her lap. She looped an arm around Jenna’s waist, holding her. “You sure?”

“Talk,” Jenna said. Being this close to Gard was dangerous, but she didn’t care. She laced both arms around Gard’s neck and leaned back so she could watch her face. “No touching.”

“It was a boar.” Gard stroked the outside of Jenna’s thigh below her shorts. Each gentle caress was a streak of fire. “I was doing some dental work and—”

“Wait a minute. A pig?”

“A very big pig,” Gard said with some heat.

Jenna almost smiled. “All right. A very big, mean pig, I gather.”

“All pigs are mean,” Gard said. “This one is especially nasty when he’s awake.”

“Wasn’t he?”

“He was supposed to be anesthetized,” Gard said. “He was getting a little light and some idiots were firing rounds in the woods out behind the farm. The unusual stimulation was enough to wake him up. I was almost done when he got me.”

Jenna cradled Gard’s injured arm in her lap, carefully stroking the white gauze wrapped around Gard’s forearm. “I’m sorry. Will it be all right?”

“Yes. It’ll be sore for a few days, and I’ll need to take it easy with the heavy work for another week or so. But it’ll be fine.”

Gard’s voice had dropped and the slow strokes on Jenna’s leg had become firmer, trailing over the top of her thigh and lightly down the inside, just above her knee.

“I need to get off your lap,” Jenna whispered.

“Why?” Gard nuzzled the side of Jenna’s neck.

“I’m going to forget you’re injured in another few seconds.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.” Gard slowly, deliberately, kissed her way up Jenna’s neck and tugged gently on the gold stud in her pierced earlobe.

Jenna arched, unable to stifle a faint whimper. The little pinpoint of pleasure streaked down the center of her body and struck her clitoris. She realized she was grinding her butt into Gard’s lap, an invitation she hadn’t meant to make and was afraid she couldn’t stop. With more strength than she thought she had, she pushed herself up and away from Gard.

“Sorry,” Jenna muttered. “Sorry.”

“My fault.” Gard didn’t want to let her go and barely restrained herself from yanking Jenna back into her arms. Her stomach was rigid, a hard hot plank of desire. She hadn’t meant to touch her in the first place, but watching her move around the kitchen, bantering with her a little, just being with her had been so damn easy. So damn good. “Sorry.”

“No, you didn’t do anything.” Jenna shook her head and backed up another step. “I can’t seem to think straight around you.”

“I don’t believe what we were doing had anything to do with thinking.”

“My point exactly.”

“The other night you wanted me to kiss you. You wanted me to do more than that,” Gard said.

“The other night you didn’t want me.”

Gard’s jaw clenched. “That’s where you’re wrong. I wanted you. I haven’t stopped thinking about wanting you.”

“Even when you were with your girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend.” Gard blew out a breath. “So you did hear the rumor. Look—”

“Never mind. God damn it. It’s none of my business and I know it.” Jenna turned to leave. “We’re not having this conversation. It’s completely unnecessary. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

Gard stood up. “That’s bullshit. You came over here for something else.”

“You don’t know me well enough to read my mind.”

“Can anyone?”

Jenna shook her head. “No.”

“What about Alice?”

“What about Alice?” Jenna asked.

“She knows you, doesn’t she? I got the feeling Alice didn’t think too much of me.”

“Alice is a good friend. She cares about me. That’s all.”

“You’re not lovers?”

Jenna paused. “No.”

“Do you want to be?”

“It would make sense.” Jenna glanced at Gard. “We’re compatible. We have the same passion—we work too much and we both get more satisfaction from work than anything else. It would be easy and comfortable.”

“Convenient.”

“Yes. Would that be so bad?”

“Probably not.” Gard lifted her shoulder. “If more relationships were like that, they might last.”

“What about you and the girl last night?”

“I just met her.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Her name is Madison. We bumped into each other at a bar. She’d been driving all night and was pretty played out. I took her home. That’s all.”

“Rescuing the damsel in distress.” Jenna nodded. “That seems to be your thing—taking care of people.”

“You’re reading that all wrong.” Gard wanted her to know the truth—that she wasn’t anyone to look up to. “One thing I’m not is a hero.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

“I don’t want you laboring under any misconceptions about me.” Gard saw a shadow flicker in Jenna’s eyes, saw Jenna swallow a question, and she knew. She couldn’t escape her past, even here. “What have you heard?”

“Nothing,” Jenna said.

“Jenna,” Gard said, shaking her head.

Jenna knelt in front of Gard’s chair and put both hands on her thighs. Her eyes were fiery. “Listen to me. Alice recognized your name and said there’d been some kind of trouble. She didn’t know the details.”

Gard snorted. “I find that very hard to believe. Alice doesn’t look like anything gets by her. She told you I’d been in trouble with the law, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I don’t care.”

“You would, sooner or later.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And you don’t know me.”

“I know you took care of me when I was hurt. You consoled me when I was sad. You make me laugh. You turn me on.”

“How long are you going to be here?”

“A few weeks,” Jenna said, but even as she did, she wondered if that was true. She had no obligations for the rest of the summer. She liked being at Birch Hill, and she liked being around Gard.

“Then we don’t really need to know anything more about each other, do we,” Gard said.

“Not really.”

“So why don’t we leave things at that.”

“That’s fine with me.” Jenna pushed upright. “I should go. Let you rest if you aren’t going to take time off.”

“One more thing.” Gard stood, caught Jenna by the shoulder, and kissed her. She slipped her tongue into Jenna’s mouth and Jenna’s arms came hard around her neck. Jenna was electric in her arms, pressing into her, molding to every curve and hollow of her body, hips circling demandingly. When she caressed the rise of Jenna’s hip and squeezed her small tight butt, Jenna moaned and sucked on her tongue. The sound of her pleasure, the bite of her teeth, was a shot to the gut. Gard gasped and murmured against her mouth, “You came here because you wanted to kiss me.”

“Cocky, aren’t you.” Jenna nipped at Gard’s lip, hard enough to make her wince. She tugged Gard’s shirt out of her pants and ran her nails over Gard’s stomach, just above the waistband of her pants.

Gard flinched, her breath coming fast. “And you like to tease, don’t you?”

Jenna’s mouth curved, luscious and ripe. “You have no idea.” She circled Gard’s navel with her fingertips, then pressed her palm hard against the tight muscles. “I want to make you work for your reward.”

Gard jerked Jenna closer and pushed her thigh between Jenna’s legs. Jenna’s small gasp of surprise made her clit twitch. “I want to make you beg for yours.”

“Never happen.”

“Oh yeah?” Gard scraped her teeth along the underside of Jenna’s jaw, then sucked lightly at the delicate skin in the hollow at the base of her throat.

“You’re slick but hardly irresistible.” Jenna shivered and knew from Gard’s satisfied chuckle her body had betrayed her. She couldn’t resist, didn’t even want to try. She threaded her fingers through Gard’s thick dark hair and forced Gard’s mouth harder against her throat. Gard sucked until her skin burned and she wanted Gard inside her right then, right there. She wanted it so much, she was about to fly apart into a thousand pieces. If she did, she’d never be able to glue the bits of herself back together again. She’d never be able to find the safe solid place where she controlled all her feelings.

“Oh God, wait,” Jenna whispered.

Gard stilled instantly, her open mouth pressed to the soft skin high between Jenna’s breasts. She trembled and Jenna stroked her hair.

“I’m sorry,” Jenna said. “You get me so excited. Just…just let me settle a minute.”

“Why?” Gard skated her good hand up Jenna’s side and cradled her breast. Jenna’s head fell back.

“Because I think you could make me come just from kissing me.”

“Maybe I want to.”

Jenna laughed shakily. “God, you’re arrogant.”

“If I had two good arms I’d pick you up right now, take you to bed, and shut you up.”